Innovation and connectivity for the education of the future: the collaboration between Istituto Marangoni and Colt
The international benchmark for fashion and design
Founded in 1935 in Milan as the Istituto Artistico dell’ Abbigliamento Marangoni, Istituto Marangoni (IM) boasts nearly 90 years of success in training the best professionals in the world for fashion, art, and design. It has launched the careers of over 50,000 luxury industry professionals, including Domenico Dolce, Alessandro Sartori, Paula Cademartori, Gilda Ambrosio, Julie de Libran, and Nicola Brognano. Today, Istituto Marangoni hosts around 5,000 students annually from 108 different countries at its schools located in the international capitals of fashion, art, and design: Milan (School of Fashion and School of Design), Florence (School of Fashion & Art), Paris, London, Mumbai, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Miami, and Dubai. According to the QS World University Ranking 2023, Istituto Marangoni is ranked among the top 100 universities worldwide in its disciplines.
Geographical expansion and its focus on quality for students
The school’s mission is to prepare highly qualified professionals for the luxury industries. To achieve this, the institute constantly innovates and enhances the quality of its educational offerings. Consequently, its ICT division must enable the business with technological infrastructures that meet high expectations.
The ICT department’s challenge is to provide students with a unique educational experience across all campuses by delivering the same high-quality services. Students have the opportunity to complete their courses (three-year, one-year, master’s, and short courses) by studying for a year in Italy and another year in London, Paris, Shanghai, or any other campus. It is crucial that they have consistent access to Wi-Fi, servers and labs to feel at home in every location.
In today’s luxury sector, internet connectivity is essential for staying connected to the visual world and constantly updating on new trends. Through the network, students can send large files and presentations with many images, as well as work on and edit videos. Group work is also a crucial part of students’ daily activities, which the network facilitates by allowing them to share ideas and work on creative projects simultaneously. This necessitates dedicated, secure and reliable internet access.
Additionally, Istituto Marangoni is developing a global expansion project requiring a digital infrastructure that simplifies the opening of new campuses and accelerates their full operational status while reducing costs.
These needs prompted the institute to seek a provider that could offer guaranteed connectivity for its activities and adequately support the business’s internationalization.
Colt’s solution: Reliability and security across the board
The institute was looking for a partner to support the global connection of its campuses and ensure reliable network services for the smooth conduct of educational and administrative activities. The partner needed to provide fast and reliable network connectivity for internet and voice access services. Istituto Marangoni chose Colt due to our international focus and established expertise. Thus, in 2009, the collaboration between Colt and Istituto Marangoni began.
The project has further evolved over the past few years, with the decision to transition from an MPLS network to a 10G/1G Ethernet Private Network (EPN) to ensure reliability, security and better performance in connecting the Milan campus to other international campuses, starting with London and Paris. Colt was selected for its proven experience and ability to provide secure, global and comprehensive connectivity, including telephony, servers and other IP functionalities.
Recently, the institute aimed to consolidate its digital infrastructure to benefit from economies of scale, lower management costs and reduced expenses for equipment, services, travel and implementations. Therefore, the academic body centralized all IP services, completely removing the servers from various campuses and consolidating services in a single data center in Milan. Colt supported IM in designing the network and managing interconnections with new campuses. Colt’s support in terms of connectivity and infrastructure consolidation has allowed the institute to open new facilities quickly and anywhere, with significant cost and time-to-market advantages: the only physical supports now needed for full operational status of a new campus are wi-fi antennas, switches and phones.
The successful business evolution and digital transformation have also led IM to request increased bandwidth from Colt and transition from a layer 3 network to a layer 2 network. In the Shanghai campus, the benefit of a reliable and readily available network has been crucial, allowing employees and students to access the network quickly and securely for their work. Following the adoption of Colt’s services, other campuses also reported significant service improvements, estimated at around 50% better performance compared to initial levels.
Thanks to Colt’s support in all campuses, the ability for students to use the same wi-fi access, labs and servers worldwide has proven to be a significant advantage for the smooth conduct of activities.
“We have future development plans on which we are also working with Colt. Our collaboration is constant and growing because, in addition to reliable connectivity, we can count on comprehensive 360° support. Unlike other operators, Colt has provided essential expertise for Istituto Marangoni’s global growth” said Luca Garbato, IT manager of Istituto Marangoni.
COMPANY NAME
Istituto Marangoni
INDUSTRY
Education
CHALLENGE
Offering students a consistent educational experience across all campuses, enabling the global expansion of the institute, and reducing costs through the consolidation of its digital infrastructure.
COLT SOLUTION
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