Virtual computing improves quality of education, enhances teacher productivity

Grupo Bom Jesus, a collection of Catholic schools and universities in southern Brazil, set out to create a completely virtual infrastructure to provide education services to both rural and urban students. Starting out with just two schools, Grupo Bom Jesus has grown to include more than 52 schools and universities, extending high-quality education to more Brazilians, allowing them to play a larger part in the world economy.

Many of the schools merged with Grupo Bom Jesus were struggling financially with little or no IT resources. By implementing a centralized, virtual computing model, Grupo Bom Jesus was able to provision application, infrastructure and server capabilities as needed, for a more predictable and consistent IT services delivery model. Students can attend virtual classes and labs using any device, on campus or from their homes.

Grupo Bom Jesus realized savings from its virtual computing environment in reduced travel and support costs, bandwidth utilization and telecom costs by using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), videoconferencing solutions and collaborative tools. The Group is now working on plans to further leverage its end-to-end virtual infrastructure by providing cloud computing services to neighboring community schools. Grupo Bom Jesus now has the flexibility to improve the delivery of education resources to its students, control costs and increase the productivity of its faculty and staff.