Aga Khan University optimizes operations to improve services with Microsoft Azure

The Aga Khan University (AKU) is a private, not-for-profit institution of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), whose mission is to improve quality of life in the developing world and beyond through world-class teaching, research, and health care delivery. Given the wide geographic scope of its operations and its enduring commitment to quality, the university has consistently prioritized technological advancement and innovation in order to better and more efficiently serve its constituents: the patients, students, faculty, and staff. AKU’s journey towards Microsoft Azure cloud is part of its digital transformation. The tools, functionality and agility provided by Azure cloud is helping AKU in areas of research, business intelligence, data analytics and security.

The Aga Khan University (AKU) has teaching campuses in Pakistan, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Afghanistan, and the United Kingdom, in addition to two nationally leading teaching hospitals in Pakistan and Kenya, both of which are accredited by US-based Joint Commission International. The Information and Communications Technology (ICT) division at the Aga Khan University plays a pivotal role for the organization to continue operating at the highest standards.

“We continuously bring efficiency into our processes and systems,” says Muhammad Fahd, Director ICT Global Service Delivery at AKU. “After careful consideration, we decided that moving to the cloud was important for us, especially since we needed to work together from different places all over the world with the same level of performance expectations.”

After a thorough assessment and evaluation, the organization partnered with Microsoft in its digital journey. “Based on our studies, Microsoft solutions best fit our needs, especially in terms of interoperability and service integration. Our implementation partner, Jaffer Business Systems, supported us throughout the process and ensured that we had a seamless experience towards this transformation,” explains Fahd. Rabia Azfar, Country Head of Jaffer Business Systems. “We wanted to deliver a solid execution strategy and ensure that AKU campuses around the world would be able to experience the same level of service with the new Microsoft solutions. It was important that we were there to provide an end-to-end service for AKU, starting with licensing and all the way through to the deployment.”

“We wanted to deliver a solid execution strategy and ensure that AKU campuses around the world would be able to experience the same level of service with the new Microsoft solutions. It was important that we were there to provide an end-to-end service for AKU, starting with licensing and all the way through to the deployment.”

Rabia Azfar, Country Head, Jaffer Business Systems

Expanding the digital horizon

The journey started in 2017 when AKU’s public websites were migrated to the cloud. “AKU websites are based on SharePoint, so moving them to Azure was a seamless, cost-effective process. We benefit from the best uptime, performance, availability and security, no matter where the websites are accessed from,” details Fahd. Using Microsoft also helped AKU with compliance and ensured that regulatory requirements were met for all the regions and countries where it operates, including the United Kingdoms’s strict General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) guidelines.

Through cloud services, AKU can scale its resources whenever necessary. “Being a university, we often need to increase storage and computing power for our cloud-based resources. For example, the announcement of our examination results is the moment when most hits are directed to our website. These activity peaks now pass without any issues since moving to Azure,” says Fahd.

When the COVID-19 pandemic caused worldwide lockdowns, AKU was one of the few organizations ready for remote work. More than 4,000 employees were able to work from home using productivity tools such as Microsoft Teams, OneDrive for Business Online, and SharePoint. “With the transition to Microsoft 365, we reduced our administrative burden by 25 percent. We also gained more mailbox space, better security, and higher uptime, while reducing our hardware footprint. More importantly, 9,000 active students, alumni, faculty, and staff can now collaborate using Microsoft Teams globally,” adds Fahd.

“With the transition to Microsoft 365, we reduced our administrative burden by 25 percent. We also gained more mailbox space, better security, and higher uptime, while reducing our hardware footprint. More importantly, 9,000 active students, alumni, faculty, and staff can now collaborate using Microsoft Teams globally.”

Muhammad Fahd, Director ICT Global Service Delivery, AKU

To have all these implementations running smoothly with top-notch security, AKU uses Azure Active Directory. “Azure Active Directory is synchronized with on-premises directory services and the identities are protected through security features such as conditional access, multi-factor authentication, privileged identity management, and identity protection,” says Shumail Khalid, Senior Manager ICT Service Delivery at AKU.

“Azure Active Directory is synchronized with on-premises directory services and the identities are protected through security features such as conditional access, multi-factor authentication, privileged identity management, and identity protection.”

Shumail Khalid, Senior Manager ICT Service Delivery, AKU

A single source of truth, available to everyone

Azure hybrid technology also allows AKU to bring on-premises data, connected to the Azure Data Factory, into its data pipelines. “We’ve got silos of data across multiple entities and systems. So, the analytics layer needs to be solid whether you want to get data-driven insights or run artificial intelligence workloads—this is where Azure has become that foundation for improved data analytics,” explains Khalid.

For reporting and data visualization, AKU turns to Power BI. “We gained significant value from data visualization with the integrated back-end technologies in Azure,” says Khalid.

A more accurate and faster way of working

As hospitals move from paper-based records to Electronic Health Records (EHR), medical staff need easier ways to transcribe medical notes into computer systems. In anticipation of this, AKU has implemented a medical grade voice recognition system (VRS) within its hospitals. “Paper notes are going to be obsolete. However, it will be difficult for doctors to type all their notes into the system. To eliminate this challenge, we brought a voice recognition system from Nuance. Hosting this system on Azure has saved us 40 percent in implementation costs when comparing with other hosting providers. This will enable doctors to dictate their notes, saving them a significant amount of time. We expect 300 doctors to actively use this system,” shares Shaukat Ali Khan, Global Chief Information Officer at AKU.

Other future possibilities are to migrate development and user-acceptance testing environments on Azure instead of having them in AKU’s data center, as well as evaluating Azure for disaster recovery and future research initiatives.

“Previously, when we talked about moving to the cloud, there were some concerns regarding security, availability, compliance, and governance. Fast forward a few years, people are now more confident in our leadership and decision to innovate. That’s why we can keep pushing forward,” reflects Khan.

“Now, AKU has formally agreed to have a cloud-first strategy and declared Microsoft as our preferred choice. With Microsoft, we feel that we are always in the driver’s seat—they understand the way we work and support us when we need it,” he concludes.

“Previously, when we talked about moving to the cloud, there were some concerns regarding security, availability, compliance, and governance. Fast forward a few years, people are now more confident in our leadership and decision to innovate. That’s why we can keep pushing forward. Now, AKU has formally agreed to have a cloud-first strategy and declared Microsoft as our preferred choice. With Microsoft, we feel that we are always in the driver’s seat—they understand the way we work and support us when we need it.”

Shaukat Ali Khan, Global Chief Information Officer, AKU