Case Study: University of Texas at San Antonio achieves reduced costs and streamlined virtual machine management with Office 365

University Reduces Costs and Eases Administration with Online Messaging Solution

The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), a Tier One research university serving about 29,000 students, relied on roughly 30 VMware hosts to run 550 mixed Linux and Windows virtual machines, requiring multiple management tools and incurring significant VMware licensing costs. IT leaders aimed to reduce expenses, simplify operations, and consolidate platform expertise while maintaining service for faculty, staff, and students.

UTSA piloted Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V and Microsoft System Center 2012 R2 (with help from Microsoft Services and partner Catapult Systems), migrated kiosk and Citrix workloads first, and planned a full migration of all 550 VMs within 18 months. The move enabled automated VM provisioning, unified monitoring and management (Operations Manager, Virtual Machine Manager, Configuration Manager, App‑V), and is expected to cut annual costs, increase IT staff efficiency, and deliver tighter platform integration.

University of Texas at San Antonio

Kyle Tuffentsamer

Analyst