London School of Economics

In addition to managing a variety of IT systems from different eras, LSE developers previously used open-source software to monitor system performance. While universally accessible, these solutions provided neither the visibility nor the insight into key metrics that LSE needed to truly understand its operations and eliminate performance issues at their source.

As the driving force behind LSE digital services, its software developers are always under pressure to meet student and staff expectations. That pressure only intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic when students began enrolling in online and hybrid courses. In parallel, the shift to online learning opened the door to more international enrollments, which meant that on top of delivering seamless experiences for 12,0000 students, Alexander and his team also needed to rebuild LSE applications to accommodate users in multiple time zones.

For example, timetables for students in China, Japan and Southeast Asia were coded to automatically propose more morning courses so students could attend UK lectures despite the time difference. Similarly, North American timetables include more afternoon classes.

“The shift to hybrid learning brought about the biggest change to timetabling since universities were first established, and we had to redevelop our systems to evolve,” says Alexander. “But to do that and reimagine LSE’s environment for a hybrid student body, we needed greater visibility across our IT operations,” says Alexander.

LSE still maintains its campus-first mentality, with a focus on delivering exceptional education and services to its students in-person. But the school also continues to strengthen its hybrid learning services in parallel, empowering students to access coursework and critical services wherever and whenever they need.

“A needle in a haystack is easy to find if you have a metal detector. Cisco AppDynamics is that metal detector for our team,” says Alexander. “Intractable problems hidden deep down in our systems are now laid out clearly in the code.”

One of first intractable problems LSE solved with AppDynamics was the recurring issue of slow browser performance for international students, particularly those in Asia. End user monitoring of its online services and applications revealed the root cause of the delays as lagging data requests and content delivery to these remote regions. Guided by that insight, the team implemented a distributed content delivery network and relegated those delays to the past.

Stronger security, stronger governance

As for security, Cisco Secure Application will help LSE enhance its data monitoring and governance. The university uses a number of open-source libraries to feed its business applications, some of which have become attractive targets for exploits. With Cisco Secure Application, which Alexander and his team plans to roll out, they will be able to see which processes are running on their servers and which are most vulnerable to external threats.

“Static analysis tools are useful when you’re building and deploying applications, but they can’t show you which processes are actually running on your servers day-to-day,” says Alexander. “That’s what sets Cisco Secure Application apart and we look forward to taking full advantage of the solution.”  

For years, LSE had to rely on intuition and guess work to optimize its IT systems and end user experiences. Despite building its own systems over decades, these remained a black box until Alexander and his team began monitoring IT processes at a granular level with AppDynamics APM.

“We needed to see inside the black box, pick apart each process, and address our performance issues at their root,” says Alexander. “Cisco AppDynamics gave us that observability so we can deliver exceptional experience to our students and secure their data without missing a step.”