BT helps make it simpler and safer for Aston University

IT maintenance and support are of major importance to Aston University, with network or system failures potentially having a devastating effect. During August’s A level clearing period, for example, a failure could massively impact the University’s ability to assess and advise prospective students, with serious financial implications.

For Aston, BT was the ideal choice of partner, ticking all the required boxes and adding additional value. The team at BT wanted to go beyond simply fulfilling all of the requirements, aiming to reduce the University’s maintenance and support costs by 25% per year over three years.

As a partner with the highest levels of Cisco® accreditation, BT provides exceptional levels of understanding of the University network, as well as full support for any new Cisco® products deployed.

As part of its work with Aston, BT carried out an upgrade of the University’s Unified Communications platform. The solution was built, tested and deployed with minimal disruption and with 24x7, real time support from BT’s Technical Service Centre (TSC).

With the support of the TSC, Aston University’s IT team now feel secure in the knowledge they can provide a fast response to any problems they encounter. They particularly like BT’s smaller company approach in providing a consistent team to back them.

As a trusted partner, the TSC team are on hand to advise the University of the potential impact on the network of any new technology they’re looking to implement. When it comes to upgrade paths, they advise Aston University on how to ensure the best return on its investment. They also help to make sure new applications run optimally on the University’s network.

When word reached Aston’s IT team that the wireless network was running slowly when students downloaded large files, it took just onecall to the TSC to fix the problem within the hour. They made changes to parameters and settings, dramatically speeding up the performance of the network to everyone’s benefit.

Trevor Bayliss, Associate IT Director for Infrastructure, said: “It’s great to have that level of expertise at the end of the phone –helping you overcome any issue or stumbling block,no matter how big or small, provides a great feeling of reassurance.”