University of Venda attains 99% service uptime and enables a smarter campus with Microsoft Azure

The University of Venda (Univen) is a public higher education institution established in 1982 in South Africa. With around 15,000 students, it continues to evolve its academic offerings to meet regional and international needs. In 2021, the university launched a strategy focused on producing graduates who are locally relevant and globally competitive. “Our task as the university’s Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) department is to support the strategy of the university through modern technologies and services,” says Sam Khoza, Chief Information Officer at the University of Venda. 

Challenges with the legacy infrastructure

To align with Univen’s strategy, the ICT team had to re-evaluate its entire infrastructure. Until recently, all its digital services and systems relied on decentralized, on-premises servers, scattered across the campus. Without a unified view of the environment, there was no efficient way to manage performance, mitigate risk, or scale effectively.

A major challenge of the previous setup was the service interruptions caused by hardware failure, since the university was using aging hardware that couldn’t keep up. “It could take about half a year to procure and implement new hardware. By the time we installed the equipment, we were already six months behind and had to start the procurement process all over again,” adds Khoza.

The university also had storage limitation issues, which it had to go through the same lengthy procurement process to expand. Due to this, it had to delay the start of any new services that required more storage capacity.

The legacy infrastructure couldn't keep up with Univen’s growing needs, ultimately impacting the user experience. “We wanted a robust system that would be constantly reliable and easy to use,” shares Phumlani Ngobese, Senior Server Engineer for ICT Infrastructure at the University of Venda.

Moving from scattered to consolidated

Univen’s journey to modernization began by building on what the ICT team already knew worked. “We had moved student emails to Exchange Online in 2008, and that part of our infrastructure in the cloud was already stable,” recalls Eddy Baloyi, Head of IT Infrastructure at the University of Venda. That experience gave the team the confidence to expand its cloud footprint. “Our experience showed that Microsoft infrastructure was resilient and could give us accessibility anytime, anywhere,” adds Baloyi.

Starting with Microsoft 365 A5 in 2014, the ICT team soon started to use cloud storage as its backup for some on-premises data. As the team built a better foundation for broader cloud adoption, it looked towards a strategy to consolidate all its systems into a unified view, marking the beginning of its transition to Microsoft Azure. 

Shifting systems, stabilizing services

With the support of Microsoft Unified Support, Univen began its transformation by consolidating its fragmented systems into a single, cloud-based architecture on Microsoft Azure. Some of the core platforms migrated included the electronic document and records management system that held both student and staff data, the university’s commercial arm like its human resources and finance environments, and Moodle, the learning management system. The support of Microsoft Unified didn’t just provide reactive assistance—it offered proactive, expert-led engagement that enabled the university to scale with confidence. 

With 18 systems now hosted on Azure, Univen is empowered with the foundation to scale further and even uncover new possibilities, such as the integration of facial recognition into its core system. “This is important since we rely on facial recognition to ensure students are accessing the residences they’re allocated to, and that they are actually attending their classes when registering their attendance,” Khoza says. 

Increasing scalability and security

Since moving to the cloud, Univen’s ICT team hasn’t received a single report of system inaccessibility—even during peak demand periods like exam result releases, which previously strained performance. “With Azure, we’ve reached 99% availability,” says Khoza. "Our automations run smoothly, saving administrative staff time and cutting down on daily troubleshooting.” Having built-in failover protocols also ensures the university can manage high-traffic periods with ease. This stability has freed the team to focus on long-standing operational challenges. 

This shift also provided a solution to the six-month procurement cycle. “What used to require half a year to provision can now be easily completed on Azure within a matter of hours,” notes Vusani Nengovhela, Server Engineer at the University of Venda.

Security has seen a major upgrade as well. With Azure, Univen was able to deploy advanced security technologies that would have been out of reach on-premises. These include Microsoft Sentinel for threat monitoring, Microsoft Defender for endpoints and identity protection, Microsoft Purview for governance and compliance, and Security Copilot for AI-powered threat analysis. “As a pioneer university in Africa to implement Microsoft Security Copilot, we are leading the way in AI-powered security. It’s given us faster threat detection, smarter responses, and greater confidence in protecting our digital environment,” says Khoza.

Building capabilities through partnership

Along with its digital transformation, Univen also strengthened internal expertise. “Microsoft's engineers are among the best in the world,” shares Khoza. "By working with Microsoft Unified Support, our team has gained the skills to handle complex technical tasks independently. This will further drive our vision for an innovative future.”

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