June 2, 2014
Lisa Robichaud
MPHEC (robichaudl@mphec.ca)
Terry Nikkel
University of New Brunswick
(tnikkel@unb.ca)
• To ensure high quality information and
communication technology (ICT) services to
all member institutions in New Brunswick and
Prince Edward Island
Board1
Network
Committee1
Subcommittees*
Subcommittees*
1each
member has one vote;
decision-making requires
unanimous consent
*as required
• Connectivity
 Connecting all member institutions through the Gigapop to
CANARIE
• Joint Purchasing and Shared Services
 Internet services: RFP process every 1-2 years; extended to NBCC
and CCNB in 2011
 Anti-virus and anti-SPAM
• Professional development
• National representation
• Sharing of best practices
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Total ECN budget is about $1M per year
Recent years have seen significant savings in
network and Internet costs, leading to
opportunities for strategic investments
Source: Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission
• Economic constraint
• Publicly funded institutions are expected—by both
internal and external stakeholders—to reduce costs
yet continue to deliver needed services and
programs
•
How do we get to the next level of
collaboration?
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which potential collaborative opportunities should
we pursue?
what is each institution, as well as the group
collectively, capable of handling?
• Development of a strategic plan to determine ECN
future priorities
• Started in 2011 with a comprehensive, independent
assessment by external consultants (Dell)
• We engaged (through an RFP process), Dell
Professional Services to assess our individual
and collective capabilities: Dell IT
Simplification Assessment (ITSA)
• Assessed 5 main IT areas of each ECN Member
institution for degree of simplicity (which reflects cost
to deliver the service)
• Compared each area to Industry average
• Compared each area to Higher Ed average
• Provided a transformational blueprint on how to move
towards a simplified (cost effective) service delivery
•
Measured 5 Areas
End User Computing
 Data Centre
 Applications
 Service Management
 Security and Compliance

7 points of assessment for each Area
1 – Service Delivery - not how happy people are, but if structure and process are in place
2 - Price Point
- compares costs to being outsourced (which is assumed to be cheaper)
3 – People
- not individuals but clarity of roles & continual staff improvement plans
4 – Measurement
- use of metrics and key performance indicators towards improvement
5 – Financial
- budgeting process & how well costs are tracked specific to each area
6 – Standardization - consistency and the use of systems, processes & tools for efficiency
7 – Tools and Automation – the quality and use of tools specific to each area
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A number of standardized questionnaires and
staff/customer interviews were used to determine
the “findings” for each institution
A “RAG” analysis (red-amber-green) was done to
identify each institution’s pain points
An “As-Is/To-Be” transformational blueprint was
created to identify how we go about moving to a
more simplified environment
Sample ratings vs. benchmarks
• Each individual institution was presented with a number of
prioritized recommendations to improve the level of service, as
well as reduce the costs in delivering those services.
• The ECN consortium was also presented with potential
collaborative opportunities, based on the collective findings.
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We collectively compared our individual
assessment results, and considered the
consortium-level recommendations
We identified common high-priority items and
discussed them thoroughly
Strategic initiatives emerged
• ECN mission: To ensure high quality information
and communication technology (ICT) services to all
member institutions in New Brunswick and Prince
Edward Island
• ECN vision: To apply our collective skills and
resources to the betterment of the New Brunswick
and Prince Edward Island higher education
communities through the deployment of state of
the art technology while saving money for our
provinces and institutions (new)
Honesty
Values
Trust
Collaboration
(new)
Openness
Collegiality
•
Expansion of shared technical services in 3
areas:
 Consolidation of data centre operations
 Disaster recovery strategies and facilities
 Collaboration tools and services
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Invest $150,000 in UNB data centre renovation
project ($1.6M total) to increase capacity and
reliability (ECN network equipment is housed
here)
UNB has built its own DR facility
Renovated data centre becomes DR and backup
facility for ECN partners and NBCC
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SharePoint deployed at UNB; developed in
partnership with MTA
Federated identity project underway now will
produce private/community cloud for seamless
access for ECN community to SharePoint sites
SharePoint to be hosted centrally for all
To be supported by SharePoint team funded by
ECN to provide governance, management,
expertise, templates, workflow design,
skeleton sites, etc.
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We are limited only by our imagination!