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HUIT Cloud Initiative Update November, 2013. 11/20/2013 Ryan Frazier & Rob Parrott. Initial Harvard Cloud Strategy. Create Cloud Services Team (kick-off 8/26/13). 2.5+ core FTEs + other supporting Draw from existing staff across HUIT (Infrastructure, ATS, CTO)
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HUIT Cloud Initiative UpdateNovember, 2013 • 11/20/2013 • Ryan Frazier & Rob Parrott
Initial Harvard Cloud Strategy Create Cloud Services Team (kick-off 8/26/13) • 2.5+ core FTEs + other supporting • Draw from existing staff across HUIT • (Infrastructure, ATS, CTO) • Partner with Schools, particularly in RC and Academics • Use ITCRB Funding to help with start-up • Review at 6 months for progress & effectiveness Focus on Key Areas • Address key use cases (Dev/Test, RC, Innovation/Sandboxes) • Heavily leverage Amazon Web Services to start • Evaluate supporting technologies and services • Provide education and outreach to Harvard • Support early adopters (Public websites, etc.) Integrate with Existing Initiatives • Enterprise Architecture • New application selection/development • Organizational, process & operational changes • Leverage strategic partnerships 2
What we’ve learned • Co-located, collaborative engineering team is a successful model • Core Team, with representation from across HUIT, is effective at looking at issues and coordinating efforts (but not scalable) • Few Universities have moved beyond the contracting point for external cloud services (from a central IT perspective) • Internal billing systems have enabled distributed use (a challenge for other Universities) • Amazon Web Services is at a tipping point for Enterprise adoption • AWS has been highly engaged as a vendor and very interested in building a strong partnership • Everyone is very excited about going to the cloud!
Emerging Challenges: Short Term • Accelerating movement towards cloud adoption (in particular AWS) outstrips resources and capabilities • No current support model for DevOps & related needs of those who want to transition to cloud • Significant skills and resource gap • Manage expectations • Be willing to fail • Learn from early adopters through coordination efforts • Plan now to meet the growing gap Mitigation 6
Challenges: Long Term • Organizational readiness • Skills gap • Need to expand focus on architecture & engineering (away from operations) • Expected growth in need for vendor management (beyond technical) • Funding model impacts due to radical changes in service delivery modes (fixed costs, staff, “free market” selection of internal & external services) 7