Robin Gadd at FE Briefing on Live@EDU and Cloud Computing for Microsoft October 2011
1. Microsoft Briefing for FE Principals and Policymakers 2011
COST SAVING ( AND QUALITY
IMPROVEMENT!) WITH IT IN THE CLOUD.
Robin Gadd
Head of Information and Systems Development
2. Midsize Tertiary FE College
Central southern England in SE Region (just)
New Forest National Park – semi-rural, wide
(international) catchment
We do education and training outstandingly well
c.11,000 learners per annum, 14-104 years
We’re not an IT service provider
old, pre-entry to foundationthis outstandingly well pre-
(although we try hard to do degree level, and a too!)
school nursery
c.200 key employers (mainly SMEs)
Beacon College since 2004
Technology Exemplar Provider since 2008
3. MY CASE STUDY…
A brief guide to Cloud Computing for Principals and
Policymakers – demystification!
Explain what we’ve been doing at Brock, and why
Outline the perceived costs and the benefits
Contextualise in the “shared services” agenda
Highlight some things to think about
So that we…
Can think some more about how cloud computing
fits in FE sector IT Strategies going forward
4. EVER READ THESE?
“All those government bodies likely to
procure ICT services should look to do
so on a scaleable, cloud basis” (Digital
Britain, p213)
5. 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
6. TRADE-OFFS OF “TRAD” IT INVESTMENTS
Hardware
Fixed costs; fixed performance!
Five-year capitalised ownership = out-dated equipment!
But we wantutilization
Variable asset to spend more money at the
Most servers run at 5-20% of processing capacity
frontline of teaching nowhere near 100% don’t
Even virtualised servers get
and learning,
we?
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
7. WHAT ARE WE ACTUALLY TALKING ABOUT HERE?
Cloud computing is “a model for enabling
convenient, on-demand network access to a shared
“Technology services resources
pool of configurable computing delivered
over the internet”
(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)
8. THE CLOUD COMPUTING PROPOSITION
CLOUD CAN BE A WAY OF…
Focussing on what we’re good at (educating)
Getting more
Providing more
Spending less £
Innovating
Sharing services
Improving
cashflow
Capex → Opex
clarionledger.com
10. So what is cloud computing?
Looking for economies of scale?
Rent a piece of this 7 acres…
11.
12. CLOUD STUDENT/ALUMNI EMAIL
ForeFront IM on an
existing (virtual) server
syncs our AD with the
Live ID cloud service
Elastic storage!
(expands and contracts
on demand)
Exchange
Server(s)
Typical in-College infrastructure
13. LOTS OF COST; NOT MUCH BENEFIT!
In-College Student Email Service Levels at Brock in 2007
Inbox (200MB)
Network file store (200MB)
Lost USB sticks galore
No external mail send by default
No system redundancy
A mediocre experience
Low usage
£££
Hardware, software, anti-virus, backup, DR
Maintenance & support
14. HOW MUCH COST?
£ Per Year (x4)
CAPEX
Server Hardware 2,500
Licensing 1,250
Installation 500
Setup/Config 500
AV & Antispam 1,250
SSL 125
OPEX
Backup 1,000
Admin (5 hrs/wk) 9,100
Training (admin, helpdesk, end users) 2,000
18,225
15. MORE QUALITY AND LESS COST!
Outlook.com Service Levels 2008
Inbox (10GB)
Online file store (25GB)
Anti-virus and anti-spam
No brainer?
Email for life (Alumni? Destinations tracking?) easily!)
(providing you have Microsoft systems and can get ForeFront working
An experience that meets expectationshelpful too!!!)
(oh… and a working knowledge of PowerShell is quite
High usage (>3000 mailboxes)
99.9% uptime guarantee
£££
Free!
Fewer servers, less software, reduced maintenance
17. SO IS THERE A FUTURE FOR IN-COLLEGE IT?
Yes. Less. But still probably a lot!
PCs, printers, networking, high-end media
But different ownership models; different support
Themodels; utility computing; thin clients organisational
Cloud presents many
A data centre
development implications!
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?
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?
Lots of due diligence needed!
Legal jurisdictions? regulatory compliance; data
protection? £-$ exchange?
SLAs
Service/support; uptime guarantees (with financial
penalties?); technical support; time zones?
Partners
Trust; reliability
Single point of failure moves elsewhere
JANET connection: capacity/cost; redundancy?
19. FLUFFY WHITE CLOUDS – OPPORTUNITIES!
Expenditure management
Spending less; shared/managed services; fewer fixed
costs; elastic capacity; moving Capex → Opex;
enhanced cashflow
So why
Quality improvement wait?
Getting more service/capacity; providing better services
to our customers
can save you
Innovation and agility - this year!
money
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
20. CONCLUSION: THE BOTTOM LINE
Nick Carr was right!
May 2003
Most computing is now a
“utility” – we can’t live
So why spend any more £ (or $) than
without IT, and yet “IT
doesn’t matter”
absolutely necessary on IT?
IT infrastructure is not a
key differentiator in the
FE sector!