About Zhejiang Technology Institute of Economy
Zhejiang Technology Institute of Economy (ZJTIE) is a full-time public vocational college in Hangzhou province, China. The college has nearly 6,500 students and more than 600 full-time teachers, and offers 20 different majors, all focusing on preparing young people for rewarding careers in the modern Chinese economy.
Challenge
As a vocational college, ZJTIE takes pride in the high employment rate achieved by its students. To maintain its place as one of the most popular and prestigious educational institutes in China, the college needs to maintain and improve this employment rate year on year.
"We are continually assessing the working environment in China to find out what skills employers value the most," said Mr. Chen Jian, Director of IT Control Base at ZJTIE. "Recent research has shown that many enterprises are reacting against Microsoft's increasingly restrictive licensing policies by changing to an open source environment. However, the prevalence of Microsoft technology means that there is an open source skills shortage. We realised that by giving our students training in Linux and other open source technologies, we could give them a competitive advantage in the job market."
ZJTIE wanted to standardise on a single Linux platform to train its students, and began to look at the different options.
Novell Solution
After considering a number of different Linux distributions, ZJTIE chose SUSE® Linux Enterprise; there were three main reasons for this decision.
First, SUSE Linux Enterprise is one of the few Linux varieties to be supported by a major global company with significant support resources in China. As a result, it is a popular choice among Chinese companies, so it makes sense for the college to familiarise its students with a platform that they are likely to use in their working life.
"Novell is one of the only vendors able to provide enterprise-level support in China, and most companies are not willing to risk entrusting their critical business systems to community-based support," said Chen Jian. "As a result, SUSE Linux Enterprise has already gained significant market share among Chinese enterprises."
Second, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server offers better support for Oracle databases and applications than most other Linux distributions.
"Oracle is an extremely common database in China, and many of our software development courses focus on Oracle-based applications for Management Information Systems," said Chen Jian. "SUSE Linux Enterprise is fully certified as a platform for Oracle, so it can be a real advantage for our students to have experience in both technologies."
Finally, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop provides a highly user-friendly graphical interface and powerful productivity tools, helping students who are used to Microsoft products make the transition to Linux more easily.
"We feel that Novell and Microsoft are quite closely aligned in their desktop operating system strategy, so moving from Windows to SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop is much easier than moving to many other varieties of Linux," said Chen Jian. "Many of our students have grown up with Windows systems, so it is important to give them a platform they can understand easily."
Results
Training on SUSE Linux Enterprise technologies has become very popular among students at ZJTIE, and more than 1,200 have already enrolled in Linux-related courses. In the IT faculty, 300 students are learning how to deploy SUSE Linux Enterprise Server in a wide range of business scenarios–and particularly as a platform for Oracle databases and applications.
"The big advantage of working with Novell is the after-sales support," said Chen Jian. "With most vendors, if you want to teach students about their products, you have to search for information on the Internet. But Novell provides excellent teaching materials and even telephone support to help our teachers gain the expertise they need to guide the students."
As a result of its investment in SUSE Linux Enterprise, ZJTIE is now regarded as one of the leading Linux development institutes in the whole of China. Since 2005, when the Linux courses were first set up, the employment rate for IT graduates has risen steadily, year on year.
"The first year of the Linux course, we achieved a 98 percent employment rate for our IT graduates, and each year since the rate has improved further," said Chen Jian. "This year, we expect the rate to be closer to 99 percent. With support from Novell, we are helping our students gain the skills and knowledge they will require to get well-paid jobs and play a valuable role in the further development of China's economy."