Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Spain’s Top Public University Revamps E-mail for Students and Faculty with Sun Software and Servers

The Universidad Complutense de Madrid, established in 1293, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the top public university in Spain. The university has approximately 90,000 students and 10,000 faculty and other employees.

Customer Challenges

Provide secure e-mail access to 90,000 students
Upgrade e-mail platform serving teachers and research staff
Increase organizational agility
Reduce cost and complexity of IT infrastructure

Solution

The university deployed the Sun Java Enterprise System to provide e-mail, Web access and shared calendars for 90,000 students and to revamp its existing e-mail system serving faculty and researchers.

Business Results

Reduced TCO for messaging infrastructure
Improved scalability and flexibility
Enhanced access management and security

Products and Services

Story Details

The Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) traces its origins back to the thirteenth century, making the Spanish university one of the oldest on earth. Over the centuries, UCM has counted among its graduates some of the most famous names in the history of Spanish and global politics, business and culture. In addition to distinguishing itself with its broad scholastic program, UCM has also emerged as a European leader and innovator in applying technology to higher education.

One key technology initiative at UCM is providing students and faculty with secure access to a university-wide e-mail and calendaring system. Toward that goal, UCM engaged Sun Microsystems to provide technology and consulting services for two related projects. Working with Sun, UCM deployed “Estumail,” a new, integrated platform providing 90,000 students with university e-mail, Web-based e-mail, and shared calendars. In addition, UCM and Sun are also upgrading the "PDImail" e-mail platform, which serves approximately 5,000 teaching and research staff members.

" After assessing the possible solutions and suppliers, our institution chose Sun to carry out the project due to the robustness, scalability, and simple licensing of the Java Enterprise System platform. "

— Jacinto de Castro, Director Information Technology Services Division

UCM chose to base the new e-mail systems on the Sun Java Enterprise System (JES), a comprehensive set of subscription-based services that combines infrastructure software, support, and professional services in a single package, for a single price. The Sun JES offered UCM a complete set of Java Web infrastructure applications to meet their messaging needs. These include Sun OpenSSO Enterprise Sun Java System Communications Express, Sun Java System Directory Server, Sun Java System Messaging Server, Sun Java System Web Server, along with Sun Cluster software.

“After assessing the possible solutions and suppliers, our institution chose Sun to carry out the project due to the robustness, scalability and simple licensing of the JES software platform, as well as the software and hardware proposed,” says Jacinto de Castro, Director of the Information Technology Services Division, UCM.

For the “Estumail” system, the Sun JES software runs on Sun Fire V480, V240, V890 and T2000 servers. Sun implemented Solaris 10 with one zone.

The “PDImail” system runs on Sun Fire V440 and Sun Fire V240 servers. Sun implemented PDImail on Solaris 9. In the short term, the University is planning to upgrade to Solaris 10 and integrate both platforms. Sun is working in this proposal now.

Sun Professional Services supported the architectural design, implementation and installation of the e-mail systems, including a high availability architecture based on Sun Cluster software. Sun implemented one cluster for Estumail on two Sun Fire V890 servers.

Sun JES software on Sun servers provides UCM with a secure, agile platform that reduces both the complexity and long-range cost of the university’s IT infrastructure. “The Sun solution allows us to offer our students an essential communications capability,” says de Castro. “Sun has helped us improve our ability to manage the multiple, complex tasks that are part of IT in a major university setting.”