WARSAW, Poland, Aug. 7, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) and the Wroclaw University of Technology (WRUT) today announced the that it will deploy a common and open platform for students, professors, industry partners and local government on IBM's Cloud platform. The engagement will help Wroclaw University of Technology to facilitate access to various educational resources on demand, and to deliver smart and personalized classrooms to its students.

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Over a 100-year history, Wroclaw University of Technology has earned a reputation as one of the top technical universities in Poland with over 35 000 students studying under the guidance of
2 000 teachers. WRUT recently launched the "Lower Silesia's Educational Cloud" project to digitize its educational materials so that it can quickly reach students throughout the entire Lower Silesia region easier and more efficiently. As part of the program, WRUT will introduce new classes and teaching methods at three of its main IT related faculties: Faculty of Electronics, Fundamental Problems of Technology, and Computer Science and Management.

As a part of its transformation to become a regional cloud services center, WRUT will leverage an IBM Cloud solution to host its IT environment using an Infrastructure as a Service model.

In the first phase of the project, IBM's platform will be used to deliver five new courses in cloud computing, enterprise IT, green computing, business process management and cyber security; giving the students access to unprecedented hands-on experience with Cloud technology. Students and teachers will conduct advanced research focusing on Cloud, by creating a variety of different cloud environments including a virtual computing lab. By leveraging a cloud deployment, rather than on-premise IT infrastructure, students will be able to work together easier and more efficiently. WRUT students will also have better access to case studies, technology-based white papers and other teaching materials through the IBM Academic initiative portal.

The cooperation between WRUT and IBM will improve availability of cloud-related courses, making them a more substantial part of the university's academic offer. Teaching staff will also be able to improve lesson plans by having more time to, for example, work on algorithms.

"Cloud computing can help educational institutions like Wroclaw University of Technology transform by allowing us to combine our unique scientific resources with great business opportunities to build our own cloud environments," said Chancellor, Jacek Oko from Wroclaw University of Technology. "With global best practices from IBM, we will be able to provide high speed services on the largest scale, and we will use this solution to increase our student enrollment and retention by reaching even more students throughout the entire Region."

The IBM Cloud solution combines infrastructure, application, storage and network automation into a single open and extensible platform. Built on open standards and leveraging OpenStack technology, the solution makes it easy to move workloads between on-premise and cloud environments, thereby helping the university to promote collaboration between different units, use equipment for different classes easier and reduce costs of maintaining computer labs.

"Cloud computing technologies have become increasingly critical enabling access, flexibility and speed of services that can significantly help to transform entire regions into catalysts for new innovation," explained Ales Bartunek, Country General Manager IBM Poland and Baltics. "Wroclaw University of Technology is a longtime IBM Partner and has already proven in the past to be a thought leader in implementing cloud computing agenda in curricula. We are confident we can deliver competitive differentiation and high growth potential for the university and its peers."

The system was implemented at the Wroclaw University of Technology by NewWind, an IBM Business Partner.

About IBM Cloud Computing
Today, IBM has 100+ cloud SaaS solutions, thousands of experts with deep industry knowledge helping clients transform and a network of 40 data centers worldwide. Since 2007, IBM has invested more than $7 billion in 17 acquisitions to accelerate its cloud initiatives and build a high value cloud portfolio. IBM holds 1,560 cloud patents focused on driving innovation. In fact, IBM for the 21st consecutive year topped the annual list of US patent leaders. IBM processes more than 5.5M client transactions daily through IBM's public cloud. For more information about cloud offerings from IBM, visit http://www.ibm.com/cloud. Follow us on Twitter at @IBMcloud and on our blog at http://www.thoughtsoncloud.com . Join the conversation #ibmcloud.

Media Contact:
Nicholas Smith
IBM Communications
212-671-9653
Email: nssmith@us.ibm.com

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SOURCE IBM

SOURCE: IBM