Reimagining university libraries with AWS: University of Maryland's six-month cloud migration | Amazon Web Services
Higher education institutions are modernizing critical systems to better support students, faculty, and researchers. This customer story blog details how the University of Maryland completed a six-month cloud migration to reimagine its library services using AWS. Read the blog to see how a structured, time-bound migration supported modernization goals, then reach out to Service Desk Group LLC to explore how similar approaches could apply to your organization.
Why did the University of Maryland Libraries migrate to AWS?
The University of Maryland Libraries faced challenges such as deteriorating hardware, rising licensing costs, and staffing constraints that threatened their operations. With a small IT team managing an aging on-premises infrastructure, the decision to migrate to AWS was strategic, allowing them to retire their data center and enhance operational efficiency while reducing costs.
How long did the migration process take?
The migration process took under six months, during which the libraries moved 58 virtual machines, including 25 RHEL Windows and 33 worker nodes across two Kubernetes clusters, along with 95 TB of storage. They transitioned their Kubernetes environment to Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) to optimize their operations.
What benefits did the libraries experience post-migration?
Post-migration, the libraries experienced enhanced security controls, improved application performance, and better cost transparency. The transition allowed them to close previously open administrative access points, conduct comprehensive access reviews, and benefit from new AWS services that addressed operational challenges, ultimately freeing up staff to focus on innovation rather than hardware maintenance.

Reimagining university libraries with AWS: University of Maryland's six-month cloud migration | Amazon Web Services
published by Service Desk Group LLC
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