Case Study: Stony Brook University achieves cost savings and scalable multi-site cloud hosting with Acquia

Stony Brook’s IT Department Cuts Costs, Grows Web Presence with Acquia

Stony Brook University (SUNY), serving roughly 25,000 students and a campus community of more than 47,000, faced a struggling IT web presence: SharePoint caused cross‑browser problems, poor navigation and search, and widespread duplicate and outdated content that left editors backlogged and users frustrated. The IT team needed a flexible, multi‑tenant CMS with strong community support and manageable costs.

They chose Drupal and migrated to Acquia Cloud (starting with Cloud Developer, then Professional and Enterprise), completing a four‑month transition focused on content cleanup and site consolidation. The result: immediate increases in pageviews, happier content editors (40+), no unplanned outages, and a scalable multi‑site hosting model now serving 20+ sites across seven installations—enabling Stony Brook to offer Drupal as a university service while reducing operational burden.

Stony Brook University

Rich von Rauchhaupt

Web Strategist and Architect, Stony Brook University