Campus IT Services
Tiger Team Report
April 30, 2009
Team Members
Chair - Marlene Shaver, VCER
Karen Andrews, SVCAA
Jason DeFay, VCR
Elazar Harel, ACT
David Hutches, SVCAA
Lyle Kafeder, SDSC
Deanna Richardson, CBO
Ron Spears, VCHS
Helen Szkorla, SVCAA
Jerry Wanetick, SIO
Raymond Young, VCER
Table of Contents
Executive Summary ...................................................................................................................p. 3
IT Tiger Team Objective and Process .......................................................................................p. 5
Recommendations
Part I:
Coordination and Communication..................................................................p. 7
Part II: IT Personnel....................................................................................................p. 9
Part III: Purchases and Procurement of IT Hardware and Software............................p. 13
Part IV: Server Co-Location, Space, and Energy... .....................................................p. 19
Part V:
Campus Messaging/Calendaring Services .....................................................p. 23
Part VI: Implementation of Policies, Guidelines, and Alignment with
Organizational Goals ......................................................................................p 25
Appendices
…........................................................................................................................p. 26
Appendix A: Chart on Information Technology Systems, excerpted from Building
Administrative Efficiency for UC
Appendix B: UCSD Health Sciences IT Centralization Review
Appendix C: Examples of Existing IT Support Service Recharges
Appendix D: Energy Efficient Data Centres in Further and Higher Education
Appendix E: Faronics Case Study – Howard Community College
Campus IT Services Tiger Team Report, April 30, 2009
p. 2
Executive Summary
The UC San Diego Campus Information Technology (IT) Services Tiger Team was appointed by
the campus budget office. The Team was asked to explore ways of saving costs and increasing
IT efficiency in our highly decentralized and ever-changing environment.
IT is a mission-critical activity that supports the University’s instruction, research, patient care,
and administration. The existence of a robust IT infrastructure and high-quality IT support
provides myriad benefits: 1) the ability to handle large volumes of data permits data-intensive
research; 2) improved access to information results in better decision-making; and, 3) automation
typically improves turnaround times, reduces error rates, and reduces the need for non-IT staff.
High-quality IT services are an essential element of the campus’ success, and the quality of these
services must be maintained.
Using data from a variety of sources, the Team estimates that the campus spends approximately
$150 million annually from all funding sources on IT: approximately $90 million on salaries and
benefits, $50 million on IT-related purchases, and $10 million on energy. Total campus IT
spending therefore represents roughly 6% of the $2.4 billion in total annual UC San Diego
operating expenditures.
The Team believes that significant opportunities for improvements in efficiency and potential
cost savings may exist in several specific areas: personnel; hardware/software procurement;
server co-location, space use, and energy costs; and messaging/calendaring services. While
precise estimates are necessarily conjectural, we believe overall savings on the order of $5 to $10
million annually can be achieved through a balance of immediate actions and sustained multiyear efforts. These savings would not be realized uniformly across campus, however, as
business needs and existing levels of efficiency vary.
It is important to note that ultimate success in achieving cost savings will depend on each
campus unit carefully and holistically reviewing its IT operations and expenditures, and
considering how it can maximize savings while continuing to effectively support the University’s
mission.
A brief overview of our observations and conclusions is presented here; the body of the report
contains more specific recommendations. Due to the sheer size of IT-related activity on campus,
as well as Team members’ time and knowledge constraints, many of our recommendations will
require further analysis by assigned experts and/or external consultants who can devote more
time to detailed assessments of the issues.
1) Establish a formal campus-wide IT information-sharing network with official IT
contacts in each unit. This network would provide a new locus for the ongoing
collection and communication of IT-related information (e.g., costs, current best
practices, and availability of recharge services) to everyone making resource use
decisions. Enlightened self-interest can then be expected to result in higher-quality
decisions, especially in this era of budget cuts. This network could also review reports
such as Building Administrative Efficiency at UC 1 and the recent UCSD Health Sciences
IT Centralization Review 2 to identify recommendations that should be considered for
campus-wide implementation. To be successful, this network will require dedicated staff
support, along with executive championship and backing.
1
2
See Appendix A. Also available online at http://ucadministrativeefficiencies.ucla.edu.
See Appendix B.
Campus IT Services Tiger Team Report, April 30, 2009
p. 3
2) IT units should be properly sized. Desktop support and server administration activities
are particularly amenable to consolidation of services at certain levels of the organization,
either through pooling personnel or by taking advantage of existing recharge operations.
Staffing ratios and job duties must be carefully assessed (in relation to their title code
classification) to ensure that IT support units are correctly sized for the tasks they are
assigned.
3) In the procurement arena, unit decision makers need to be able to easily access
high-quality information about current best practices for IT purchases so that they
can make better, more strategic, purchasing decisions. Specialized training and
checklists would be helpful. Careful advance planning and pre-sales vetting of proposed
hardware/software purchases by IT experts are important components of an effective
procurement process. The use of open source software should be considered as an
alternative to more costly proprietary offerings.
4) Servers should be consolidated into energy-efficient regional server rooms to the
greatest possible extent. The energy efficiency of all computing equipment should be
improved through a combination of prudent purchasing, limiting the number of devices
(servers, monitors, etc.) wherever feasible, turning off non-essential equipment overnight,
and implementing energy management software.
5) Administrative Computing and Telecommunications provides cost-effective
centralized email/messaging services; campus units should migrate to these
whenever business needs permit. Although additional resources will be required before
ACT can support all campus users, that cost is lower than the cost of maintaining
multiple individual email/messaging services. Provided that the legal concerns now
under review by UCOP General Counsel can be resolved, it may be possible in the future
to use Google email and other no-cost Google applications.
6) Establish new IT policies and guidelines, along with better cost monitoring and
auditing processes, to ensure that incentives and disincentives are correctly aligned
with organizational goals. When decision-makers do not directly incur the costs of
inefficient resource uses, for example, there is little impetus to consider those costs
during the decision-making process. One way to ensure that those costs are taken into
account would be to pass along any above-normal costs to those units who choose to
incur additional costs when viable alternatives exist.
In summary, a concerted, campus-wide effort is necessary to optimize IT-related costs.
Executive level backing and direction will be needed. With greatly enhanced effort in the
provision of information to campus units, serious reviews of staffing levels and use of personnel,
more cost effective options and controls for IT-related purchases, and reduction of energy
consumption in general, significant savings for individual units and for UC San Diego as a whole
should be achievable.
Campus IT Services Tiger Team Report, April 30, 2009
p. 4
Report
IT Tiger Team Objective
The IT Tiger Team was asked to identify and pursue options for consolidating and restructuring
IT services across many segments of the San Diego campus. The goal was to identify options
that would save costs and increase efficiency. Over time, these options could result in:

a reduced campus workforce;

improved IT services;

reduced consumption of energy;

optimal locations of equipment and services;

potential for additional consolidation and centralization over the long term; and

reallocation of resources now being used for certain IT services to other critical campus
needs.
IT Tiger Team Process
A vast array of IT equipment, software, services, and personnel have been deployed over the past
few decades in response to growing instructional, research, and administrative needs for IT
support in an ever-changing technological environment. Some IT activities are supported
centrally, while others are supported by individual units or research grants. Resource decisions
are therefore made at all levels of the organization.
Preliminary data provided to the Team made it clear that campus IT expenditures for personnel,
equipment, software, and services are significant. We estimate they amount to approximately
$150 million of the $2.4 billion expended annually for campus operations. During our earliest
discussions, we realized that substantial benefits and cost reductions could be achieved through:

improved communication and knowledge sharing;

implementation of better overall campus standards and controls;

improved efficiencies; and

enhancements of employee skill, knowledge, and job satisfaction, all of which tend to
reduce turnover.
After initial brainstorming covering the full range of campus IT services, the Team decided to
focus on several primary areas where increases in service quality and substantial cost savings
might be realized through sharing of best practices, cross-unit collaboration, streamlining,
consolidation, and implementation and enforcement of policies. These areas are:
1. Campus-wide communication and collaboration;
2. IT personnel;
3. Purchases and procurement of hardware and software;
4. Server co-location, space, and energy;
5. Messaging/calendaring services; and
6. Policies, guidelines, and alignment with organizational goals.
Campus IT Services Tiger Team Report, April 30, 2009
p. 5
The team discussed items 1 and 6 as a group. Sub teams were assigned to items 2-4 for further
information gathering and reporting, while item 5 was addressed by ACT. The report is divided
into parts that correspond to these areas.
Campus IT Services Tiger Team Report, April 30, 2009
p. 6
Part I: Coordination and Communication
Substantial improvements in coordination and communication will be necessary to achieve a
more efficient and effective distribution of IT resources, while maintaining or improving the
quality of IT services across campus. It would be beneficial for UC San Diego to create a
defined resource where decision-makers could obtain information about the availability of IT
services on campus, information about opportunities for IT-related cost savings, and advice on
the provisioning of IT services. No single employee or unit is now responsible for coordinating,
collecting and disseminating this type of information, and many individuals lack easy access to
up-to-date information about best practices that already exist on campus, or about issues they
should consider when making IT decisions. Relatively few purchasers, for example, think about
issues such as warranty limitations and vendor service levels when they purchase a computer
from a discount store in order to save a few dollars on the initial purchase price. Nor do they
consider the added costs to the campus, overall, to process these types of purchases.
We recommend the establishment of a formal campus-wide “IT Expert Network”, consisting of
official IT contacts in each significant unit. Vice Chancellors would appoint representatives to
the Network as they determine appropriate. The creation of this sustained, high-level group with
appropriate executive level backing would improve IT coordination and communication across
the “knowledge silos” inherent in the decentralized nature of the University community. It
would provide clearer channels for bidirectional discussion and dissemination of current best
practices in IT across the entire campus. These official contacts would be responsible for
ensuring other IT staff in their respective areas are included in communications and knowledge
sharing, and held accountable for carrying out recommended actions. The Network could be a
“quick win” to the campus to enable the discovery and implementation of more specific cost
saving outcomes.
The Network would be tasked with capturing, updating, and regularly communicating IT-related
information (costs, current best practices, availability of recharge services, etc.) among all
interested parties (themselves, managers, Principal Investigators, etc.). Members of the Network
would be key players in the implementation of best practices and new policies or procedures
related to IT.
Dedicated staff support to assist with project management and with tasks such as conducting
surveys, scheduling meetings, and posting information on Blink will be necessary for success,
and will require the allocation of some campus resources. Executive-level backing and direction
will also be required.
One of the first projects this group might undertake would be an inventory of IT resources at UC
San Diego (people, equipment, and technical expertise). The Team quickly discovered that these
data do not exist in consolidated form at present, but would be essential to decision-makers to
improve the efficiency of IT services. Initially, Blink may be a logical place to publish and
maintain the relevant data, but “push” strategies such as email to relevant constituencies may
also be required. Creation of a more specialized web-based resource for IT-related personnel
that would deliver policy, procedure, and information, along with required training and other
know-how, might be a longer term outcome.
Among other things, this kind of inventory would serve to increase the visibility of centrallyprovided IT services. WebCT (for course websites) is marketed to new faculty, for example, but
few staff know much about it, even if they are aware of its existence. Many employees are
Campus IT Services Tiger Team Report, April 30, 2009
p. 7
equally unaware of other IT resources such as the range of services supported by NGN (Next
Generation Network) fees, the existence of campus-wide software licensing agreements, and the
extent of IT services available through various campus recharge operations. Even individuals
who know something about these services often lack reliable data about the relative costs and
efficiencies of providing those services at various levels of the organization.
Another valuable project would be collecting and publishing solid data about “invisible” costs –
those that may not be obvious to decision-makers at the time of the decision. The cost to the
campus of running a desktop computer 24 hours per day, for example, has no direct impact on
the end-user or their unit. Similarly, employees who purchase software on their personal credit
cards and subsequently seek reimbursement from the University are usually completely unaware
of the higher-than-usual processing costs incurred for that transaction. 3 At present, little
information is available about those costs, and there is little connection between the decisions
people make about IT and the consequences of those decisions. Merely educating people about
these “invisible” costs can change behavior in many instances.
With proper support, the IT Expert Network could also coordinate other IT-related activities.
One “quick win” would be to make power management software freely available throughout the
campus, along with a suggested implementation process. Longer term projects could identify
new campus-wide software licensing opportunities, synchronize a process to plan for coordinated
campus-wide hardware purchases, facilitate inter-unit equipment transfers, and review reports
such as Building Administrative Efficiency at UC 4 and the recent UCSD Health Sciences IT
Centralization Review 5 to identify recommendations that should be considered for campus-wide
implementation.
3
Research conducted by Huron Consulting for UC SAN DIEGO indicates that the additional cost of processing a
purchasing transaction outside of Marketplace is between $5 and $115 per transaction, depending on the mechanism
used.
4
See Appendix A. Also available online at http://ucadministrativeefficiencies.ucla.edu.
5
See Appendix B.
Campus IT Services Tiger Team Report, April 30, 2009
p. 8
Part II: IT Personnel
Background
UC San Diego currently employs over 1,000 people in information technology at a total annual
payroll cost of roughly $90 million. As shown in the table below, approximately 25% of this
activity ($24 million and over 250 FTE) is direct-charged to extramural funding; the remainder
comes from other sources. Increasing IT personnel efficiencies within and across units could
therefore yield significant benefits. Reliable estimates of potential savings in any particular area
cannot be determined from the limited data 6 we were able to obtain within the short timeframe
allotted to this study. That said, the estimate is likely to be reasonable, and achieving only a 5%
reduction in the total amount spent on IT-related payroll costs over time would translate into $4.5
million saved annually.
Technical Salary & Benefit Costs & FTE for Fiscal Year 2008
Total Salary & Benefits by Funding Source Type and Title Series
Funding Source
General Funds
Other Core
Contracts & Grants
Auxiliary & Self-Supporting
Medical Center
Other
TOTALb)
Prog/Analyst
$20,007,350
7,245,331
23,024,313
13,992,390
7,882,757
7,942,520
$80,094,662
Resource Spec
$1,387666
677,410
766,768
1,538,999
242,090
243,867
$4,856,801
Resource Mgr
$1,507,129
462,091
193,800
638,639
377,768
251,672
$3,431,100
Other Seriesa)
$424,007
0
0
8,159
559,768
14,142
$1,006,075
TOTALb)
$23,326,153
8,384,833
23,984,881
16,178,188
9,062,383
8,452,201
$89,388,638
Total FTE by Funding Source Type and Title Series
Funding Source
General Funds
Other Core
Contracts & Grants
Auxiliary & Self-Supporting
Medical Center
Other
TOTALb)
Prog/Analyst
218
88
255
160
83
89
892
Resource Spec
25
12
14
27
4
4
86
Resource Mgr
12
3
1
6
3
2
28
Other Seriesa)
7
0
0
0
10
0
17
TOTALb)
261
103
270
193
100
95
1,023
a) Computer Operators and Data Processing/Production Coordinators.
b) Totals may not appear to add up correctly due to rounding error.
Recommendations
1. Size IT Units Appropriately
There is considerable potential for realizing efficiencies through properly sizing IT service units.
Organizational units with very small numbers of IT staff (3 or fewer) are likely to suffer from
some inherent inefficiencies. A typical unit requires IT support in several different areas:
desktop support; web sites; databases; application programming; system administration; local
network management; access management (e.g., DSA activities); and, in some cases, server and
6
Title code and funding source data are relatively easy to obtain, but do not identify the types of IT support
provided by a given individual.
Campus IT Services Tiger Team Report, April 30, 2009
p. 9
database administration. When a handful of individuals must cover all of these IT functions,
they may not be able to develop the skill sets and technical sophistication that can increase their
effectiveness. This approach is economically inefficient in many instances, since an organization
must typically pay for an individual’s highest skill set even if they spend considerable time
performing lower level tasks.
The chart below illustrates the possible magnitude of the issue. Over 70 units at UC San Diego
have three or fewer IT support staff, and more than 100 units appear to have no technical staff.
Although some of these units are presumably already taking advantage of some sort of resource
pooling or IT recharge service, there may still be substantial opportunity for improvement.
There are two areas where significant consolidation could occur: desktop support and server
administration. Desktop support typically encompasses activities in standard operating systems,
application support, email support, network connectivity support, and shared printing. Server
administration activities usually include administering shared file servers, web servers, email
servers, and application servers. Because the skills and knowledge of personnel in these jobs
would tend to be universally applicable across the campus, careful consideration should be given
to pooling and sharing them in a more centralized manner. Consolidation of these services at the
right level of the organization could result in both cost savings and increases in service quality.
A review of the literature shows that a single desktop support staff person can support between
50 and 100 customers. 7 Units with fewer than 100 employees requiring IT support could
therefore benefit considerably from consolidating the desktop support function.
Additional economies of scale can be realized by adopting standardized platforms and software,
since an area with a homogeneous IT environment will require fewer desktop support staff than
one with a highly diverse IT environment.
It is important to recognize that some areas may prove to be understaffed with regard to IT
support. Again, more detailed data will be required to correctly assess these situations.
7
http://www.coastaltech.com/hd-staff.htm, http://rms.net/lc_faq_supp.htm, and
http://www.afcom.com/The_Association/ResourceCenter/Data_Center_Management/Help_Desk_Staffing.asp
discuss standard desktop support staffing ratios.
Campus IT Services Tiger Team Report, April 30, 2009
p. 10
2. Consolidate IT Personnel and Share Costs
One successful model for consolidation is the simple pooling of resources within a building
and/or a geographic area, or among related organizational units. The Chancellor’s complex
desktop support group is an example of this. The units housed in the Chancellor’s complex
negotiated an agreement amongst themselves to pool their FTE resources into a single unit
(overseen by the VCBA) that provides desktop support for all the units. Contributions ranged
from 1 – 3 FTE.
Similarly, UCLA has used a model where they consolidate much of their IT support at the
Divisional level. This approach works well as long as the service is of high quality and is
monitored to ensure continued success. If service levels erode, however, or if service providers
appear to lack sufficient technical sophistication, customer departments typically begin to hire
more of their own IT staff.
While it is important to move toward a prudent balance of centralized and decentralized services,
the Team believes that any significant consolidation of IT personnel is likely to be a longer-term
issue, requiring a great deal more in-depth analysis. The review, which could be undertaken by
the “IT Expert Network” noted above, would include obtaining an understanding of the business
functions performed in IT units across the campus, and inventorying which of those are general
needs or services that all units require, versus specialized needs or services. One possible model
would be to redeploy existing personnel who perform a common set of tasks and functions into
service “clusters” that would serve multiple units; specialized personnel would remain in their
individual units to provide specialized support.
3. Use Recharge Units
Use of existing recharge units – or creating new ones – may be another way to consolidate
personnel and apportion costs to achieve staffing efficiencies. At present, the IOD (Integrative
Oceanographic Division), SDSC (San Diego Supercomputer Center), and JSOE (Jacobs School
of Engineering) all have successful desktop support recharge models. Their coverage varies
slightly 8, but the basic concept is the same: users agree to a monthly charge for a given package
of services. The charges are assessed as a fixed “head tax” or levied based on FTE, depending
upon how the units are structured and what seems equitable. The campus may be able to deploy
this type of model across very large divisions, or even across entire Vice Chancellor areas.
In addition to the monetary benefits that can accrue from consolidating IT operations in this
fashion, personnel in larger units are likely to be able to acquire greater skill and knowledge in
various areas of IT, thus improving their value to the University as well as their personal job
satisfaction. This tends to lead to lower turnover rates, thus saving the campus money in the
form of less recruitment and training.
4. Consolidate Server System Administration
Another area that offers some promise for personnel consolidation is server maintenance. Ratios
vary significantly in the literature with regards to ideal staffing ratios. This is because there are a
very large number of factors involved, including the level of automation, whether or not
reference systems are employed, and whether or not the physical number of servers is limited by
the use of virtual servers. In organizations that make poor use of tools and virtual servers, ratios
can be as low as one system administrator to 10 or fewer servers. In organizations that are
8
See Appendix C for details.
Campus IT Services Tiger Team Report, April 30, 2009
p. 11
highly automated and make good use of tools, ratios can be as high as one system administrator
to 50 servers. 9
The Team believes substantial personnel savings could be achieved by identifying smaller
inefficient IT units, determining their relative strengths and weaknesses, and either merging
those units into larger IT service units or contracting out to recharge units for those services. To
be successful, this process would need to be carefully managed, probably with leadership from
the divisional or Vice Chancellorial level. These offices are presumably at a level within the
organizational hierarchy where they have both a reasonably good view of what resources are
available campus-wide and a good understanding of the needs of the units reporting to them.
Consolidating server system administration could also reduce the number of servers, with
attendant reductions in energy, space, and equipment acquisition costs.
9
Information about determining appropriate server support staffing ratios in various environments is available at:
http://www.pti-consulting.com/Samples/Snohomish%20County%20-%20Technology%20Benchmarking%20Memo.pdf and
http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2846915-2,00.html
Campus IT Services Tiger Team Report, April 30, 2009
p. 12
Part III: Purchases and Procurement of Hardware and Software
Background
Given available IFIS data, the Team estimates that UC San Diego spends approximately $45 to
$50 million annually on IT hardware and software. 10 Direct charges to contract and grant funds
represent about 25% of the total amount. The campus already has a wealth of IT purchasingrelated resources, and there is little need for the invention of new processes or opportunities.
What is primarily required is the development of a robust infrastructure, plus control and
compliance processes, to effectively communicate and utilize the existing resources. The overall
savings that could be achieved with better controls, oversight and information are not reliably
known, but even a reduction of 5% per annum would generate more than $2 million of savings.
Recommendations
1. Appoint an Official to the IT Expert Network in Each Unit
In the context of the new Roles system, each significant unit should be required to designate an
official that would be appointed to the “IT Expert Network” outlined above. These individuals
would also serve as the unit’s primary source of expert advice on IT issues. Ideally, persons in
the units with authority to purchase goods and services would be required to consult with these
individuals before making IT-related purchases, particularly in those cases where an existing
configuration and its appropriate use are not already documented. To ensure consistency, some
manner of common training may be required of officially-designated IT Network appointees.
2. Provide IT Purchasing Training and Checklists
Personnel at all levels would benefit from improved access to the latest policies, procedures, and
best practices associated with IT procurement.
An “IT Purchasing Checklist” (similar in concept to the existing “New Employee Checklist”)
should be created and made available via:



the “IT Expert Network” described above;
a broader Blink portal with an inventory of all information, resources, topics, and expert
advice on IT-related issues; and
a link embedded in campus purchasing processes at the appropriate point prior to
purchase completion.
In addition, regular, specialized training should be required for designated departmental IT
buyers. This would provide uniform education for those individuals and make them aware of the
information resources and expert advice available on an ongoing basis from the campus-wide
“IT Expert Network”. Buyers should then be held accountable for adherence to UC San Diego
policies, procedures, or best practices related to IT procurement.
3. Improve IT Purchasing and Procurement Decisions
There are many opportunities to create both short- and long-term cost efficiencies by improving
the quality of the decisions that are made about IT purchases. In a highly decentralized
environment, long-term planning for procurement sometimes gets short shrift, and individual IT
sourcing decisions can easily lead to ineffective choices about sources (vendors), products (type,
10
This figure excludes High Performance Computing (HPC) purchases at SDSC.
Campus IT Services Tiger Team Report, April 30, 2009
p. 13
brand, configuration, compatibility), and total cost of ownership (shipping, warranty, return
policy, workmanship, personal travel time, sustainability, energy efficiency, etc.). Although the
actual impact of poor decision-making is difficult to determine precisely, the result may be
ineffective capital expenditures and long-term operational costs that could have been avoided.
Individuals and units making IT-related purchases must have timely and appropriate information
at their disposal in order to make cost effective decisions.
At present, the campus provides minimal resources, or oversight, for planning and executing IT
purchases. Information about what to buy, how to buy it, how to configure it, and whether or not
it will effectively meet a purchaser's needs has historically been ad hoc, or not readily or
uniformly available. Even somewhat "official" information is not always current. Although
purchasing tools and business processes are already available to campus consumers, some
are primarily designed for "experts" rather than "average" users. Mechanisms can and do exist to
enable significant savings, but these will not be used routinely unless they are easily and broadly
accessible.
There is no oversight authority, review, or audit process for IT procurement, and the current
decentralized procurement decision-making process incurs avoidable costs that, while difficult to
quantify without further investigation, are almost certainly significant. The procurement process
must incorporate essential requirements, policies, limits, and – in some instances – prohibitions.
The Procurement and Contracts Division of Business & Financial Services (BFS) can provide
excellent insight about where better regulation could provide cost savings to the campus overall.
It is important to note that the specific examples cited below represent current best practices to
achieve cost savings, and that the rapidly changing nature of IT means that some of these
recommendations will age better than others. Because of this dynamism, we reiterate that the
creation of a robust coordination and communications infrastructure is essential to ensure the
timely dissemination of new information as it becomes available, and the expiration of stale
information when it is no longer relevant. It is also important to note that high-quality decisions
cannot be made in a vacuum; the caution statements that appear below call out some of the
critical considerations.
Clients (desktops, laptops, etc.)
Units must think strategically about purchases and hardware replacement cycles. Modern
computers can operate well for 4-6 years (or even longer) before becoming obsolete as a result of
other technological trends. Existing systems can retain their usefulness via inexpensive,
incremental component upgrades (memory, disk, etc.) versus wholesale replacement. LCD
monitors, (which have an average life of about 7 years) should not automatically be replaced
when new computers are purchased.
Purchases should always be made with long-term use in mind. Will a hardware platform still be
viable 4-6 years from now? Is there enough cost effective expansion capacity to meet future
needs? Will spending slightly more now result in significant cost savings over the long term?
Equipment should be reused whenever possible, since systems no longer appropriate for one type
of activity may be fully adequate for another. For example: systems that no longer meet the
needs of "power users" can be migrated to users with more modest requirements; older desktop
systems inadequate to run Windows Vista or Windows 7 may be repurposed as Linux
workstations in a research lab, or as thin client hosts. New mechanisms to facilitate the transfer
of still-usable equipment from one unit to another should be developed to allow equipment that
cannot be reused within the original unit to be redeployed elsewhere on campus. Integrate into
Campus IT Services Tiger Team Report, April 30, 2009
p. 14
the purchasing process (e.g., Marketplace) information about pools of "pre-owned" systems that
may now be going to Surplus Sales or simply languishing somewhere, either unused or underused. 11
UC San Diego should consider implementing a "one person, one device" model in which each
individual has only one type of computing system, 12 and the provision of specialized equipment
(oversize or additional monitors, personal printers, etc.) is governed by demonstrated business
needs. To avoid “over-buying” and to minimize energy consumption, computing power should
be carefully considered and matched to technically accurate estimates of current and future
computing requirements. Caution: Decisions in this area must be made holistically; it is
important to balance energy efficiency, initial purchase costs, long-term reliability, ergonomic
implications, systems management requirements, security concerns, etc. Research requirements
must also be taken into account where appropriate.
Servers
Wherever feasible, units should use campus-wide, NGN-funded resources such as centralized
email, calendaring, and web content management systems to reduce the need for departmental
hardware, software, and FTE resources. Caution: Local IT resources will still be required to
support the client-side component of centrally-provided services; units must plan accordingly.
Energy efficient servers using low power memory and processor technologies should be
purchased whenever possible. Consolidating multiple services on a small number of servers is
more efficient than a one service per server model. Similarly, virtualization technologies, in
which multiple, independent operating systems all run on the same physical hardware, can result
in improved server utilization. Virtual hosting environments already exist on campus, and units
can minimize their equipment and management costs by taking advantage these when
appropriate. Caution: Determining when virtualization and service consolidations are
appropriate requires expert advice and a full understanding of the environment in which they will
be deployed. An effective campus-wide IT information sharing infrastructure could both
communicate the availability of these kinds of resources and provide expert advice.
Software Purchases and Licenses
Units should obtain software via negotiated licensing agreements whenever suitable agreements
exist. Units that make significant use of Microsoft and/or Adobe products, for example, would
acquire that software through the FTE-based Microsoft Campus Agreement and/or Adobe
Acrobat Term Site License.
The first step in any software purchasing decision should be to check with campus Software
Distribution 13 to see if a product is covered under an existing agreement. Incorporating this step
will reduce costs for already-licensed software, while effectively communicating user
community interest in software that might be suitable for future site licensing or volume
discounts.
11
In addition to wasting energy, underutilized and ill-maintained systems that are connected to the campus network
pose a significant security risk for the campus: unpatched machines are easy prey for hackers.
12
Personnel whose duties primarily involve desk work would use desktop systems (small form factor, ultra small
form factor, all-in-one). Personnel whose duties require substantial mobility would use laptop systems, plus
docking stations and external keyboards and monitors if required by ergonomic and business process factors.
13
http://software.ucsd.edu or software@ucsd.edu
Campus IT Services Tiger Team Report, April 30, 2009
p. 15
Concurrent licensing models, which allow units to buy only the number of licenses likely to be
used simultaneously instead of buying one license for each user, should be used whenever they
are cost-effective. Academic Computing Services (ACS) Software Distribution already operates
concurrent license servers for most common software products. Caution: While concurrent
licensing usually results in lower per seat costs, technical expertise is often required on both the
server and client side.
The campus should aggressively pursue a project to standardize on one software product among
a family of similar products. For example, choose one PC anti-virus product for use across
campus, and block the use of licensing agreements for all others. Such standardization results in
lower administrative overhead and systems support cost, and by consolidating the user
community into a larger volume purchasing block, improves the University’s leverage in the
negotiation of software licensing fees.
Recommendations for appropriate and available Open Source Software (OSS) alternatives to
commercial software should be broadly disseminated. Ideally, these recommendations, along
with pointers to additional information (web sites, discussion forums, campus experts, etc.),
would be integrated into the purchasing process. 14
Software Development
Units should be discouraged from local software development, unless existing tools
demonstrably fail to meet basic business process requirements. Using existing tools may require
some changes to a unit’s business processes, but making those changes will almost always be
significantly less expensive than developing and maintaining in-house tools. All departments
should be encouraged to use the free and low cost business support services available on campus.
As an example, a goal should be to minimize or eliminate "shadow systems" that largely
duplicate the functionality of systems in the Link family of applications. 15 For instructional
users, Academic Computing Services 16 provides free web hosting and access to a Learning
Management System. Faculty and academic staff should become familiar with services
described in the Faculty Guide to Academic Information Technology. 17 Caution: The
motivation to build in-house systems is correlated with a perception on the part of IT
professionals and/or a user community that centralized services providers are not sufficiently
responsive to their needs. In a University environment, the desire for uniformity and consistency
common in a business computing environment must be balanced with the innovative nature of
the academic enterprise.
Free or low cost “Software as a Service” (SAAS) and/or OSS (Open Source Software)
alternatives should be used in lieu of purchasing or developing local software systems. For
example, SurveyMonkey 18 is a free survey tool that provides excellent functionality and avoids
the costs of custom development. Doodle 19 is a free tool for scheduling an event when
14
UCLA has been conducting a comprehensive and thorough study of the efficacy of moving toward large scale
deployment of OSS to replace proprietary software for functions such as office suites, collaboration tools, etc. A
final report should be available in the near future, and their recommendations should be carefully considered.
15
http://blink.ucsd.edu/go/linkfamily
16
http://www-acs.ucsd.edu
17
http://www.libraries.ucsd.edu/facguideait
18
http://www.surveymonkey.com
19
http://www.doodle.com
Campus IT Services Tiger Team Report, April 30, 2009
p. 16
participants do not have access to a common calendaring system; it is ideal for the distributed
collaborations common in academia.
Pre-Purchase Vetting of IT Configurations
IT-related procurements should be vetted before purchase by assigned IT experts to eliminate
flawed orders, minimize customization, and reduce costs. Potential configurations should be
evaluated to ensure that they meet the requirements of the environment in which they will be
deployed. Easily-accessible resources for "pre-sales/pre-sourcing" consultation will help ensure
that configurations to be purchased will ultimately meet the technical needs of the users and the
cost containment needs of the University. Leadership at the VC level is required in order to
ensure that this consultation occurs, as existing habits are difficult to change, and without clear
and consistently enforced directives, inertia and political considerations will prevail.
Marketplace
Marketplace 20 is conceptually the right tool for the campus to implement as a central purchasing
resource. It continues to be developed, and should be provided the resources to achieve that
development more rapidly. Once fully developed, it must become THE required tool to be used
as the first and primary choice for all IT purchases. Marketplace can intuitively "guide"
shoppers to the best source of products to meet their needs. Its cost-effective processing
incorporates an approval process with automatic routing, tracking, full control, and
accountability, an ordering process that can automatically transmit purchase orders to suppliers,
and a payment process that allows index assignment, split-funding, and automatic invoice
settlement.
For Marketplace to be effective, however, it must be responsive to customer feedback regarding
items and configurations not currently available through Marketplace. It must also address the
issue of customer-identified “deals” that seem to be better than those available in Marketplace,
perhaps by sending appropriate explanatory or corrective information back to the customer.
Annual Planning for IT-Related Purchases
The campus should develop and phase in an annual IT equipment acquisition planning process
that would involve all campus units, including those in Health Sciences and Marine Sciences.
Encourage bulk purchases of standard IT equipment configurations at the campus level (or
possibly the system-wide level); this could significantly reduce per unit costs by leveraging UC’s
purchasing power. Units would obviously need advance notice of the process, which could be
coordinated through the IT Network described above.
A similar annual campus-wide planning process for software needs should also be put in place.
IT-Related Purchasing Controls and Limits
UC San Diego needs to create and implement more stringent campus-wide policies pertaining to
IT purchases. Consideration should be given to the possibility of requiring pre-authorization of
certain IT-related purchases. These controls are important for successful implementation of not
20
Throughout this report, we use “Marketplace” to refer to the full-service version, which provides a conduit for
purchasing from multiple vendors, rather than to “Marketplace Preview”, which was limited in scope.
Campus IT Services Tiger Team Report, April 30, 2009
p. 17
only the recommendations laid out in this report, but also the sustainability policies established
by the UC Office of the President. 21
The Express Card can be an effective tool for procuring IT-related items when those items are
not available through Marketplace, but Express Card holders should be specifically trained on
best practices for IT procurement. Transactional reporting tools should be developed to allow
both individual units and central offices to more effectively monitor IT-related purchases on
Express Cards.
The ability to obtain reimbursement for IT purchases made on personal funds should be strictly
limited. Allowing personal reimbursements provides a means of circumventing the above
recommendations; it also costs the campus approximately $75 for each reimbursement that must
be separately processed. Serious consideration should be given to assessing a “processing
surcharge” when the reimbursement mechanism is used, as a disincentive to making purchases
outside the most cost effective means available to the campus.
21
http://www.ucop.edu/purchserv/rfp/empuniform/exhibitd.pdf
Campus IT Services Tiger Team Report, April 30, 2009
p. 18
Part IV: Server Co-Location, Space, and Energy
Background
The need for facilities to support computing and data intensive research in higher education is
steadily increasing. In particular, demand from faculty in disciplines that have not traditionally
been heavy users of computational resources – life sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities
– has increased dramatically, with ever smaller organizational units running their own server
facilities. Furthermore, the costs related to powering and cooling IT equipment over a 3-year
period is typically 2 to 5 times more than the initial purchase cost, and equipment used for
intensive research computing has particularly high power and cooling needs. Institutions will
need to look at strategic approaches across their entire organizations in order to achieve savings
and become both cost effective and sustainable.22
Server-based computational, messaging, storage, and security systems comprise a significant and
increasing component of UC San Diego’s energy costs. However, in the absence of detailed
metering data, it is not possible to obtain exact figures on energy expenditures related to campus
IT operations. Based on the rule of thumb cited above and consultation with campus experts, it
is reasonable to suppose that all of the campus computing-related power and cooling costs could
represent at least 15% of the overall campus costs for energy use, or $10 million of the
approximately $70 million expended annually on campus utilities.
Over the years, server room provisioning has been handled on an ad hoc basis, and certainly
without any overarching campus review or plan. The result has been the creation of many
smaller, less efficient rooms in both energy and space. A more coherent plan to accommodate
large computing systems should entail the use of current server room space, centralized
collocation facilities such as SDSC, or regional server rooms; retrofitting existing space;
constructing new facilities; or procuring modular server facilities (e.g., Sun Modular
Datacenters). The design of server room space has a significant impact on overall energy
efficiency: two facilities housing essentially the same set of equipment can have very different
energy bills based on how they are configured.
If we assume a campus average of 1.5 devices per employee, the number of computing devices
in use would exceed 22,000, and saving even a small dollar amount per piece of equipment could
generate significant savings for the campus. Some analyses suggest that instituting better energy
management practices across all units can cut the cost of IT-related energy use by 25% or
more; 23 this could save approximately $2.5 million annually, using the estimated IT-related
energy costs noted above.
Best practices relating to energy consumption of technology equipment and energy saving
opportunities should be – but are not - widely promulgated to the campus community. The
publication and maintenance of this type of information could be assigned to the “IT Expert
22
A UC San Diego working group has produced a draft report on the implications and implementation of a campus
research cyberinfrastructure that includes information about how economies of scale and centrally managed services
can be leveraged to provide services to the entire campus. While the implementation details are specific to the needs
of UC San Diego’s research community, the relevant reasoning is also likely to apply to many production IT
activities.
23
P. James & L. Hopkinson, Energy Efficient Data Centres in Further and Higher Education (draft), SustainIT, UK
Centre for Economic and Environmental Development, January 2009; http://www.susteit.org.uk/uploads/DOCS/39data_centres_v4_7_1_09.doc. Also provided as Appendix D.
Campus IT Services Tiger Team Report, April 30, 2009
p. 19
Network” described in Part I of this report.
Recommendations
1. Consolidate Server Locations
The campus should relocate as many servers as possible into centralized, regional server rooms
on campus and at the Medical Centers within the next 1-2 years. In order to accomplish this
task, the following will need to occur:
 Perform a complete inventory of server locations across campus.
 Make use of any existing, efficient server room facilities with spare capacity (e.g.,
SDSC).


Develop plans for shared, regional server rooms to accommodate growth.
Develop funding models that make housing equipment in regional server facilities –
instead of in existing local alternatives – cost neutral to the server owner.


As a general rule, prohibit the construction of small, inefficient satellite server rooms.
Modify UC San Diego’s current Server Room Standards to specify minimum room
size and energy efficiency compliance limits.

Require campus-level approval and review of design specifications for all server
room renovation projects to ensure that they meet appropriate standards for rack
systems, electrical, cooling, networking systems, and physical security.

When units choose to operate local server rooms that do not meet campus energy
standards in lieu of using available space in server rooms that do meet those
standards, require those units to pay for utilities and maintenance costs that exceed
the per unit value typically incurred by facilities that adhere to the server room
standard.

Potential Savings and Opportunities
There are an estimated 10,000 servers, primarily in cluster configurations, in use for
research computing on campus, many of which are housed in small and/or inefficient
server rooms. Based on EPA energy reduction guidelines, relocating 75% of these
machines into more energy efficient server rooms could reduce cooling costs enough
to save up to $1 million annually.

Well-managed server rooms can generate additional energy savings through
operational policies such as consolidating servers, enforcing equipment replacement
policies for old, inefficient or underused equipment, and identifying which new
technologies and energy-efficient systems should be used as replacements.

Taking advantage of the economies of scale available in large, regional facilities will
ultimately result in savings that can be used to cover a significant component of the
capital and operating expenditures of such facilities.

Geographically diverse, regional server rooms could also provide opportunities for
redundant services and data storage, potentially reducing expenditures to outside
storage vendors.
Campus IT Services Tiger Team Report, April 30, 2009
p. 20

Reconfiguration of existing space into server rooms is costly, and results in the loss of
space that would otherwise be available for core instruction and research functions.
At an average cost of $845/asf, renovation of space to accommodate 100 racks costs
nearly $3.5 million and requires approximately 4,000 ASF with a value of nearly $2.5
million. 24
Actual Server Room Renovation Costs
Location
ASF
Total Cost
Cost/ASF
AP&M 5301
521
$620,000
$1,190
Urey Hall 6124
1,000
$510,000
$510
BSB 1000B
1,000
$1,000,000
$1,000
Average Renovation Cost per ASF: $845
2. Improve Energy Efficiency
Improvements in energy efficiency – by using equipment that consumes less power, by sharing
equipment, and by using equipment to its full capacity, for example – yields cost savings. Ways
to improve energy efficiency include:
 Strongly encourage the adoption of voluntary energy saving habits such as those
recently circulated by UC San Diego’s Facilities Management group.

Provide no cost workstation energy management software, such as Faronics 25to all
campus units and strongly encourage its deployment, reducing computer energy
consumption based on user activity level and decreasing utility costs without
disrupting either end-users or IT personnel.

Work with system administrators to ensure and certify that their desktop computer
management practices are in line with energy savings measures.

Reduce the inventory of computing equipment by performing careful assessments of
the business needs for “duplicate” equipment such as multiple monitors or standalone printers for individual staff.

Help units and end-users select equipment that is appropriately sized for actual
business process demands, and to consider options that consume less energy, such as
laptops or thin client technologies.

Encourage the use of server virtualization where appropriate. Locating servers in
shared regional centers will facilitate this practice. Develop a hosted virtual server
commodity market.
Potential Savings and Opportunities
 The campus’ Energy/Utilities Manager estimates that turning off a typical Windows
desktop system overnight yields annual savings of 520.78 lbs of CO2 and $69.17.

24
25
The use of PC energy management software is estimated to save between $16 and
$24 annually per workstation. Installing that software on 10,000 workstations across
The average cost of construction of two lab buildings in 08/09 was $621/asf. 4,000 asf x $621/asf = $2,404,000.
See Appendix E for a case study of implementation of this product at Howard Community College.
Campus IT Services Tiger Team Report, April 30, 2009
p. 21

campus would therefore generate between $160,000 and $240,000 in annual
savings. 26 The Team is not recommending any particular software, as that decision
should be investigated and determined by a campus procurement process. By way of
example, however, information on Faronics Power Save software and a case study of
its implementation are included as Appendix D of this report.
In a hypothetical unit of 100 faculty and staff with one server room of 140 square
feet, implementing significant energy savings measures relating to IT technologies,
principally through changing the behavior of personnel, reducing equipment
inventory and using equipment with lower power demands as shown in the table
below, could save as much as $13,000 annually over all fund sources. Extrapolating
these potential savings to a workforce of 15,000 employees across campus shows that
up to $2 million annually could be saved on energy costs alone. (This assumes that
the existing level of energy consumption is high and compares it with a best-case
scenario of realizable savings.)
Potential Energy Savings in a Hypothetical 100-Person Unit
Current “Less Efficient” Unit
How
Many
Servers
10
Desktops/laptops 150
Printers
20
Monitors
150
Copiers
4
TOTAL
334
Electricity
(KwH)
66,680
77,963
4,270
44,280
3,809
197,002
Energy
Cost
$5,201
6,081
333
3,454
297
$15,366
Potential “More Efficient” Unit
How
Many
5
100
10
100
2
217
Electricity
(KwH)
18,068
4,600
546
3,600
1,905
28,719
Energy
Cost
$1,409
359
43
281
149
$2,241

Concurrent savings from ultimately purchasing fewer devices could be as much as
$20,000 for the hypothetical unit, or as much as $3 million annually for the entire
campus.

Taking advantage of virtualization techniques to reduce the number of servers on
campus can reduce acquisition costs for users while also saving the campus money
through reduced energy consumption.
26
It is assumed that at least 10,000 of the workstations on campus do not yet have such software installed and/or are
not being regularly turned off when not in use.
Campus IT Services Tiger Team Report, April 30, 2009
p. 22
Part V: Campus Messaging/Calendaring Services
Background
Many units individually manage their own messaging/calendaring services at present. A variety
of applications are in use across the campus and there is no stated campus standard. It is
estimated that there are approximately 450 servers deployed on the campus for email/calendaring
needs, and 45 FTE involved as the system administrators for such needs. Maintaining these
decentralized services and servers costs UC San Diego as much as $4 million annually. (Most of
these savings have probably been included in one of the estimates of potential savings that could
be achieved in the other areas of this report, including personnel, procurement and energy).
In the mid-1990s, ACS/Network Operations offered a centralized service called Popmail
(popmail.ucsd.edu). Popmail was so under-funded and under-staffed that it couldn’t provide the
reliability needed by most campus users. As a result, many units set up their own email servers.
There are now many robust (and well-managed) messaging environments in individual units that
dedicate significant staffing and capital to them. The cost of a robust unit-level messaging
environment (including hardware, software, service contracts and personnel) is estimated to
range between $25-$200/customer/year, versus approximately $17/customer/year for the service
centrally maintained by ACT. NGN charges include the ACT-managed messaging services, so
there is no additional cost to units that use them.
Additionally, there are many small unmanaged email servers that exist throughout the
University. These servers are inexpensive for the unit and the end-user (because they are
unmanaged), but incur significant costs for the University when ACT must troubleshoot service
problems or respond to security events.
Current Availability of Campus-Wide Services
In late 2007, ACT provided NGN funding and support to build a robust Enterprise email system
for the campus. ACT also formed a focus group of twenty IT representatives from all VC areas
to define the basic requirements of the system. The new system, mail.ucsd.edu, was put into
production in July 2008, and over 12,000 staff and faculty use it at present. The number of users
is projected to grow to over 20,000 by July 2009.
This ACT central messaging service is a fault-tolerant Microsoft Exchange implementation that
provides email, contacts, and calendaring through a Microsoft client or a Web portal. Email can
be accessed using a wide range of clients (Thunderbird, Outlook, Mac Mail, etc.) and operating
systems. The mailboxes are administratively controlled by the unit, but physically managed by
ACT. The messaging infrastructure can withstand multiple hardware and software failures
without any outage, mail delay, or loss.
ACT provides full support to system administrators, who in turn support the customers in their
individual units. ACT’s support includes setting up unit-controllable resources within the
environment and troubleshooting complex problems. No desktop or end-user support is included
in the central messaging service; end-user support continues to be provided at the unit level or
through other campus recharge services such as ACS/Desktop Support (http://desktop.ucsd.edu).
Limited telephone support is provided under NGN funding and is also available through the ACT
Help Desk.
Campus IT Services Tiger Team Report, April 30, 2009
p. 23
Recommendation
All units should migrate to ACT services for their centralized email/messaging environments
unless they have business needs that cannot be met by the technology in use (e.g., a need for
more space for email than Microsoft Exchange can handle well). This would permit the
elimination or consolidation of many of the servers that operate for these purposes, along with
the elimination or consolidation of system administration personnel, and result in associated cost
reductions in individual units. This type of migration would take some months to complete.
At present staffing levels, ACT will soon reach the limit in its ability to handle this service for
the entire campus. ACT would therefore require an infusion of some budgetary resources or an
increase in the NGN fee. Once fully implemented, estimated overall annual cost savings to the
campus in terms of hardware, software, service contracts and personnel, net of the increase
needed to ACT, could be as much as $3 million. Again, most of these savings would overlap
with savings described in other sections of this report.
Other Considerations
ACT is actively investigating a no-cost, UC-wide contract with Google for the outsourcing of
email and use of other Google Apps services. Although the cost and quality of these services are
attractive, there currently are some legal concerns with how and where University data would be
stored and accessed. UCOP General Counsel is reviewing these concerns. It is likely that the
University will be able to use Gmail in some capacity in the future.
When robust and cost-effective external tools exist that meet our business needs, UC San Diego
should consider using these in lieu of developing in-house solutions or paying large sums for
proprietary software.
Campus IT Services Tiger Team Report, April 30, 2009
p. 24
Part VI: Implementation of Policies, Guidelines, and Alignment
with Organizational Goals
Background
IT expenditures are funded from a variety of sources, and allow us to perform a very broad
spectrum of activities in support of the University’s mission of research, instruction, public
service, and patient care. The default approach should be to adopt and enforce a set of standard
policies and practices related to IT procurements, construction, and personnel/hiring practices.
During implementation of any of the Team’s recommendations, it will be vital to acknowledge
and allow for some differences in business needs among campus units, as well as to avoid
unintended consequences that undermine the original goals of cost savings and efficiencies.
Thus, there may be business reasons for granting exceptions to standard polices and practices in
some instances.
In order to make optimum decisions, units must carefully balance issues such as energy
efficiency, sustainability, ergonomics, security, compatibility, acquisition costs, and ongoing
maintenance/repair costs. The availability of the “IT Expert Network” noted above would
provide unit decision-makers with a resource to review critical decisions on IT-related matters.
Even with additional information being provided to IT decision makers and a holistic review at
each unit level, the campus may be too decentralized and the IT options too numerous to
effectively self-regulate. Furthermore, existing incentives – and disincentives – sometimes
encourage behavior that may not be in the best long-term interest of the institution.
Recommendation
UC San Diego should consider establishing new IT policies and guidelines, along with better
expenditure monitoring and auditing processes, to ensure that incentives and disincentives are
correctly aligned with organizational goals for savings and efficiencies. When decision-makers
do not directly incur the expense of inefficient use of resources, for example, there is little
impetus to consider the impact to the campus overall when making decisions. One way to ensure
that the campus-wide expense is taken into account would be to charge any above-normal costs
to units that continue to incur them if other viable, less expensive alternatives exist.
Determination and deployment of new IT policies, guidelines, and monitoring requirements, as
well as the costs versus benefits of such, could be overseen by the previously described IT
Expert Network. The Network would require the expertise of the responsible process owners
and service providers, such as campus procurement and disbursements.
Campus IT Services Tiger Team Report, April 30, 2009
p. 25
APPENDICES
Campus IT Services Tiger Team Report, April 30, 2009
p. 26
APPENDIX A: Chart on Information Technology Systems, excerpted from Building
Administrative Efficiency for UC
APPENDIX B: UCSD Health Sciences IT Centralization Review
APPENDIX C: Examples of Existing IT Support Service Recharges at UC San Diego
Integrative Ocean Division (IOD)
IOD’s Computational Infrastructure Recharge provides specified services and software to
members of IOD and any ancillary operations for a monthly per person cost based on employee
effort. Primary services include:
 Desktop computer support, including security management.
 Access to shared printers.
 Data storage and backup.
 Email account support and administration.
 Individual and research group website hosting.
 Individual and research group calendar & collaboration hosting.
 Access to reference operating systems and application software.
San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC)
Core desktop services include:
 Email account support and administration, including spam and anti-virus configuration
for managed systems.
 SharePoint. Includes maintenance of existing sharepoint service, but not the creation of
additional or specialized sharepoint sites.
 Home directories, including storage up to 2GB with back ups.
 Shared calendars.
 Printing, including printing consumables (paper, toner etc.) on shared printers.
 Network/connectivity.
 Machine management and support for one reference desktop/laptop up to 3 years old.
 Support for all installed ‘managed’ system applications (e.g., Adobe, Office 2007,
antivirus, etc.) for support and maintenance.
Jacobs School of Engineering (JSOE)
Administrative and other users may elect to use OEC’s managed desktop services. A desktop
“lease” system consists of:
 A currently available commodity desktop computer (e.g., Dell Optiplex class), configured
to run Windows XP.
 A number of typical productivity applications, including the Microsoft Office suite
(Access, Excel, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, Project, Visio, Word).
 Annual campus site licensing costs for all installed operating system and application
software.
 Hardware and software maintenance services, including nightly security and
configuration scanning, operating system and application software upgrades, and backups
of local roaming profiles (desktop and other user-specific settings).
 When a desktop lease system is fully depreciated (typically 3-4 years, depending upon
the system configuration) it will be replaced with current generation hardware.
 Systems which fail prior to full depreciation will be repaired or replaced immediately.
The JSOE recharge unit also provides the following additional services:
 Consolidated email and calendaring.
 Windows terminal services access.
 Unix/Linux interactive login accounts.
 Database hosting (Sybase and MySQL).
 Tiered storage services (high availability, standard, archival; CIFS, NFS, AFP).
 Video streaming services.
 Managed and unmanaged virtual machine hosting.
 Web hosting (LAMP; Cold Fusion)
 Contracted system administration support for administrative and research computing
systems (Unix/Linux, Windows, Mac OS).
 Contracted web and database programming.
 Networking support.
APPENDIX D: Energy Efficient Data Centres in Further and Higher Education
APPENDIX E: Faronics Case Study – Howard Community College