Case Study | Enhancing IT Infrastructure at Cape Fear Community College with Domotz

Cape Fear Community College is a world-class public community college offering various educational programs, including associate degrees, diplomas, and certificates. With multiple campuses serving thousands of students, CFCC is dedicated to providing accessible education and promoting lifelong learning. Based in North Carolina, the college has been educating students for more than 60 years on Health Sciences, STEM, Liberal Arts, Business & Information Technologies, and more.

The college prides itself on its state-of-the-art facilities and its commitment to fostering student success through innovative teaching methods and cutting-edge technology.

As a vocational college, many of their students work remotely and require access to campus resources. In addition, they were at risk of network downtime or performance issues that could disrupt academic activities and administrative functions. To summarize, the college's challenges were as follows:

• Complex Network Infrastructure: CFCC's IT department was tasked with managing a sprawling network infrastructure across various locations, including main campuses and satellite sites
• Lack of Real-Time Monitoring: The complexity of the network, coupled with the need for real-time monitoring and rapid issue resolution, posed significant challenges
• Risk of Disruption: Network downtime or performance issues could disrupt academic activities and administrative functions
• Necessity for Dependability: Highlighting the necessity for a dependable network management solution, CFCC needed a tool that could provide comprehensive visibility into their network and streamline issue detection and resolution

Domotz offered CFCC a robust network monitoring and management platform addressing their needs.

• Enabling Success in a Sandbox: The college supports remote and distance learning, requiring the CCT team to create and manage secure "sandboxes" for students and professors. Utilizing Domotz’s monitoring capabilities, the CCT team ensures that server farms and virtual machines remain operational, providing a reliable environment for educational activities
• Tracking Stats and Usage: The CCT team utilized Domotz’s Ubuntu Agent on their servers to monitor and manage virtual machines via Proxmox’s virtualization solution. Domotz provides insights into VM stats and generates alerts for any abnormal server behavior, enabling immediate action from the team
• Rapid and Remote Response: Given that students often have full-time jobs, education, and lab work often after standard working hours. In a situation where a someone is working on a virtual machine and the system goes into a troubled state, the CCT team leverages Domotz to remotely access the system to restart the server and fix issues quickly
• More than just Monitoring: The college faced challenges with managing a complex network across multiple campuses, risking disruptions to academic and administrative functions. Using Domotz, they achieved real-time monitoring, automated alerts, and remote troubleshooting, ensuring network reliability and rapid issue resolution