Background
Coventry University(external link) is a public research university in Coventry, England. They ranked 50th nationally in The Times and The Sunday Times University rankings in 2020 and 6th across the West Midlands. Plus, they rank highly across student surveys, teaching, student experience and graduate prospects, and maintaining their status as a high-performing institution.
Opportunity
Coventry University uses Moodle, a Learning Management System (LMS), as the core digital interface between educators and students. The LMS provides 24/7 access to:
- timetabling,
- learning forums,
- learning content (documented and video),
- multiple pathways to knowledge and experiences,
- and a route for coursework submissions.
Moodle enables students to continuously learn, collaborate, and connect with the university outside the classroom. However, they were experiencing multiple service outages a year. These incidents occurred around peak periods for coursework submission activity, impacting students during assignment deadlines. Plus, they wanted a more robust security process to protect themselves against DDoS attacks.(external link)
Solution
Coventry University engaged Catalyst IT Europe to improve the scalability, security, and availability of their platforms. We moved CU and their subsidiaries, instances of Moodle and Mahara to Amazon Web Services (AWS).
The university increased its security posture by implementing the AWS Advanced Shield, protecting its services against DDOS attacks. Combined with the move to AWS, users have experienced a faster, more secure, and more reliable system with no significant outages or disruptions since migrating to AWS.