IT Efficiency & College Effectiveness: making cloud computing work for you

1. IT Efficiency & College Effectiveness: making cloud computing work for you Robin Gadd Head of Information and Systems Development

2. Midsize General FE College • Strong tertiary mission • Central southern England in SE Region (just) • New Forest National Park – semi-rural, wide(international) catchment • c.11,000 learners per annum, 14-104 years old, pre-entry to foundation degree level, and a pre-school nursery • c.200 key employers (mainly SMEs) • Beacon College since 2004 • Technology Exemplar Provider since 2008 We do education and training outstandingly well We’re not an IT service provider(although we try hard to do this outstandingly well too!)

3. Technology Hype Cycle 2010 (Gartner) Gartner: Cloud computing is “the most hyped subject in IT today”!! http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1447613

4. 30 minutes to… • Cut through some of the hype • Provide a non-IT-expert guide to “Cloud” • Explain what we’ve been doing at Brock • Outline the costs and the benefits So that you… • Understand enough about cloud technology to hold your own in discussions with the techies • Can relate this over-hyped technology to your business priorities

5. Trade-offs of “Trad” IT investments • Hardware • Fixed costs; fixed performance! • Five-year capitalised ownership = out-dated equipment! • Variable asset utilization • Most servers run at 5-20% of processing capacity • Even virtualised servers get nowhere near 100% • Data redundancy and security • Computing/networking reliability & redundancy • Backup and DR (disaster recovery) • Power and cooling efficiency • Datacentres: 1 watt to the server, 1.5 watts in overhead! • Personnel costs • Recruitment, retention, training Or maybe we could spend more money at the frontline of teaching and learning?

6. Cloud computing is… Blah, blah, blah, blah… “a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction”. (US National Institute of Standards and Technology) “Technology services delivered over the internet”

7. Cloud computing canbe a way of… • Focussing on what we’re good at (educating) • Getting more • Providing more • Spending less • Innovating • Sharing services • Improvingcashflow • Capex → Opex clarionledger.com

8. Three Cloud service types… • Developer tools • Databases • Web apps • Storage (disk space) • Content delivery • Backup/DR • Compute (processors, memory) • Email • Office apps • CRM • Facebook

9. Economies of scale? Rent a piece of this estate…

10. Cloud Data Storage One simple “web service” application connects the data on a computer in College to Amazon cloud storage Elastic storage! (expands and contracts on demand) Typical in-College infrastructure

11. Costs: “Trad” IT vs Amazon Cloud Example Project: Digital Media for Teaching and Learning In College (Mostly Capex) • 450gb Disks - £25k(7TBs = 16 disks @ £1.5k) • Disk Array - £7k(big enough to hold up to 90 disks in 3-4 years if necessary!) • Total Year 1 = £32k • 28TB by year 4 = £107k + on-going Opex(maintenance, staff, backup disks & tapes, software licences, aircon, power etc) + hardware refresh In The Cloud (Mostly Opex) • Elastic Storage - £3.5k pa(7TBs stored incrementally by end of year @ $0.125 /GB) • Elastic Bandwidth - £1.1k pa(1TB /mth @ $0.150 /GB) • Total Year 1 = £4.6k • 28TB by year 4 = £18.4k I’m not the FD, but these numbers look interesting!

12. Cashflow, ROI, and capacity planning £32k Capex invested +£25k Capex invested +£25k Capex invested +£25k Capex invested Elastic investment as demand grows (or contracts) >£100k invested, but still not enough!

14. Cloud Student/Alumni email One extra program installed on an existing (virtual) server to synchronise user identities with the Live ID cloud service Exchange Server(s) Typical in-College infrastructure

15. More Quality and Less Cost! • In Cloud Service Level • Inbox (10GB) • Online file store (25GB) • Anti-virus and anti-spam • Email for life (alumni?) • An experience that meets expectations • High usage • £££ • Free! • Fewer servers, less software, reduced maintenance In College Service Level • Inbox (200MB) • Network file store (200MB) • Lost USB sticks galore • No external mail send • No system redundancy • A mediocre experience • Low usage £££ • Hardware, software, anti-virus, backup, DR • Maintenance & support No brainer? (providing you have Microsoft systems and can get the connector working easily!)

16. The next evolution of Live@Edu... Due in 2011 • Office Online (Word, Excel etc) connected to and delivered with cloud services • Exchange Online - cloud-based e-mail, calendar and contacts with the most current anti-virus and anti-spam solutions • Office SharePoint Online - cloud-based asynchronous virtual learning, shared file stores etc • Lync Online - cloud-based synchronous online teaching with text messenger, presence, screen sharing, voice and video conferencing Highly scalable, up-to-date tech A strong platform for innovation But will it be sufficiently cost effective? Wait and see…

17. So do we still need on-campus IT? • Yes. Some. • PCs, printers, networking, high-end media • But different ownership models; different support models; utility computing; thin clients • A data centre • But smaller; bridge between the college and the cloud; more proactive monitoring/self-healing; shared services • An IT Support structure • But smaller; more contract and supplier relationship management etc… skills gaps? What are the organisational development implications?

18. Grey Clouds – Risks? • Our data is somewhere “out there”? • Security; public or private cloud? is the door locked? • Where in the world is our stuff? • Legal jurisdictions? regulatory compliance; data protection? £-$ exchange? • SLAs • Service/support; uptime guarantees (with financial penalties?); technical support; time zones? • Partners • Trust; reliability • Single points of failure? • JANET connection: capacity/cost; redundancy? Lots of due diligence needed!

19. Fluffy White Clouds – Opportunities! • Expenditure management • Spending less; shared/managed services; fewer fixed costs; elastic capacity; moving Capex→ Opex; enhanced cashflow • Quality improvement • Getting more service/capacity; providing better services to our customers • Innovation and agility • The world changes; IT changes; opportunities change; keeping up with the next big thing! • Focussing on what we’re good at! • Keeping what adds value, outsourcing what doesn’t, adding more value by buying-in just the services we need If we join the ride down from the “peak of inflated expectations”, we might reach that “plateau of productivity” in 2 years!!

20. Conclusion: The Bottom Line • Nick Carr was right! • Most computing is now a “utility” – we can’t live without IT, but “IT doesn’t matter” • Your IT infrastructure doesn’t differentiate you from me! • So don’t spend any more £ (or $) than absolutely necessary on IT! May 2003 Cloud Computing CAN help!

21. Thank you!rgadd@brock.ac.uk