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Another Wits Hero from ICT

10 December 2021 - Wits University

Dreaming of “zero local dependencies” and a complete move to the cloud.

Franz Meier’s long black coat, black pants and white buttoned-up shirt is his “uniform” of choice, reminiscent of Steve Jobs’ daily getup of jeans and a black turtleneck. Maybe it’s characteristic of IT professionals to adopt a certain look, but Meier says he chose his “uniform” style years ago, and before it became fashionable for the millenials to do so. Meier’s long, grey ponytail, and his rounded black spectacles give him an air of a wise elder or Ninjutsu master. Sometimes, he even wears the shirts his wife brings him back from the Far East.

But no matter that Meier is not old (he’s 51), he has the Zen-like voice of an elder, and indeed embodied these qualities amid the IT and tech pantomime that marked 2020 and 2021.  Meier is a Senior Systems Engineer at Wits ICT and his colleagues contend that he single-handedly assured the successful migration of academic courses and modules to a robust online platform. Indeed, there is not a single IT system across the University that doesn’t require his support and excellent capabilities. This has duly earned him a title as a Wits Covid-19 Hero joining courageous and selfless Witsie who went beyond the call of duty during the onset of Covid-19.

But Meier is characteristically humble and explains that he was only one cog in the big wheel that ensures the university can still deliver the teaching and learning goods. Nevertheless, his job was complex, especially as the then teaching and learning system did not have the required capacity. Meier’s job was urgent, and he managed to step up gracefully.

“We were very lucky to be able to migrate the learning management system onto the cloud because this kind of infrastructure was the only type to manage what we needed to do, especially at the scale we needed to it at,” says Meier.

Meier worked from 7am-9pm during the hard lockdown, barely leaving his home office desk. “It was actually quite a nice time; I could wholeheartedly focus on the task,” he said.  

Meier’s role changed from being solely responsible for the on-site tech infrastructure to include managing cloud infrastructure. But this came with its benefits. “You’re not jolted out of bed at 2am to rush to the data centre to fix issues. It feels much more seamless now. Yes, perhaps the cost of cloud is initially more, but in the long run, the money and time saved with cloud’s efficiency is actually priceless,” he explains.

Nevertheless, Meier believes that teaching and learning will always be on a hybrid basis – both in-person and online, and he needs to respond to that reality. He’d like all administration systems to have “zero local dependencies”, meaning that there needn’t be onsite tech reliance. He also says that work culture will inherently change – that people will be measured by their output and not their in-person office hours.

“We hope that more of Wits’ IT infrastructure will move to the cloud, and the staff and students will prefer this, as the user experience is more superior,” says Meier. 

This all means that phones, laptops, tablets, and sufficient data is accessible and provided to every single person in the Wits community. “Yes, cloud is a revolution. It doesn’t mean anything if there isn’t provision for devices and data,” he said. 

Meier feels this is the most exciting time of his career. This enthusiasm is encouraged and applauded at Wits. 

��һ�Թ��� Wits Covid-19 Heroes

The Wits Heroes Series celebrates staff and students who went beyond the call of duty at the onset of Covid-19 in 2020. Wits Heroes were nominated by members of the Wits community. Discover other Heroes.