Case Study: GEMS Education

Our Customer Profile

Gems Education, established in 1959, stands as a global education leader with a vast network of schools and services, particularly prominent in the UAE. Renowned for its commitment to quality education, Gems offers diverse curricula, fostering innovation in teaching and learning. 

The organization actively engages in community initiatives, extending its impact beyond traditional classrooms. With a history of collaboration and partnerships, Gems Education prioritizes a holistic approach to education, aiming to provide students with a comprehensive and globally relevant learning experience across its extensive worldwide presence.

Application Scenario

In this initial phase, Gems Education aims to address immediate challenges by migrating its current workload, currently hosted on-premise, to the AWS cloud. The primary focus is on seamlessly transferring existing Microsoft Technologies, including the Active Directory (AD) Domain Controller, MS SQL Servers, and Microsoft ADFS. The migration approach adopted is “As-Is” or “Lift & Shift,” ensuring a swift and straightforward transition to the AWS environment.

Looking beyond the immediate migration, Gems Education envisions a long-term strategy to modernize its infrastructure on the AWS Cloud. This phase involves leveraging the full capabilities of AWS services to enhance efficiency, scalability, and overall performance. The objective is to optimize and innovate, aligning Gems Education’s IT infrastructure with the dynamic and evolving landscape of cloud technology. This transformation will position the organization for increased flexibility, agility, and competitiveness in the ever-changing digital landscape.

Business Challenges

  • Gems Education was unable to gather high-quality insights.
  • Data was growing at a much faster pace thereby adding to management challenges.
  • Handling sensitive student and faculty data, and maintaining compliance with data protection regulations.
  • The scalability of on-premises infrastructure could not meet the needs of growing data.
  • The on-premises solution was too costly and lacked needed performance.

Solutions Architecture

gems-solution-architecture

Microsoft Workload Services Used

  1. AD Domain Controller
  2. MS SQL Servers
  3. Microsoft ADFS

AWS Services Used

aws-services

Customer Benefits

  • The use of AWS Auto Scaling and Application Load Balancer allows the architecture to automatically scale resources based on demand.
  • Multi-AZ Deployment enhances fault tolerance and ensures high availability.
  • AWS offers different pricing models based on consumption, thereby optimizing costs and avoiding upfront infrastructure investments.
  • Resources automatically scale up or down based on demand, optimizing costs
  • Increased Data Security and Compliance
  • Utilizing managed services like Amazon RDS, and Elasticache, reduces the operational burden
  • Increased Flexibility and Agility
  • Performance Optimization
  • Data Processing Efficiency
  • Monitoring and Troubleshooting

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