Founded in 1792 to promote the development of the Jalisco region, UdeG has a rich history of conducting leading research and preparing students for productive civic lives. With 340,000 students enrolled across 20 university campuses, 177 partner high schools and a virtual university, UdeG is the second largest public educational institution in Mexico.
At-a-Glance
The University of Guadalajara (UdeG) modernized LEO, its student portal and app, with SUSE Rancher Prime, SUSE Observability and SUSE Security to accelerate delivery and simplify operations. With this foundation, UdeG doubled container provisioning speed, cut incidents and downtime by 80%, lowered hardware resource usage by 40%, consolidated observability from seven consoles to one, reduced data center management costs by 65% and reduced energy consumption by 58%.
Launching a university portal and application
For more than two centuries, the University of Guadalajara has led research and education in Mexico. Over this time, it has continually evolved, with a recent focus on modernization and digitalization. To keep the university running smoothly, UdeG relies on a wide range of IT systems that support online semester planning for students, learning management systems for faculty and HR and finance systems for administrative staff. The IT team ensures this complex environment stays integrated, available and secure.
The university recently launched a portal and application for student procedures called LEO, where students can access their IDs, check GPAs, sign up for classes, pay for meals and more. The IT infrastructure initially supporting LEO was configured as a private cloud with VMware virtualization, but the IT team recognized that a containerized environment would be better to streamline development and ensure high availability for end users.
Already a VMware customer for several years, UdeG selected VMware Tanzu as its container management platform.
“We had a three-month deadline for launching LEO,” begins Arturo Ortega Vázquez, Head of Infrastructure and Telecommunications at UdeG. “However, VMware Tanzu did not perform as expected, and we felt it would prevent us from completing our project.”
“After a year with VMware Tanzu, we simply could not make it work,” adds Germán Adrián Ramírez Arias, General Coordinator of Administration Technologies at UdeG. “To make it easier for students to navigate their learning life with better digital services, we knew that we would need to find another solution.”
“When using Tanzu, we were constantly at full capacity across all of our hardware resources. With SUSE Rancher Prime, we are now at around 60% capacity, giving us space for growth without adding to our costs.”
Arturo Ortega Vázquez
Head of Infrastructure and Telecommunications
University of Guadalajara
Why SUSE solutions?
Exploring other container management platforms to support the imminent launch of LEO, the team discovered the open source project, Rancher. Shortly thereafter, UdeG deployed a Rancher cluster in one day, running alongside its existing Tanzu cluster, to enable the timely launch of the LEO platform. Yet, as the IT team worked on improving and expanding LEO, it found that maintaining the two clusters together was unsustainable.
Encouraged by the success of deploying community Rancher, but also wanting the assurance of enterprise support, UdeG chose to transition its containerized environment to SUSE Rancher Prime. Because SUSE Rancher Prime uses the same Rancher technology as the open source project, UdeG avoided replatforming its systems, making for a straightforward transition.
“When the contract with VMware came to its end, we didn’t even have to consider other options,” recalls Ortega. “The whole team unanimously agreed that SUSE Rancher Prime was exactly what we were looking for, adding enterprise-class support to our tried-and-trusted Rancher technology. SUSE Rancher Prime has proven to be self-sustainable and adaptable, and we liked that it aligned with the expertise of the people on our team.”
UdeG also selected SUSE Security and SUSE Observability to help protect sensitive student information and ensure the smooth operation of the LEO platform. Working with NEXTA Technology Services, UdeG deployed the SUSE solutions in the university’s Dell hardware-based private cloud environment.
“SUSE Rancher Prime’s industry-leading, intuitive user interface made the deployment process very smooth,” adds Juan Alberto Paredes Loa, Director for NEXTA Technology Services.
Why SUSE Support?
For UdeG, the reassurance of a responsive support team was a key factor in choosing SUSE enterprise solutions. It also gave the team the confidence to retire Tanzu and standardize on one stack, reducing operational complexity.
“We have the internal skills to run LEO on community Rancher,” explains Ortega. “But because this is a mission-critical, flagship application, we needed enterprise support in the unlikely event that anything happened. We think of it like car or life insurance — you have it and hope you never have to use it. Knowing we have that reassurance with SUSE Support is why we chose SUSE Rancher Prime.”
The impact of SUSE solutions
Cuts downtime by 80%
With SUSE Rancher Prime underpinning the development and management of the LEO platform, UdeG has maintained high availability for this mission-critical service, which is accessed by over 300,000 students annually. In fact, the IT team has recorded an 80% reduction in incidents related to hardware failures and downtime.
“As a public institution, we have limited financial resources for buying new hardware to improve performance,” says Ramírez. “Helping our students access information when they need it is very important to us. SUSE Rancher Prime is an indispensable tool that helps us keep the LEO platform stable and available even during peak times.”
Ramírez adds: “Although our students do not see the infrastructure in the background, they certainly appreciate the attractive, easy-to-use tool that is now available to them 24/7 because of SUSE Rancher Prime.”
40% lower resource usage, 65% lower costs, 66.7% higher satisfaction
After implementing SUSE Rancher Prime, UdeG reduced its hardware capacity utilization by 40%, supporting a 58% reduction in energy consumption and a 65% reduction in annual data center operating costs. The improved resource utilization has also boosted application performance, with an internal survey conducted by the university showing a 66.7% increase in user satisfaction rate.
“When using Tanzu, we were constantly at full capacity across all of our hardware resources,” says Ortega. “With SUSE Rancher Prime, we are now at around 60% capacity, giving us space for growth without adding to our costs.”
Doubles container provisioning speed
SUSE Rancher Prime’s user-friendly interface has helped UdeG streamline container management. In particular, the IT team can now provision new containers in half the amount of time as before, freeing more time to focus on higher-value tasks.
“The difference between Tanzu and SUSE Rancher Prime is huge,” confirms Ortega. “Deploying a new container is twice as fast now.”
Cuts observability complexity seven to one
Previously, UdeG relied on seven different observability consoles to maintain its VMware Tanzu cluster. With SUSE Observability, the university uses a single pane of glass to monitor the entire containerized environment.
“SUSE Observability makes our work much easier,” comments Ortega. “The simplicity and robustness of the solution is unparalleled.”
Supports robust data security
With SUSE Security helping to protect sensitive data such as student IDs and payment details in the LEO platform, UdeG can be confident that it meets regulatory requirements while maintaining an agile development approach.
“Data is the most important thing to us,” says Ortega. “Ensuring that data security is maintained with SUSE Security will help us grow LEO without adding a significant amount of overhead to stay compliant.”
The impact of SUSE Support
With SUSE experts available around the clock, UdeG can easily access guidance and resolve any questions as it continues on its IT modernization journey.
“SUSE Support has been very responsive and flexible,” says Ortega. “Even though we’re in Mexico and our SUSE contact is in Brazil, he has always been available for questions at any time of the day. Our experience with SUSE Support has given us a lot of reassurance and certainty.“
What’s next for the University of Guadalajara?
Today, UdeG is working to develop LEO further, with the hope of soon releasing a faculty edition of the application. By creating a united student and faculty system on SUSE Rancher Prime, the university will modernize its IT infrastructure and streamline the development of innovative digital services.
At the same time, the university is conducting a proof-of-concept exercise for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and SUSE Virtualization.
“We see huge potential in SUSE solutions, and look forward to building a long-term relationship with SUSE as our container platform evolves,” concludes Ramírez.