COALS Centralization Study

From AgriLife WIki

Contents 1 Background 2 Potential Areas for Centralization 3 Email 4 File Storage--Workstations 5 File Storage--Servers 6 Other Centralization Options

Background

In late 2005, the Texas A&M University System audit team conducted a management audit of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Texas A&M University. One of the recommendations of the audit team was:

Given the integrated nature of the Agriculture Program, consider consolidating departmental IT services, such as email and file storage, with other Agriculture Program IT services to achieve more effective and efficient use of resources and centralized monitoring to better control information technology administration.

COALS administration subsequently provided the following response to that recommendation:

A study will be conducted and completed by March 31, 2006, to evaluate the costs and benefits of consolidating IT services, such as email and file storage, across departments. The likelihood of centralization to achieve more effective and efficient use of resources and monitoring of information technology administration will be evaluated. Several departments are already taking advantage of centralized administrative support of GroupWise email by Extension Information Technology (EIT).

While some amount of study and research have been ongoing since that response was submitted, a meeting was held on March 21, 2006 in the TAES Annex Building to attempt to summarize the options available for centralizing email and file storage and to outline the advantages and disadvantages of such centralization. This meeting included five members of Extension Information Technology, two members of Texas A&M Agriculture and Texas Cooperative Extension administrative offices, and eight departmental level information technology support technicians. What follows are the key points identified by this group. Further refinement of these findings will occur through this wiki.

Potential Areas for Centralization

The meeting started by identifying some potential areas where some amount of centralization of services might be appropriate. These areas included:

• Email
• File Storage
  • Server
  • Workstation
• Help Desk
• Expert Database/Access
• Redundant Systems
• Web Sites
• Security
  • Patch Management
  • Virus Protection
  • Spyware Protection
• Training
• Software Licensing
• Authentication Services

Because the primary focus of this meeting was to address the recommendation of the COALS audit, nearly the entire meeting focused on the first two items on this list. In each case, a proposition was posed, and then advantages and disadvantages were outlined. Those propositions and their advantages and disadvantages follow.

Email

Proposition: All employees of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences uses GroupWise as the standard email system, and this system is provided through a small set of centralized servers.

Advantages:

• Provides a global address book to all users
• Provides a global calendar to all users
• Provides standardized distribution lists (email groups) to all users
• Reduces burden on local IT support personnel and server space
• Allows support personnel to focus on assisting users with only one email system instead of having to be knowledgeable of many types.
• Creates the opportunity to provide redundant hardware for testing and failover.
• Reduces overall cost of servers and email support because of fewer servers and fewer people required to maintain them.
• Scaling up the capacity of the system is simpler.
• Auditors like it.

Disadvantages:

• Email client software is limited for Macintosh users.
• It reduces faculty and staff choice.
• Transition for current non-Groupwise users is painful.
• Requires 24 x 7 dedicated staff support
• Failure in the system affects larger numbers of people.
• Requires initial investment in infrastructure capacity and reliability.
• Creates more demand on the infrastructure
• Backup files are larger and require more time to create.

File Storage--Workstations

Proposition: All COALS workstations and notebook computers are using centralized iFolder or equivalent services for passive backup of all designated files.

Advantages:

• Backup occurs unattended; i.e., the user is not required to initiate the backup action.
• Implementation can be phased in, focusing on those users who are not currently backing up their files adequately, and those for whom backup file storage is most critical.
• At least three copies of all files are stored in different physical locations.
• It provides the users access to their files from multiple computers, including someone else's web browser.
• It is relatively simple to implement, making it an easy choice for unit heads to encourage and monitor.
• iFolder costs the units or users nothing; it is included as part of the Novell Master License Agreement which is paid at the agency level.

Disadvantages:

• User reluctance to implement or to have files stored on a server.
• Central iFolder server(s) must provide much storage capacity and performance; i.e., it requires a substantial initial investment. (It would conservatively require 100x its current capacity to accomodate biobio.)
• Requires establishing storage quotas for each user.
• Requires dedicated system administrator to monitor up time and performance.
• Requires close attention to security when there are multiple copies of files.
• BioBio alone would consume more than 10 terabytes of storage if all files were to be backed up non-selectively, as suggested by the auditors' claim that ALL research data is mission critical. (It isn't).

Recommendation: EIT currently is offering this service with limited capacity. Higher capacity should be purchased and installed; users throughout COALS should be urged to begin establishing iFolder accounts. Where appropriate, an iFolder server can also be installed at the unit level. Individual users should have the right and power to decide what files should and shouldn't be backed up.

File Storage--Servers

Proposition: Campus based backup servers are periodically backed up to a central storage area network (SAN).

Advantages:

• Provides off site backup without having to carry tapes or hard drives to another location.
• Creates efficiency in cost of storage
• Provides redundancy of backups

Disadvantages:

• Cost of a central storage area network is significant--$25K and higher
• Requires dedicated monitoring.
• Departments must purchase and install backup servers.

Other Centralization Options

A few other centralization options were discussed. While they were not addressed as fully as the systems above, the following conclusions were reached.

• Users should be encouraged to install Symantec Antivirus Corporate Edition in "managed" mode. Each workstation should be "managed" by a local Symantec server operating its Remote Console software for monitoring of individual workstation status. EIT should operate a central Symantec server to obtain virus definition files every four hours and push those updates to each unit level server, which subsequently pushes the definitions to each workstation. EIT should install an enterprise wide Symantec server for Macintosh workstations and notebooks. Those Macintosh workstations and notebooks should be managed by the enterprise level server, and not the unit level servers.
• Recommend the implementation of and training on Zenworks or other workstation monitoring and management software to assure that operating system patches and upgrades are installed in a timely manner, and to better manage a unit's information resources.
• Everyone should be watchful for spyware protection management tools similar to Symantec Corporate Edition.
• Provide a centralized system to host agency and unit websites.