Chungbuk Technopark increases its support to small and medium enterprises with Microsoft Azure

Chungbuk Technopark is a regional innovation base center that focuses on industrial development, enterprise support and job creation. It supports the growth of local companies by investing in technological innovation, providing tenants access to state-of-the-art infrastructure within its campus.

To do this, the technopark relied on the public cloud. However, many of the park’s local companies hesitated to upload their data due to security and compliance reasons. “We needed to provide private services and on-premises infrastructure for our security-conscious customers,” shares Yang-Ki Cho, General Manager, Digital Strategy Team, at Chungbuk Technopark.

Together with implementation partner S.Pin Technology, Chungbuk Technopark decided to deploy a hybrid cloud solution on Azure—a strategic mix of public cloud, private cloud, and on-premises resources. The setup enabled the more risk-averse users to keep their data on-premises, or opt for a private cloud solution, giving them greater peace of mind. It also gave the technopark the ability to efficiently respond to spikes in demand and improve its response time to services that required immediate attention.

To help manage the different infrastructures, Chungbuk Technopark and S.Pin Technology implemented Azure Arc. With it, hybrid machines can be connected and treated as cloud resources in Azure. The technopark Intelligent Platform team can then manage hybrid machines the same way it manages its native Azure virtual machines, eliminating the need to learn new software.

Mixing reality in a hybrid environment

Using a hybrid cloud brought more possibilities for Chungbuk. “While we were in the process of implementing the new solution, we discovered the many potentials of this infrastructure,” says Yang-Ki Cho. One of those potentials came with the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and extended reality (XR).

Previously, customers that work with AI had to use the on-premises graphics processing unit (GPU) server to train the data for AI, and then move the model to the public cloud to deploy and test it. “It was very cumbersome,” confesses Cheol-Hong Kim, Team Lead, Intelligent Platform, Chungbuk Technopark. Metaverse projects ran into similar synchronization issues. “We use various types of Extended Reality (XR) and Virtual Reality (VR) devices to experience metaverse. Our customers found it tedious to send content to these devices using our previous infrastructure. They had to connect lines to the device to download the content from the on-prem servers before they could test it on the cloud.” 

With the hybrid cloud solution, customers can now switch between on-prem and cloud infrastructure seamlessly. To further streamline the experience, Chungbuk Technopark implemented the Azure Stack hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) service, the first in the country to do so. “Through hybrid cloud HCI, XR devices can access the content server and download content online immediately. Developers can then implement an environment to demonstrate XR capabilities without wait time.”

“Azure APIs have made it very convenient for companies who develop AI on our GPU Servers to automatically deploy their models by the connecting to the Azure cloud. This has made the development process very smooth,” Yang-Ki Cho adds.

Educating students using Microsoft Mesh Platform

During the pandemic, as part of public service, Chungbuk Technopark promoted a project known as Chungbuk Innocraft. Additionally, the Technopark decided to create an immersive digital environment in Minecraft that’s designed for learning. The project was hosted on an Azure virtual machine. Hosting the project on Azure virtual machine allowed better accessibility and ease of management, allowing the technopark to build and operate its projects efficiently.

Chungbuk Technopark intended this project to be a part of online education services during the pandemic, because only limited online educational services were available. “During the pandemic all extracurricular activities for children were suspended,” explains Yang-Ki Cho. “We thought that the use of games and metaverse could effectively help us achieve our purpose of providing education to children in a fun, interactive way. As Minecraft is non-violent and has many elements that induce creativity, we thought it is best suited for our purpose.”

The technopark modelled Chungbuk Innovation City with technology partner ALUX, then organized a virtual open lab for students and local residents. The digital experience started with a tour in Minecraft, where people studied history by referring to historical relics in Chungcheongbuk-do. This was followed by virtual training for coding skills with Minecraft resources, and ended with a Minecraft Architecture Competition. All these added the element of fun and enjoyment to the education and cultural life of the people, overcoming the limitations imposed by the pandemic.

“The excitement and satisfaction of the residents and students participating in these programs are quite high. They are asking us to continue this service and so we will try to develop and expand to other subjects to continue the service,” reveals Cheol-Hong Kim. “In the future, we are planning to provide a more expanded world and device-neutral solution on a Metaverse platform based on Microsoft Mesh,” he added.

Chungbuk Technopark aims to apply and implement digital transformation in various fields with local companies. To complete this ecosystem, it also intends to build a digital data center for DX and Metaverse.

“We trust Microsoft and its partners who have worked together for years to foster industries in Chungbuk. We will continue to work with them to provide stable services to companies to achieve the development of local industries and serve as a hub for digital transformation in Chungbuk," said Noh Geun-ho, director of Chungbuk Technopark.