Infrastructure Virtualization
Goal
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Reduce overall IT costs and risks, and improve service reliability and sustainability, by consolidating
and virtualizing 80% of the distributed physical server infrastructure that is not related to research.
Method
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“Sprint” approach to quickly develop and provide services that help departments address their
challenge to move from physical servers to cost effective alternatives, including external cloud
providers (community or commercial) and on-premises Cornell virtual infrastructure.
Actions Since April 22nd Launch
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Developed a “Cash for Clunkers” program, a CIT underwritten initiative to provide free VM’s for fiscal
year 2012 for each physical server moved to the Cornell central VM pool. CIT will partner with
members of Cornell’s community to help them with their VM migration needs.
Established simple not-to-exceed multi-year pricing for VM services, with no unrelated overheads
Formed a core VM services deployment team comprised of experts consolidated from across CIT’s
NCS, S&O, IS and project management office.
Formed a VM Services Advisory Board to provide a structured forum for ongoing feedback and
guidance to the core VM services deployment team.
Joined the Internet2 Community Cloud Initiative along with 11 other leading universities to work
with I2, HP and AT&T to develop a higher education focused cloud VM resource.
Early adopter migration discussions are in progress with SAS, Arts & Sciences, Vet school and
Facilities.
Infrastructure Virtualization
Related next steps
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Deploy a Network Attached Storage service (NAS) gateway that will:
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reduce total number of campus file servers by ~30 in CIT and up to 35 more across campus
lower overall system administration effort and costs
provide an 18 month ROI and potential savings >$100K/yr
improve disaster recovery for critical services (Peoplesoft, Kuali, Blackboard)
cost $160,000 (includes 3 yr maintenance), funded/installed with existing CIT resources
Migrate many of the distributed Active Directory services to the Enterprise
Active Directory domain, thereby reducing duplication of these services as the
distributed physical infrastructure is virtualized
Development of VM assessment forum(s)
Identification of internal and external resources to supplement departmental
staff conversion efforts
Develop FAQ’s, service descriptions, web presence, and other sources of
ongoing project status information