AWS Public Sector Blog
Reimagining university libraries with AWS: University of Maryland’s six-month cloud migration
The University of Maryland Libraries serves 41,000 students across six physical libraries on its College Park campus. Like many academic institutions, the libraries relied on aging on-premises infrastructure to support their digital services and operations. When the libraries’ IT team faced deteriorating hardware, rising licensing costs, and personnel constraints that threatened operations, they made a strategic decision: retire their data center entirely and transform their infrastructure with Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Working with AWS and Trianz, an AWS partner, the team completed their data center cloud migration in under six months, moving 58 virtual machines (VMs), including 25 RHEL/Windows and 33 worker nodes across two Kubernetes clusters, and 95 TB of storage, while migrating their Kubernetes environment to Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS). The project reduced infrastructure costs, enhanced reliability, security, and operational efficiency, and allowed the team to completely shut down their on-campus data center operations. The University of Maryland Libraries’ journey not only highlights the impact of cloud modernization, but also offers practical guidance for other academic institutions facing similar infrastructure and staffing challenges.
Hardware failures and staffing challenges drive modernization
The University of Maryland Libraries team operated their own VMware data center, but multiple factors created an urgent need for change. The 180-person organization relied on a small IT team to manage infrastructure for the large university system, with aging hardware and no allocated replacement budget.
Annual IT spending went entirely toward support and software licenses rather than innovation. The situation became critical when both system administrators who maintained the data center departed simultaneously, eliminating essential hardware expertise during an already challenging period. “Our two system administrators left at the same time. That was decision time,” said Ben Wallberg, senior manager of software systems development and research. “Without them, it was clear we couldn’t continue running the data center ourselves.”
Additionally, the libraries’ team saw that—by avoiding their pending VMware renewal—they had the opportunity to save costs and get out of a multi-year commitment. “Fortunately, AWS came through with a program to help us get off VMware, and we jumped on it,” Wallberg added.
Fortuitously, these challenges aligned perfectly with the libraries’ 2023-2026 strategic plan to eliminate their physical data center and optimize where applications were deployed. “Instead of rehiring system administrators to manage hardware, we purposefully shifted to DevOps engineers focused on AWS deployments,” said David Dahl, associate dean of libraries for digital services and technologies. “That was a strategic choice to align with where we wanted to go.”
Campus infrastructure makes AWS the natural choice
When evaluating cloud providers, AWS stood out due to the extensive existing university infrastructure and robust campus IT support. This established foundation meant the libraries could leverage existing relationships and expertise rather than building new support structures from scratch.
The cloud transition would fundamentally shift the team’s focus from hardware maintenance to DevOps methodologies, capitalizing on their stronger software expertise. This approach supported their strategy of hiring DevOps engineers with AWS experience instead of traditional system administrators.
AWS also facilitated smooth coordination by connecting the libraries with key university IT stakeholders for technical requirements like account setup and networking. These relationships proved invaluable when securing necessary approvals and navigating the complex university environment.
Six-month deadline creates focused execution approach
With VMware licensing expiring in June and support contracts ending in May, the team faced a firm six-month window for the transition, starting in December. “It really was a six-month timeline—we needed everything done before the VMware license expired in June,” Dahl recalled.
“Our plan was to perform a lift-and-shift—just get the systems moved with minimal interruption,” said Wallberg. “Then we made a deferred work list for optimization later so we could stay laser-focused on the deadline.”
What began as a straightforward lift-and-shift approach evolved when the team realized that transitioning to Amazon EKS would be more efficient than directly migrating existing Kubernetes clusters. This realization transformed the project into a broader modernization effort, creating new challenges around scope and timeline management.
A three-way collaboration accelerates migration
To facilitate a smoother migration, AWS recommended that the university work with Trianz, one of their preferred VMware migration partners. Trianz contributed project management expertise, infrastructure analysis capabilities, AWS environment setup, and proprietary migration tools that significantly streamlined the process.
“It really took all three legs—the libraries, Trianz, and AWS,” said Wallberg. “We had daily and weekly check-ins, and AWS helped broker connections with our own campus IT, who also made significant contributions, to keep things moving.”
Dahl added, “AWS brought an understanding of how AWS works within the university environment and guided decisions based on that. The libraries knew our applications, Trianz knew migrations, and AWS helped everything fit together.”
Immediate improvements across security and performance
The migration encompassed a complex portfolio— 58 VMs, two Kubernetes clusters, and more than 95 TB of data—and was completed without unacceptable downtime. The payoff was immediate.
The team implemented enhanced security controls, closing previously open administrative access points and conducting comprehensive access reviews that significantly strengthened their overall security posture.
On top of the security improvements, performance gains were immediately apparent to users. “Overall, apps are running much faster—clear performance improvement,” Wallberg noted. The enhanced infrastructure provided superior computational resources and optimized configurations that benefited both end users and developers.
The team also gained access to new AWS services that addressed longstanding operational challenges. Amazon CloudFront and AWS Web Application Firewall now protect against aggressive artificial intelligence (AI) bot crawling that previously overwhelmed the libraries’ valuable digital collections and disrupted service availability.
The migration also delivered improved cost transparency, replacing hidden infrastructure expenses with clear visibility into resource usage. “We were transparent about the budgeting impacts—moving from capital to operational expenditures—and about the rapid pace we were operating at. That honesty was important in maintaining support,” said Dahl.
Practical guidance for other academic institutions
According to Dahl and Wallberg, the University of Maryland Libraries’ experience offers valuable guidance for other academic institutions considering cloud migration:
- Avoid migrating everything simultaneously—intensive timelines create significant staff stress and require exclusive focus.
- Engage external expertise early—AWS and Trianz accelerated the process and reduced risk.
- Prioritize essential migration tasks first and optimize later.
- Document applications thoroughly to avoid surprises during cutover.
“As an IT unit, we’re very trusted in terms of decision-making within the libraries,” Dahl noted. “We didn’t have to spend much time justifying the migration—people relied on us to do the right thing.”
Today, the University of Maryland Libraries operates entirely in the AWS Cloud with costs within target budgets and staff freed up to pursue innovation rather than hardware maintenance. Their transformation demonstrates how strategic cloud migration can modernize university operations while maintaining service quality and enabling future growth.
Colleges and universities worldwide are digitally transforming with cost-effective, scalable, secure, and flexible AWS Cloud infrastructure. Find out how to get started at AWS Cloud for Higher Education.