A college-industry partnership for enterprise computing

Growth at Old Dominion Freight Lines, Inc. (NASDAQ: ODFL) necessitated the relocation of the present Disaster Recovery (DR) center in Greensboro, NC to a newly constructed center located in Thomasville, NC. The old DR site was functional and equipped with modern equipment comparable to most other corporate DR sites. The relocation provided a unique opportunity for ODFL and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (NCA&TSU, NCA&T). ODFL is a third-generation North Carolina Triad area business with an established history of giving back to their community. ODFL made a grant of the existing DR center to NCA&T SU and to Davidson County Community College (DCCC) for the purpose of establishing state-of-the-art IT data center research and experience-based learning labs. The long-term goal of this project is to improve data center management techniques for better information availability, reliability, security, and cost efficiency. Several additional projects have emerged and are reported in this paper. The broader impact of this project includes development of advanced IT skills in the Triad workforce. This project has enhanced learning outcomes of enterprise computing technology students at NCA&T, area community colleges, and high schools by engaging students in applied research and providing hands-on experienced-based learning. Additionally, the authors expect availability of a skilled IT workforce to expand the Triad area economy by assisting the expansion of existing Triad enterprises and attracting new information technology dependent enterprises to relocate to the Triad. Implementation of this grant award began in November, 2011. This paper reports the initial project completions and describes how the grant resulted in new, unplanned projects. The authors believe this college-industry partnership model can be replicated readily at other institutions in need of an equipment infrastructure to foster education and research.