Edu-leaders

Bharati Vidyapeeth runs more than 78 schools and 60 institutions of higher education, including those of professional education. It was established by Dr. Patangrao Kadam in 1964 in Pune. The recognition as ‘University’ was given in appreciation of their high academic excellence, rich infrastructural facilities and the potential for further growth.

In 2009, Bharati Vidyapeeth University adopted open source technology when it adopted the TechnoMail enterprise mailing solution to fulfill its communication needs. Bharati Vidyapeeth encompasses 2.5-lakh students and 8,000 employees and has used open source technology for smooth communication to improve productivity. TechnoMail, the enterprise mailing solution by TechnoInfotech built on an enterprise Linux platform, was deployed in 2009 to provide a single communication platform that went ahead of e-mail and catered to the organisation’s communication needs.

The university realised the need to streamline its de-centralised IT infrastructure and operations to sustain growth. The first step towards that was creating a centralised IT department to manage and standardise the IT infrastructure of close to 15,000 personal computers. The department was entrusted with the task of establishing a strong communication system that was scalable, accessible from any location, available 24x7, had a simple and comprehensive user interface and complete managed services. Thus, in 2009, the organisation adopted the open source TechnoMail solution.

However, winning over Bharati Vidyapeeth wasn’t easy for this open source enterprise mail solution vendor. Competing against Microsoft Exchange and IBM Lotus Notes, it was a severe battle for TechnoMail. “The robustness, scalability and cost-effectiveness of TechnoMail made us swing the open source way,” said Satyajit Hange, director of technology, Bharati Vidyapeeth.

“There was great synergy between TechnoMail and HP Integrity that ensured scalability, performance and investment protection,” says Sanjay Gurav, director, TechnoInfotech.

TechnoMail not only extended the open source advantages in terms of no user-based licensing, built-in spam control, virus filtering, a feature-rich collaborative user interface, but also offered an extremely flexible approach to building a centralised communication portal. It was a cost-effective email infrastructure solution with value-added features like the integrated content management system and the recent customised SMS management application on the same server that addressed their bulk SMS needs, especially SMS in Marathi. Adding to all that, the data centre put a back-up server to ensure real-time data and configuration back-up, safeguarding the set-up in case of any failure.

Although TechnoMail offered a viable, feasible solution for Bharti Vidyapeeth, the implementation process wasn't as smooth as expected. Acceptance by employees and solution maintenance were obstacles the institute foresaw and they took concrete steps to overcome these. “We had training sessions with the TechnoInfotech team at all our campuses before launching the Communication Portal. For most users who were already using their personal or college mail IDs through the public mail and college domain, the shift was a cakewalk. Now, we have a helpdesk managed by the Technology Department to cater to user related queries,” says Hange.

Looking ahead, Bharati Vidyapeeth hopes to use more of open source technology. “We have started evaluating open source solutions that will complement our growth plans,” says Hange. With Bharati Vidyapeeth opening its gates to open source technology, more and more educational institutions may follow suit.