IBM today announced that Kogakuin University, a school in Tokyo, has signed an eight-year agreement to transform its back-office infrastructure through cloud computing services or "shared hosting" from IBM Global Technology Services.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090416/IBMLOGO)

Universities, like retailers, accountants and other commercial organizations, experience spikes in information technology (IT) consumption during specific annual occurrences, like graduation and enrollment periods. Kogakuin University will leverage cloud computing to create a dynamic infrastructure that acts more like the Internet, able to access vast pools of technology resources during periods of high volume.

The new system will utilize IBM's Shared Hosting Services for IBM System z mainframes or "zSHS" and will be hosted out of IBM's data center in Makuhari, Chiba, Japan. The zSHS model will provide flexible IT assets and resources according to system demands and needs, and will support the university's accounting, administration and academic data management operations for critical tasks. The shared, virtual infrastructure on System z gives the university enterprise-class qualities of service, at an optimal cost. IBM will also manage the universities data from its data center in Makuhari, which has a sophisticated seismic isolated structure and fully redundant electrical system for increased resiliency and security.

System z has a long history of providing shared workloads in a single server with rapid automation of server provisioning and de-provisioning, making it an ideal candidate to deliver virtual assets to a multitude of tenants.

Marking its 125th anniversary, Kogakuin University currently has 6,500 students and advocates adopting technology as a core strategy. IBM Japan will support the realization of the university's vision by aggressively developing an advanced information technology infrastructure.

The agreement was signed in the first quarter of 2009, and IBM Japan will begin providing the service from a cloud computing environment in September 2009.

  About IBM
  For more information, visit www.ibm.com/services.

  Media Contacts:
  Masako Shimooka
  IBM Japan Communications
  03-5563-4284
  masakos@jp.ibm.com

  Jenna Gable
  IBM Media Relations
  917-472-3512
  gablej@us.ibm.com

First Call Analyst:
FCMN Contact: gablej@us.ibm.com

Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090416/IBMLOGO
AP Archive: http://photoarchive.ap.org/
PRN Photo Desk, photodesk@prnewswire.com

SOURCE: IBM