McGill University in Montreal, Canada, continuously improves its IT infrastructure with new solutions. It recently deployed Windows Server® 2008 R2 to take advantage of enhancements in Active Directory® and features like DirectAccess. As a result, McGill expects to ease administration and simplify access to applications and data. It also has a better foundation for future projects.

To resolve critical data-center cooling issues and provide more efficient disaster recovery, the College of Family Physicians of Canada deployed Windows Server® 2008 R2 and tools such as Microsoft® System Center Data Protection Manager 2007. As a result, the college has reduced its server footprint and cut data-center energy costs by about 65 percent. It has also sped backups by 50 percent and increased IT reliability, efficiency, and agility.

Shree Chanakya Education Society (SCES), Pune, was established in 1994, with the explicit vision to provide sustainable impetus to the corporate and entrepreneurial abilities in the youth. But the existing e-mail service at SCES was not user friendly, and the administration wanted to provide a better solution to help students stay in touch with peers and communicate with faculty. They chose Microsoft® Live@edu, a set of Web-based communication and collaboration services. Students are excited about the new solution’s reliability. It provides them more storage space per e-mail account and access to online storage with Windows Live™ SkyDrive. Students are using Live@edu to get better organized, improve communications with their professors, and create online study groups so they are better prepared for class.

Located in the heart of India's premier educational centre, the city of Pune, Symbiosis Centre for Distance Learning (SCDL) is a centre of excellence, offering quality distance education. But the institute’s hosted e-mail service was not user friendly, and took too much time and money to manage. To reduce spending, it decided to replace its aging, in-house student e-mail solution with a hosted solution. SCDL chose Microsoft® Live@edu, a set of free Web-based communication and collaboration services. Students are excited about the new solution’s reliability, as well as the ability to organize their communications in one place. The solution offers online storage with Windows Live™ SkyDrive. Students are using Live@edu to get better organized, and improve communications with their faculty.

The school had three computer classrooms controlled by Novell Netware 6, Microsoft Windows 2003 Serwer and Linux servers. Maintenance of the classroom served by the Linux system required lots of time to effectively manage. Installation of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 simplified network infrastructure management. The classroom also gained a stable, effective and modern IT system. This allowed the staff to concentrate on teaching IT and not on the constant servicing of the configuration and searching for solutions to server infrastructure problems.

The University of Natural Sciences' IT structure lacked tools to centrally manage equipment and software. This influenced negatively the operation of the university's network. Administrators did not have control over software installed by instructors and students. The IT system was not immune to malicious operations of users and too much time was dedicated to the maintenance of the existing solution. The task of the new solution was to change this situation. The University of Natural Sciences used Windows Server 2008 RC1 before it officially went on sale.

The Academy for some time struggled with the service effectiveness of the IT structure in the Dean's office. Thanks to installation of Windows Server 2008 and usage of one of its key functions - Active Directory - the Medical Academy's network became not only easier to manage and inspect, but also increased data conversion security and minimized data loss. Daily work was made easier, and the network became modern and safe.

Taking its responsibility to students, faculty, and staff seriously, Sacred Heart University wanted a highly effective emergency response plan—one that could be updated at any time, with information always available to first responders and other authorized users. For this lifesaving function, the university built a Web site based on Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007. The result is more detailed, up-to-date plans and better interagency coordination.

When researchers at Rutgers wanted to explore massive computing scenarios with real-world significance for fields such as financial services and pharmaceuticals, they turned to Windows® HPC Server 2008. In one research project, the software proved at least 30 percent faster than Linux. The Windows HPC Server cluster was deployed in one day and works like the Windows operating system with which users and administrators are already familiar.

The High Performance Computing Center Stuttgart (HLRS) provides computing resources to internal and external research and industry partners. The institute uses diskless boot technology for all of its 700 compute nodes to implement a compute cluster with Windows® HPC Server 2008. HLRS has found that using diskless boot technology in combination with the latest cluster technology leads to significant savings, thanks to the high energy efficiency.