Continued partnership with Penn State IT further benefiting DuBois IST students

DuBOIS, Pa. — The Information Sciences and Technology (IST) program at Penn State DuBois has received additional equipment as part of its ongoing partnership with Penn State Information Technology (IT) leadership and IT Infrastructure. This latest contribution includes 15 enterprise-class virtualization servers, significantly enhancing the program’s computing capabilities and expanding hands-on learning opportunities for students.

“We are very fortunate at the DuBois campus to have this opportunity to work with the Department of IT Infrastructure,” said Brian Tokarcik, IST technician at Penn State DuBois. “Scott Fura and his team have been a pleasure to work with. These servers make a huge leap forward in performance and scalability for our labs and teaching environment.”

The new servers, which will replace aging infrastructure, provide a significant upgrade in computing power. According to Tokarcik, they are at least five times faster in computing performance, offer up to 42 times the memory capacity, provide roughly 10 times the storage capacity, and deliver more than 50 times faster storage performance than the servers currently in use.

“These servers are going to greatly increase the capacity for our students to experience different kinds of hypervisors,” Tokarcik added. “Currently, we train our students using Microsoft’s Hyper-V hypervisor. With this new equipment, we can integrate additional hypervisors such as Proxmox and XCP-NG, as well as introduce different forms of Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI), which was previously not possible.”

This donation builds upon a previous contribution of Juniper EX3400 network switches, which have already transformed the IST lab network. The enhanced network infrastructure has improved connection speeds by up to 40 times, significantly boosting performance. Students have also gained hands-on experience installing and managing these high-performance switches, with additional training opportunities scheduled for the spring semester.

In July, members of Penn State's senior IT leadership team, including Mark Campbell, associate vice president for IT infrastructure, and IT infrastructure managers Tom Long and Scott Fura visited the DuBois campus to explore opportunities for resource sharing. The discussion focused on the equipment needs of the IST program, particularly the value of providing students with access to a variety of networking technologies.

“Our collaboration with the IT Infrastructure team has transformed our IST labs,” said Tokarcik. “These upgrades will empower our students to work with much more demanding workloads and provide them with a more reliable and high-performance infrastructure experience. We are excited to continue working and collaborating with Scott and his team.”

Jason Long, assistant teaching professor and IST program leader at Penn State DuBois, emphasized the impact of these upgrades on student learning and future career preparation.

“We are incredibly fortunate and excited to receive these new servers, which will significantly enhance our IT degree program,” said Long. “The equipment we previously used served its purpose, but it lacked the capacity and performance we desired for our students’ hands-on lab experiences. Now, students will have the opportunity to run more processes and store more information on these servers.”

Long also highlighted the importance of remote learning capabilities that the new infrastructure will enable.

“With the growing trend of remote working environments, students will have the capability to operate and run these servers remotely,” he said. “Additionally, we are planning to set up a lab environment where our students can gain practical experience in operating and supporting a data center, both on-site and remotely. This type of educational experience will be invaluable for our IT students as they prepare for future employment opportunities.”

The combined value of the servers and network switches that were previously received has an estimated value of over $1 million if the campus were to purchase similar new equipment today.

"We're excited to continue our partnership with Penn State DuBois,” Campbell said. “The equipment, while beyond useful life for running our IT infrastructure, is still very capable of providing a platform for teaching and learning, so it makes a lot of sense to reuse it for that purpose. We are looking forward to seeing how the group utilizes this equipment, and for the possibility of extending internship opportunities to students who have had a chance to learn on the same equipment we use every day."

“This extraordinary equipment gift will be transformational for our IST program,” said Jungwoo Ryoo, chancellor and chief academic officer at Penn State DuBois. “It will enable us to provide our students with unprecedented and unique access to the most cutting-edge equipment and technology, ensuring they receive a world-class education and are prepared for success in their future careers. We are immensely grateful for this generous support, which will have a lasting impact on our campus in general and the IST program in particular.”

To learn more about the IST programs at Penn State DuBois, visit the program’s academic website.