IT Architecture and Infrastructure Committee
9:00 – 10:30 a.m., April 10, 2015, FAC 228D
I. UT Web (update) / Web Central/UTS Retirement - Endorse (Jenn Coast, Christina
Konstantinidou, David Moss)
II. Retirement of m.utexas.edu – Endorse (Jenn Coast, Christina Konstantinidou, Dave Moss)
III. Infrastructure as a Service Charter – Update (Cam Beasley, William Green)
IV. TSC Certification Training – Status Report (Sandra Germenis, Cam Beasley)
V. Commodity Server – Status Report (Cam Beasley, William Green)
W E B C E N T RA L SE RV I C E RE T I RE ME N T P RO J E C T – A P RI L 2015
OVERVIEW
With the endorsement of the Architecture & Infrastructure Committee (AIC) in 2012 as part of the UT Web
Infrastructure Project, Information Technology Services (ITS) plans to retire Web Central, the legacy shared Web hosting
and UTS email service at the University. At the completion of the project, all Web Central websites and email addresses
will be migrated, archived, or deleted, and all hardware and software associated with Web Central will be
decommissioned.
ENDORSEMENT REQUESTE D
ITS requests that AIC endorse the Web Central Service Retirement (WCSR) project plan. The plan was endorsed by the
Web Technologies & Infrastructure (WTI) Subcommittee on April 2 and the University Communications Standards
Committee (UCSC) on April 6.
PROJECT SCHEDULE
A high-level project schedule is outlined below. At this time, the estimated completion is August 2016. During the Design
phase, the project team will create the final migration timeline, after consulting with customers to assign them to a
migration wave. At the end of the Design phase, the project team will present the final project schedule to IT
governance.
Start Plan
Design
March Mar-Apr 2015 May - July 2015
2015
Migration
June 2015 – June 2016
Decommission
June - July 2016
Finish
Close
Aug 2016 August
2016
Scheduled Phases
Plan: Initiate the project and obtain governance endorsement for the project scope and initial schedule.
Design: Identify and consult with customers and finalize the migration process, scheduled waves, and detailed
timeline.
Migration: Regularly communicate and consult with customers to ensure timeline is on target. Customers will
migrate sites, files, programs, and active email addresses to the alternative services.
Decommission: Decommission all necessary hardware and software.
Close Out: Conduct a retrospective, provide final updates to IT Governance, and close the project.
PROJECT GOALS
Provide guidelines for each recommended alternative to Web Central hosting or email service.
Enable customers to identify appropriate actions to take to independently migrate Web Central sites to
alternative solutions.
Ensure that customers migrate, archive, or delete all Web Central sites, files, programs, and active email
addresses according to the retirement schedule.
Transition archived web content files to the University Digital Archives location of choice at the close of the
project.
Decommission all Web Central hardware and software.
USER IMPACT
There are more than 100 colleges, schools, departments, or individuals that have over 1200 unique websites within the
www.utexas.edu namespace or as custom domains on Web Central, of which 65% will most likely be archived or
deleted. The Web Central/UTS email service has about 500 active users of @www.utexas.edu and @uts.cc.utexas.edu
addresses.
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Impact Analysis
All users that currently host sites on Web Central will be required to migrate, delete, or archive those sites.
All users that host UTS personal websites will need to migrate, delete, or archive those sites.
All users who currently send and receive email via UTS or Web Central will be required to move to another mail
service or email address.
The alternative services and archive resources will most likely have an increase in customer requests and
customer support needs.
ALTERNATIVE SERVICES
ITS has identified more robust and secure alternatives to Web Central hosting and email services, such as:
For Websites
UT Web
Managed Drupal (Fall 2015)
WordPress (sites.utexas.edu)
SharePoint
University Wiki Service
UT Virtual
For UTS Emails
Microsoft Office 365
UTmail
SUPPORT AND DOCUMENT ATION
ITS will offer consultation and comprehensive documentation on the transition procedures of the alternative services to
each user, as well as regularly scheduled office hours.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
For more information, please contact the project team:
Christina Konstantinidou
Project Manager, ITS Applications
christinak@austin.utexas.edu
Jenn Coast
Web Strategist, ITS Applications
coast@austin.utexas.edu
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OVERVIEW
With the forthcoming launch of the responsive, mobile-friendly www.utexas.edu home and core pages, there will be no
need for a separate m.utexas.edu site to display mobile content. ITS plans to retire the m.utexas.edu site when the
responsive www.utexas.edu site goes live in April and to redirect the m.utexas.edu URL to the new site.
ENDORSEMENT REQUESTE D
ITS requests that the Architecture & Infrastructure Committee (AIC) endorse the m.utexas.edu retirement plan. The Web
Technologies & Infrastructure (WTI) Subcommittee endorsed the plan on April 2 and the University Communications
Standards Committee (UCSC) on April 6.
RETIREMENT JUSTIFICA TION
A separate m dot site is no longer needed because the www.utexas.edu home and core pages will be responsive
and mobile friendly.
The use of m dot sites is declining, by as much as 50% in 2015 according to one report linked below.
Traffic to m.utexas.edu is very low, with the most popular page (Alerts) receiving only 311 hits in the last 30 days
(non-robot traffic).
The m.utexas.edu content is out of date, with broken links and broken RSS feeds.
There have been no requests by campus developers or visitors to update the out-of-date content, another
indication that the site is not heavily used.
ITS will no longer have to maintain a separate code base for the m.utexas.edu site.
M dot sites are dead. Long live responsive design.
RETIREMENT TASKS
Communicate with owners of mobile-specific sites to which the m.utexas.edu site links, with proposed action to
provide a mobile link on the desktop version if one does not already exist.
Communicate with the broader University IT community about the retirement of m.utexas.edu and request that
links to m.utexas.edu are removed.
Redirect the m.utexas.edu, utexas.mobi, www.utexas.mobi, and mobile.utexas.edu URLs to www.utexas.edu
when the new design goes live.
Transfer the m.utexas.edu files and codebase to University Archives, as part of the Web Central Service
Retirement Project.
USER IMPACT
Based on research of the current site, there will be limited impact to visitors because the site receives very little
legitimate traffic. No changes will be required to mobile-specific sites to which m.utexas.edu links.
IMPACT ANALYSIS
Site owners that have mobile-specific sites to which m.utexas.edu links may choose to add a link to a mobilespecific site from a non-mobile version.
Campus developers that currently link to m.utexas.edu will need to remove the links.
Visitors will need to update or remove any bookmarks to m.utexas.edu.
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INDUSTRY RESEARCH
Mobile SEO is Dead!, March 03, 2015
“The use of ‘m dot’ as a website's address prefix has been surpassed by the use of responsive and adaptive web
design to provide mobile users with online content that conforms to their specific device and its screen size.”
Mdot sites expected to lose 45-50pc of share in 2015: report, January 27, 2015
“Dynamic serving and responsive design mobile sites are expected to rise while dedicated mdot sites will slide
further as marketers look for more efficient and scalable methods of mobile optimization, according to a recent
report from Pure Oxygen Labs.”
Respo nsiv e D esign v s. Mo bile “m .dot” site s , June 2014
“One of the main problems with creating a separate mobile “m.dot” website is that you now have 2 code bases
to manage.”
Six reasons to ditch your m.site in 2014, December 4, 2013
“In just a couple of short years, m.sites have gone from must-have to must-not-have. Here’s a short history of
the m.site and why, if you haven’t ditched yours already, you should make it a priority to retire it in 2014.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION
For more information, please contact:
Jenn Coast
Web Strategist, ITS Applications
coast@austin.utexas.edu
Paul Grotevant
Drupal Team IT Manager, ITS Applications
pfg@utexas.edu
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