External Audit of Information Technology for EPFL
Vijay KUMAR (Chair)
Assistant Provost and Director of Academic Computing
MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA)
Robin ERSKINE
Director IT Services
The Australian National University – (Australia)
John E. KOLB
Chief Information Officer
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (USA)
Simon MARSDEN
Director of Management Information Services (MIS)
University of Edinburgh (UK)
Michel MORISSEAU
Director IT Prospective and Research
RENAULT S.A (France)
22 December 2002
Introduction
This report summarizes the objectives, findings and recommendations of the External audit
committee for IT at EPFL. The review was conducted over a period of a week (November 18-22,
2002). The process relied on inputs from numerous groups and individuals at EPFL who are
involved in planning and implementation of IT at EPFL, as well as the extensive self-assessment
report that was prepared.
At the outset the audit team notes with appreciation the contributions of all the EPFL members –
administrators, faculty, staff and students who participated in this process. Their enthusiasm,
commitment and candidness helped us gain a good sense of the IT landscape of EPFL, the
opportunities and issues confronting it, in the limited time that was available.
The audit committee recognizes the significant role that IT already plays at EPFL and its strong
perceived connection to the EPFL identity/brand.
EPFL has also embarked on several major programmatic initiatives for which IT is a strategic
enabler. These include the new program (School) for Life Sciences, the adoption of the Bologna
process, the impetus on learning technology as well as initiatives such as e-pfl. As in other
educational institutions across the world, IT activities are becoming increasingly mission-critical
requiring a sustained availability to support the teaching and research mission. IT is also
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increasing in both complexity and total cost of ownership. All these elements make this
evaluation of IT at EPFL particularly significant in terms of impact and timing:
The observations and recommendations by our committee have been made keeping in mind the
many dimensions of change occurring simultaneously at EPFL, and also the fact that IT is a
dynamic/moving target, requiring continuous monitoring and adaptation.
It is important to point out that in all its deliberations the committee recognized that education,
research and operational efficiency set the context for IT at EPFL. It also considered an extended
definition of IT that includes not only hardware and software but data, information, services,
processes and strategy. The committee did not limit its scope to centrally supported and delivered
IT. We note that even though the charge from the sponsors did not offer any such limitation, this
was often an assumption on the part of several constituencies.
Our work and recommendations have recognized that IT is an essential infrastructural component
of a modern leading educational institution. In many respects it should be considered in the same
light as other traditional infrastructure service such as buildings, finance and HR. However, IT
has several characteristics as a differentiator and facilitator of the information goals of the
academic staff and students that merit special consideration.
Our report offers some general observations on the topics below, which highlight some of the
key issues and lead to some specific recommendations for EPFL.
Observations
IT Support for Institutional Mission
In general, EPFL has taken some impressive steps so far to support the mission of the institute
through IT. The facilities and resources available to support the research enterprise in particular
are consistently good, to a large measure due to the attention given by individual faculty and
centers. In contrast, support for educational activities is uneven reflecting the variation in
technology enabled teaching and learning across EPFL as well as lack of clear allocation of
responsibility and roles between the center and the schools.
The vision, new initiatives and organization that are being pursued will require aggressive
improvements in the configuration and allocation of IT resources and services.
Budgeting & Resource Allocations
The committee observes that at EPFL, the overall importance of IT investment is recognized and
good but governance, allocation and decision making can benefit from more coordination.
Specifically, we note that:
§
Hardware/software availability both for central facilities and in the localities is in
abundance (ample), particularly from the point of view of research.
§
The availability and location of appropriate competencies for technical support and
administration of facilities needs attention. Specifically professional IT support
staffing is relatively low in the schools.
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§
Organization for strategic decision making on IT investments across EPFL is nonexistent leading to missed opportunities for resource leveraging and possible lopsided
investment in research vs. teaching and resources provided for hardware/software
procurement vs. ongoing professional support for that hardware/software.
§
Budget and Resource Allocation procedures are not clear or transparent. , particularly
with respect to central and school/faculty responsibilities.
Overall, EPFL devotes a considerable amount of resources to IT. Unfortunately the availability of
data is such that it is not possible to understand or address: the key points of expenditure and
drivers of cost; the level of effort and true cost for various IT categories such as Administrative,
Research and Educational computing or tradeoffs and balances between central and local
expenditures for better return on investments. There is also no clear way to compare EPFL’s level
of IT investments and expenditures with other peer institutions in any informed way because of
the lack of benchmark data.
It is important to recognize though that the projected expansion in the student population as well
as the new programmatic initiatives in research, education and enterprise information systems
have implications for increased investments in IT, particularly for the support infrastructure.
Opportunities for efficiencies and resource leveraging identified elsewhere in this report require
careful consideration.
Coordination and Organization
The rapidly increasing focus on and demand for research computing has resulted in IT domains
that are only loosely linked to the central IT organization (SIC). The discussions with IT staff and
the user community identified various consequences of this, in particular:
- A degree of confusion and frustration of the client communities
- Lack of overall strategy and priorities for IT
- Unclear understanding of IT investments and allocations.
- The absence of a clear understanding of the roles of the center
The multiple IT organizations (in schools) have been set up, ostensibly from a desire to bring
services closer to users. The early transitional stages of the new organizational structure
coupled with competition for resources can reduce opportunity to leverage resources. The
committee detected a strong culture in some areas of “group or local ownership” rather than
EPFL wide sharing of facilities and professional expertise. While the strong local view is
understood, there will be a need to reduce redundancy, improve financial efficiency and
develop professional IT skills across all of the institution.
Advisory Structure
The establishment of DIS and the CIs are important steps in providing coordination and links
between IT activities in the Schools and the central services. While these groups are
representative of operational entities, their role in providing strategic guidance, setting
institutional priorities for IT and providing oversight and broad direction, is not clear and will
need to be addressed. Advisory structures will be needed to guide and govern important growth
areas in EPFL’s IT profile such as High Performance Computing and integrated Enterprise
Information Systems.
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IT Infrastructure
As noted at the outset, for purposes of this review, the audit committee’s consideration of the IT
infrastructure includes not only the technical substrate (hardware, software and connectivity) but
also the configuration of services.
There is universal appreciation of the network, its reliability and the network services delivered,
including the distribution of centrally supported software. Desktop hardware to support research
teaching and administrative computing are ample at the moment. Server resources are widely
distributed as is their management suggesting opportunities for coordination and central
management for improved resource utilization and security.
The increasing presence of laptops driven by expansion of the current laptop experiments as well
as the influence of the market will pose challenges in terms of support and robust delivery of
software that EPFL needs to plan for. Similarly, the need to support research and educational
initiatives collaboratively across institutions will place increased demands on EPFL’s networking
and support capabilities.
Open Source Strategy
The growing interest in Open Source solutions and the institutional interest on the part of EPFL to
explore their viability as an important strategy for acquiring IT solutions are notable. Open
Source has certainly gained respectability as a development approach for high quality software;
its value is well substantiated by the success of Linux. In fact the openly available access to the
source code and the community participation in the ongoing evolution of the software suggests
that the likelihood of “continuous improvement” in a fast and efficient way. However, that still
does not mean that Open Source software is free. We urge careful consideration of the Total Cost
of Ownership of the software, which includes the cost of integration and support (which in some
cases may be significant because of requiring specialized staff resources). In summary, Open
Source Software decisions should be subject to the same due-diligence as any commercial
software for production-quality and mission critical applications.
EPFL should also determine and communicate policies and guidelines with respect to Open
Source materials that the EPFL community can officially publish.
Services
The Audit committee was made aware of several service issues which need be addressed through
process changes and new practices.
Customer orientation and focus: Central IT (SIC) is perceived to need a much greater
client/customer orientation – ascertaining the needs of schools, developing priorities and
services with adequate client engagement. The committee recognizes that some of the
present condition could well be as a result of and be attributed to organizational
transitions and lack of clarity around center-school roles. Nevertheless this is an
important area to be addressed.
Communication: There is considerable lack of awareness of what services are offered by
SIC or the School IT units, or how to access or invoke them. Several comments about not
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knowing how to get technical help, or how key decisions on procurement of new
products or new services (e.g. AFS; shared part of HP) point to the importance of
strengthening communications and outreach.
A Project Management approach including metrics and organization is largely absent.
(For instance, operations do not have utilization data). This is an obstacle to planning and
informed decision making.
Change Management
On a somewhat related aspect, we observe that change management practices, which are
critical not only because of the ePFL environment of new programs and services but also
because of the rapidly evolving state of IT, are not given the attention that is needed. The
elements of Change Management that we would like to point to are:
o
o
o
o
Communication of change
Preparation for adopting change (training)
Resources for transition including support to users in transition (e.g. for creating
Web pages for Schools)
Process for initiating new projects (Process Discipline)
Metrics and Measures
Except in the area of network performance, not much exists by way of data to understand
utilization of services and measures of performance. In the absence of metrics and data, it
would be difficult for EPFL, as it was for the Audit Committee, to understand the extent
of support issues -- whether endemic or only in particular areas-- substantiate their scope
or solution. Overall planning and resource allocation are hampered.
Support for Learning
Support for learning/educational facilities is uneven across the Schools. While students
(and faculty members) in general expressed satisfaction with the availability of
equipment to support their educational needs there was consistent concern about the
following:
– Availability of technology-enabled classrooms for teaching (networked computers and
Projection facilities). Faculty members expressed that their enthusiastic efforts to use
computer based materials such as animations and simulations to supplement their
teaching was often frustrated because of the unavailability of appropriately configured
classrooms in their school or the difficulty of accessing facilities elsewhere.
– Limitations in student access and support for educational computing. Students
commented on locked doors and on the variation in teaching room facilities and the
access, which was School/Faculty dependent.
The situation is not surprising considering that under the current structure each Faculty/School
may have completely different and variable support structures. The unevenness in access and
support will need to be addressed, through policy and practice, in light of the increasing
integration of technology in education, the influence of the market place that enables greater
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ownership by students as well as changes such as the Bologna structure that imply mobility of
students across departments.
High Performance Computing
EPFL’s recognition of the significance of High Performance Computing for its mission and
ambitions is evident from the investments that have been made for HPC procurements, as well as
the external engagement with Industry and national initiatives that are underway. However, it was
not evident that the breadth of support and services required to develop a leading edge facility are
in place. A broad strategy and plan will also need to be developed for EPFL to support this
essential arm of science and engineering.
IT Staff
The major staffing considerations at EPFL revolve around two areas:
-
Developing a cadre of people with the appropriate complement of competencies, as well as
motivation, for a quality service organization. A modern IT organization requires its staff to
develop competencies for a variety of specific roles, including at least the following:
Leadership; Management of services with a customer oriented, rather than solely technical,
focus; Professional technical support for the hardware and software configurations;
Applications support, particularly of the broadly used packages.
-
Ensuring the appropriate distribution of professional staff with a view to balancing, the need
for getting support close to the end users with the need to leverage common support and
services for efficiency and coherence. We believe that separating the ability to lead and direct
from control of resources will help in this regard. EPFL is also not unique in its practice of
employing post-graduate students for IT support and doing so in domain-specific
environments can be productive. However, wherever possible this needs to be done with a
view to delivering professional services and sustainability.
Professional development programs along with internal rotation between the central organization
and the schools would serve EPFL well in strengthening its human resources for IT. EPFL can
also take advantage of its external links in this regard.
EPFL’s efforts to identify resources for its new directions such as that in the area of educational
technology are impressive.
External Relations
EPFL’s external engagements such as those developed around HPC and GESTAC present
important opportunities for Resource Leveraging and, as indicated above, for staff development.
In addition, these and relationships with other institutions and consortia, both educational and
Industry, are important for EPFL to get the benefits of an outside view of EPFL and continuously
develop as a world class organization.
Projects & Administrative Applications
The initial implementation of GESTAC, SAP and the development of e-PFL represent
important steps in developing applications with enterprise-wide implications. The GESTAC
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is seen as a valuable initiative. The process of implementation of these initiatives, in
particular e-PFL, with appropriate customer/client engagement has been well received.
However the projects are relatively immature. They will benefit from more functionality and
interfaces for better access. Each of the initiatives -- SAP, GESTAC, and E-PF -- is also
being done in relative isolation, with different methodologies, and approaches. Their
successful ongoing progress will require integration with other necessary enterprise systems.
More specifically, the necessary transition of these initiatives from projects to services will
require an overall information strategy and architecture.
In summary our observations lead us to the following conclusions:
•
EPFL has a Strong Technology Culture evidenced both through its Research and
Educational practices. Faculty, students and staff expect EPFL to provide a world class
IT infrastructure and services.
•
By and large it has some impressive facilities to support IT. The current IT infrastructure
to a large extent adequately supports the work of EPFL. Some notable exceptions are in
the area of technology enabled teaching/learning.
•
However there is an urgent need to address IT infrastructure and architecture
strategically. The greatest need and opportunities for improvement are in the area of:
o developing integrated enterprise solutions
o embracing modern IT management practices, notably in process discipline and
project management orientation.
Key Messages and Recommendations
The committee has identified some key messages are directed toward framing the
directions/orientation that we feel that EPFL needs to embrace in order to develop the
organizational capacity and capabilities in IT to support its ambitious programmatic visions in an
effective and efficient manner and to set the stage for the future. These key messages present the
context for the specific recommendations that it is making in terms of IT organization and
services at EPFL.
Key Messages
IT Strategy is an Integral Part of Institutional Strategy
EPFL needs to develop a strategic vision that ties the institution’s strategic goals to IT directions.
This will lead to a timely understanding of the implications and influence of IT to the educational
and research initiatives, and help in setting IT priorities and resource decisions. While IT is a key
driver for many of EPFL’s initiatives, an organization and leadership are required that will focus
technology decisions and strategy around critical institutional, business and management issues.
An institute-wide framework will allow the direction of investments and effort to appropriately
reflect the ubiquitous and mission-critical nature of IT in a proportionate manner across education
research and administration. The central Role of IT in an educational and research institution
implicit in this message, suggests that the leadership of the IT infrastructure must be
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supported at the highest level, be focused at a single point, and be sympathetic to both the
technology and the academic goals of the institution.
Move from High Quality to High Performance
EPFL’s current IT efforts are characterized by islands of high quality, most notably in support of
research activities, and a few large scale initiatives which are at an early stage. EPFL will need to
aggressively move towards developing organization, process and technical architectures that
focus on developing and delivering client relevant services, with agility and responsiveness. This
customer-focused service orientation will require that modern management practices are
embraced as well as measurements and metrics for operations and performance. These
characteristics will support the necessary transformation of IT at EPFL toward becoming a high
performance organization.
Scalability and Sustainability is the Key to Ongoing Success
EPFL has launched some important initiatives that have the potential to influence the landscape
of IT application at the institution. It is imperative that the fruits of these endeavors can be
extended to other than their originally intended domains. It is equally important that these
solutions are not rendered under-realized or that their viability is seriously impaired because of
changes in underlying technology which is bound to happen. Integration and interoperability of
these initiatives with institutional infrastructure and other applications are important
considerations in this regard. However, scalability and sustainability require both an
organizational as well as a technical architecture that allows institutional resources to be applied
intelligently and efficiently for an enterprise approach to IT solutions. The absence of this will
lead to disconnected islands of effort, fragmented solutions and an inability to respond
efficiently to either the heterogeneity of applications or technology choices.
Recommendations
Governance and Management
Assert the centrality and significance of IT to EPFL’s position as a premium teaching and
research institution, by EPFL taking the following steps:
1. Establish a clear and unified leadership for IT: Elevate by configuring/establishing the
role of an IT leader equivalent to the CIO role in some universities. This position would
oversee the functions and services that are provided centrally, including the new services
and groups proposed in this report. This position will be a clear champion for IT across
EPFL and actively participate in EPFL’s high-level policy and decision making groups.
2. Advisory: The Audit Committee recommends the creation of a committee for Strategic
Decision making with respect to IT at the EPFL level. This group should establish EPFL
priorities for IT strategy and expenditure and Policy. This group would preferably be
chaired by the President. This group would be characterized by representation of broad
institutional interests, not representation of IT groups. The DIS could be continue as an
advisory committee chaired by the CIO who will be the link between the 2 committees
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The committee believes that this structure would strengthen EPFL’s IT imperative, the
management and allocation of resources across competing and complementary initiatives and
increased alignment.
Integrated Information Systems
3. We recommend the creation of an Enterprise/Integrated Information Systems Group. This
group, reporting to the recommended CIO position/IT leadership will insure a
coordinated and common approach to the development and implementation of enterprise
information projects so that initiatives do not end up as future incompatible silos. We
recommend that this group assume a project-based approach. Some of the critical areas
for this group’s attention are:
a.
b.
c.
d.
Institutional priority setting with an emphasis on process
Developing a common information architecture
Common support model to reduce user confusion
Developing an institutional data strategy including: data warehousing as a
possible technique to provide simplified cross application reporting; data
definitions management; application strategy capturing information at source.
e. Defining, maintaining, improving, and communicating to the community about
EPFL’s IT architecture, including data and objects
f. Working with the community, this group will set strategy, policy, standards,
principles, and guidelines related to information technology architecture,
infrastructure, and design of applications.
Central IT Services (SIC)
4. The committee recommends the following measures to gain advantage from strong
configuration of Central IT Services at EPFL
Scope and Charter:
a. Central IT/SIC’s charter should focus on delivering the IT utility -- networking
services, server management, standards, hardware and software procurement and
maintenance for basic services. This central organization should be responsible
for the advancement of standards and practices for insuring a secure and reliable
IT infrastructure
b. Central IT activities can be organized according to the following processes:
•
Service: (computing and network facilities; enterprise services (e-mail,
directory services; security; standards; architecture); servers.
•
Support: (Help Desk/Call-Center; Training and Documentation for basic
services; Coordination and integration of local support; Student Support;
Academic liaison team; Administrative liaison; SIC supports School-IT, not
end users.
The Central IT services portfolio should include support for HPC including
Visualization (details in HPC section), Server Management and Help Desk
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functionality, to enable coordination and leveraging of institutional
resources.
One of the significant opportunities and challenge of our current IT
environments is that support is itself is not only distributed but also
multi-layered to accommodate varying levels of competencies and types of
expertise. The Central IT has an important role in integrating the disparate
entities, locally and corporately into a single problem solving force for the
user. The Helpdesk should be the principal tool for problem reporting and
having the correct person deal with the problem as reported. In addition we
recommend that Central IT assume the leadership and undertake proactive
methods, such forums (physical and electronic) for sharing and exchange of
information, to enable such integration and synergy.
Service Issues
5. Proactive communication: SIC should advance their communication efforts considerably
-- defining and publishing service definitions, means of getting technical support, updated
information on software and other relevant information. The development of Help Desk
functionalities would also be helpful in this regard.
6. Help Desk: The Help Desk function should be implemented to serve as a first point of
contact for IT assistance. It would be responsible for overall problem management and
allocation – both to central and local IT staff. The central helpdesk can be an important
vehicle for generating performance measures and metrics, including preparation of
statistics and reports. We recommend that EPFL select and acquire problem tracking and
knowledge-management tools for this purpose.
7. A central service should be established for managing servers which would provide the
control and support to leverage the existing resources. The service would include
purchasing advice, ‘standardized’ set ups, backups, performance/capacity monitoring and
security. This central service would also coordinate training for departmental support
and serve as second-level support.
8. IT services would also be well served by annual surveys of client satisfaction that will
also serve as a vehicle for needs assessment.
9. Change Management practices: In an area where the development and delivery of
solutions and services is subject to regular changes imposed by technology and where
new products and services are introduced regularly to meet customer needs, the adoption
of change management practices is very critical to mitigate against the disruptive impact
of change. A variety of strategy – from proactively communicating changes in
procedures and services to adequate training and documentation as well as testing and
integration – can be employed.
Strategic Initiatives
The Audit committee recommends that EPFL pursue program initiatives that not only
advance its information strategy but also contribute to its visibility and leadership in the
academic area. e-PFL, GESTAC, the Learning Center and HPC initiatives are important
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exemplars. The structural and process changes identified in this report will be an important
enabler for these initiatives.
10. High Performance Computing(HPC): We recommend the following elements of a
coordinated approach to constructively advance EPFL engagement in HPC:
§
Oversight and Management of HPC facilities should reside at a strong
academically focused point, probably through a (scientific/engineering)
advisory committee chaired by a senior academic, advising the Strategic
Decision making group with respect to IT at the EPFL level and the
person charged with leadership of IT. Operational Services should be
coordinated centrally as described earlier. This advisory would review
and make allocation decisions on the high-end facilities, the resources of
which should be made available selectively.
§
Establish a group for HPC application support. EPFL should develop a
corps of technical expertise to support its high end facilities – a corps
which assists the academic staff and doctoral students obtain the best
performance from the investment. Whether a central group is established
or a central focus is provided to a distributed support structure within the
faculties will be a matter of determination within EPFL and its culture.
Whichever model is picked it must be given a high profile in the support
of top-end applications and assist the retention of a core of expertise for
future needs, rather than see much of the expertise disappear when
graduate students move on.
§
Visualization and data handling facilities – In the engineering and
science areas, the post-processing and display of results from HPC
requires a strong element of visualization and data handling.
Consideration should be given to combining the HPC and visualization
support into a single support structure for high performance science,
retaining the expertise and making it available to the staff and
postgraduate students on an ongoing manner.
§
Grid Facilities – HPC and advanced communications are both necessary
in an environment such as EPFL. There is also an interest in grid services
around the world. EPFL should develop its grid services and align their
support and development at a corporate level with the support group
suggested for HPC and visualization support.
11. Develop Information Infrastructure: EPFL should undertake a major program
initiative that builds upon and extends the large enterprise initiatives currently underway:
ePFL, GESTAC and SAP. As noted elsewhere in this report the development of an
organizational and technical architecture is critical to render these initiatives scalable and
sustainable. To this end the audit committee recommends that EPFL focus efforts on
chartering a central group and appointing an information architect. Early deliverables
from this group should include:
a. Road map for a common information architecture that recognizes the importance
of the golden copy and controlled replication
b. Definitions and structure for enterprise data
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c. Data warehousing as a possible technique to provide simplified cross application
reporting.
12. Educational technology: We urge careful and enhanced consideration of
Educational technology initiatives, opportunities and support issues
a. The plans for the Education Center as well as ePFL represent important initial
steps in technology enabled education particularly in harvesting the value of the
Internet. It is important to continue these efforts. There are important synergies
that can be realized for these initiatives through interactions with digital library
efforts. We urge that the educational technology group consciously explore joint
opportunities with the library.
b. The audit committee also recommends development of an educational
technology strategy that identifies key areas for technology enabled educational
transformations.
c. A clear policy and process for the support of student computing needs to be
established very early to address current disparities between schools/departments
and to meet the expectations of robust, uniform services that are anticipated to
result from expansions of the current laptop initiatives as well as the launch of
the Education Center.
d. Increased Availability and accessibility of technology-enabled enabled
classrooms for teaching
Performance Considerations
13. Staffing/Human Resources: EPFL should actively pursue activities to strengthening its
human resources with a view to developing a modern professional service based
organization, providing coherent services and for sustainability. Some specific activities
to include are:
o
o
o
o
o
explicit linkage of student-provided and other support in schools to centrally
provided professional services
Professional development opportunities for leadership, management and customer
orientation competencies through training programs as well as participation in
conferences and symposia.
Rotation of staff among central services, schools, labs and projects.
Active exchange and inter-working opportunities with external agencies and
projects, including but not limited to EPFL’s current engagements
Establishing a competency and professional development group/committee cochaired by the CIO and the Director of HR at EPFL to oversee and facilitate the
recommendations above.
The Audit Committee has a strong sense of urgency about the importance of EPFL moving
quickly to address the key issues that have been identified and implementing its
recommendations.
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Acknowledgements
-
the effort and commitment that went into preparing the self evaluation
-
the energy and dedication reflected in presentations and preparing background materials
(Both the above greatly facilitated our work. As would be apparent, we have endorsed the
recommendations in several areas.)
-
The candid and constructive inputs of the Senior Management.
-
The hospitality and support of all. We would like to especially mention Jean-Francois Ricci,
whose willing and cheerful assistance in all aspects of our stay and work was so important.
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Appendix 1
Potential Strategies and Implementations for Supporting an
HPC Platform
High performance computing has now become the third arm of scientific and engineering
endeavor, complementing the traditional experimental and theoretical arms. At EPFL this has
been recognized and investments have been made in national, central and local HPC
procurements.
However, it was not evident that the breadth of support and services were fully developed, nor
that a broad strategy and plan was developed to support this essential arm of science and
engineering.
There is a broad spectrum of requirements from the fastest single processor in a desktop
workstation, through clusters of PCs at the institute or faculty level, to a very powerful computer
at the central or national level, the choice depending on the software application. The term high
performance science is probably more important in describing the requirements rather than HPC,
which tends to envisage the large end only. All need to be developed and nurtured, not just the
high end.
While the procurement of hardware appears to be satisfactory, it was not at all apparent that the
support services were being put in place to develop a leading edge facility. Some of the issues
which need to be considered include:
♦ The management of the high end facilities – These should be operated by the SIC, or its
successor, but should not be “controlled” by the SIC. Control has to reside at a strong
academically focused point, probably through a (scientific) advisory committee chaired
by a senior academic, advising the Strategic Decision Group or the person charged with
leadership of IT.
♦ The resource allocation on the high end facilities – Given the large spectrum of
requirements and the available solutions, the high end facilities should be retained for and
made available to only a (peer) reviewed group of projects. Such facilities should not be
made generally available as simply a compute engine to a large number of small projects
requiring smaller amounts of computation – such projects can be dealt with at the desktop
or local level. The peer reviewing should have a scientific/engineering focus along with a
technology assessment of the suitability of the application to the architecture of the
facility. Such review could be under the control of the academic advisory committee
mentioned above.
♦ The development of HPC application support – The application support and development
in a highly parallel computational environment is essential to gain maximum return on
investment. EPFL should develop a corps of technical expertise to support its high end
facilities – a corps which assists the academic staff and doctoral students obtain the best
performance from the investment. Whether a central group is established or a central
focus is provided to a distributed support structure within the faculties will be a matter of
determination within EPFL and its culture. Whichever model is picked it must be given a
high profile in the support of top-end applications and assist the retention of a core of
expertise for future needs, rather than see much of the expertise disappear when graduate
students move on.
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♦ Visualization and data handling facilities – In the engineering and science areas, the post
processing and display of results from HPC requires a strong element of visualization and
data handling. While there is a storage robot and a good network structure for the data
handling, it was not as clear that there was strong support for visualization services.
Many of the remarks made above about HPC support apply to the support for
visualization, which is also become more sophisticated at the high and more readily
available at the lower end of the hardware spectrum. Consideration should be given to
combining the HPC and visualization support into a single support structure for high
performance science, retaining the expertise and making available to the staff and
postgraduate students on an ongoing manner.
♦ Grid Facilities – HPC and advanced communications are both necessary in an
environment such as EPFL. There is also an interest in grid services around the world.
EPFL should develop its grid services and align their support and development at a
corporate level with the support group suggested for HC and visualization support.
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Appendix 2
Education Support
The current education support for students and teaching staff appeared haphazard, being a
mixture of central and distributed support and resources.
EPFL should consider the information training and support commitment that they wish to give to
their students at the enterprise, rather than individual faculty, level – that they will graduate with
good information skills and at EPFL will have had seamless facilities available to them. That does
not appear to be the case at present – students commented on locked doors and teaching staff
commented on the variation in teaching room facilities and the access, which was dependent on
faculty.
The understanding is that the responsibility of the computer rooms is with the faculty deans, and
they bid to the VP (Education) for funds which are then provided directly to the faculty. Ongoing
support to the students is then directly from faculty resources, the center having no student
responsibility for direct support. Some software for the machines is provided (and paid for) by the
centre via the excellent software distribution facility.
With the introduction of the Bologna structure, there should be more student mobility between
faculties. Under the current structure each faculty may have completely different and variable
support structures. In addition, with the introduction of the Education Center with up to 500
machines available to all students, the students will expect the same images and support
procedures on all the machines available to them – independent of location.
This issue should be addressed as a matter of urgency before each faculty goes its own way and
another support center potentially is set up centrally within the education center. A clear policy on
support for students needs to be agreed and promulgated by the VP (Education) – this is not an IT
driven issue, rather an education driven issue, with IT coming in at the planning and operational
level.
Some of the issues which need to be considered include:
♦ Should the policy and the funding for the hardware and software for all undergraduate
machines be located at a single point – the VP (Education) – who determines the
allocation of monies on a policy basis, rather than the bid basis as appears to be the case
at present?
♦ Should all undergraduate computer rooms and the education center be operated by a
single entity- at least for the common software and hardware procedures, with local
faculty support being used for applications? Should all students have free access to all
computer rooms?
♦ How should the students be supported in the use of undergraduate facilities? At present
there are no central student support for application software training, information literacy
training, and immediate helpdesk types of problems. This issue should be addressed.
♦ Whether a highly centralized model or a highly devolved model is decided upon, it will
be necessary to have good coordination between central IT experts, local IT experts, the
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teaching staff who teaching the students, and the tutors who give local support to the
students. This coordination has to reside at a strong academically focused point, probably
through an education oriented forum chaired by a senior academic, advising the VP
(Education), possibly via the DIS, on how the resources should be allocated and the
facilities operated.
Similarly the equipment and facilities in teaching rooms should be driven by policy and funded
centrally, and perhaps supported centrally rather than by a local support group in each faculty. It
would be expected that there would be economies of scale, both in the initial planning and
installation, and in the ongoing support and training if there were to be some form of EPFL wide
support structure for teaching room facilities – projectors, network points, a standard computer in
each teaching podium etc. This could be rolled into the responsibilities of the education-oriented
forum suggested above.
If a central policy driven model is taken up, it has the potential to reduce the balkanization which
may otherwise develop under the new structure and on the introduction of new facilities, such as
the education center.
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Appendix 3
Training and Help Desk
The SIC ran an impressive lists of training courses from computer use through applications
packages through to writing in particular programming languages. These were available to staff,
possibly in some instances also to graduate students, but not particularly to undergraduate
students. Undergraduates could have some educational training at the current student assistance
Center. None of these were supported by a Helpdesk.
Comments have already been made elsewhere about the need to provide helpdesk services for
undergraduate students.
Some staff commented that they had difficulty obtaining timely support when they had difficulties
with straightforward computer or applications software problems. Non-academic staff need to be
fully trained for the packages they use as part of their daily duties and to have good access to
support structures when they have problems. The comments made implied that the IT support
staff were too busy on other (perhaps more pressing, more technically or more interesting) issues
or that the graduate students doing local IT support had their own work to do.
Comment is made elsewhere in the report about the need for metrics. This is another example
where the scope of the problem, and its solution, is not particularly well understood, and would
be greatly assisted by some metrics. Is the issue endemic, is it only in particular areas, and is it
only in some types of non-academic staff?
The introduction of a good helpdesk to log these calls immediately and farm them out to the
relevant support person would go a long way to identifying the scope of the problem. It would
identify the areas into which EPFL should be its training and support resources.
A central Helpdesk would not be expected to solve all problems immediately. Rather it would
have a problem severity and escalation scale. All IT support staff within EPFL would have to
cooperate in the solving of problems registered with the Helpdesk, within the defined severity
level of the incident or problem being reported.
Indeed the Helpdesk would allocate the problem to the relevant person, e.g. for a secretary having
problems with a feature in Word, the call may be routed to the local application support person
for such applications who would be expected to respond within the defined timeframe for such
problems. The solution would be given to the caller by the person solving the issue and the
incident closed in the helpdesk system by the local support person.
The central helpdesk management would be responsible for overall problem management and
allocation, along with preparation of statistics and reports giving metrics of success (or need for
improvement.) Many of the incidents would be allocated electronically to the local IT support
staff. Such a system could also include a knowledge database, FAQ’s, and should also be
available to students, via phone and the internet. The system should be paperless, fully electronic,
with access by all users to reports on the performance.
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