About LEARN: Activities & Accomplishments

Texas State University System's Strategic Initiative

The Texas State University System (TSUS), founded in 1911, is the first higher education system established in Texas and is comprised of eight higher education institutions stretching from the Texas-Louisiana border to the Big Bend region of West Texas. Connecting all of these institutions together with a high-speed network across such a wide geographic region is no small task. So, when TSUS institutions needed to collaborate with each other on solutions for Commodity Internet access, disaster recovery data replication, and other high-speed network applications, they turned to LEARN.

LEARN provides the Texas State University System with a high-speed, redundant data transport network that brings campuses from across the state together. This enables institutions that are located along the Texas coast to replicate their enterprise data to remote disaster recovery environments, so they can continue to operate even when a hurricane blows on shore. It also enables campuses in West Texas to conduct video classes with students and instructors in different locations. A major benefit of collaborating to establish a state-wide network is that LEARN is able to provide the Texas State University System with cost-effective Commodity Internet rates for its institutions across the state, at higher bandwidths and lower costs than they had previously been paying individually.

Texas State has been an early adopter of several new services provided by LEARN. They have been able to reduce the amount of Commodity Internet traffic leaving the network by utilizing Google Global Cache, which handles connections to Google services such as YouTube locally, on the LEARN network, rather than sending them out over another network provider. They are also utilizing LEARN's TR/CPS service, which re-routes some Commodity Internet bandwidth over the high-speed Internet2 backbone. In today's information rich higher education environment these cutting edge, high-bandwidth network services are essential. By partnering with LEARN, the Texas State University System has been able to enhance the network services available to its member institutions across the state of Texas, enabling them to meet their challenges.