Appendix 1 - Roadmap for ICT Infrastructure Development (FY 11/12)
This Appendix details the work programmes required for the current financial year to meet the aspirations of the
ICT strategy. Note that in the summary tables for each year, items that currently do not have funding allocated are
highlighted in italics.
Roadmap 20010/11 Outcome
Project requests Project
to IPSC (10/11)
Head Count
Enhance
Networks in
University
Buildings
40745
Network
segmentation
Staff
Allocation
Priority
1=high,
2=Med,
3=Low
Funding
Source
Time
Estimate
Funding
Requested
Funding
Allocated
Start Date
End Date
Network Team 1.0 FTE
7FTE
(4)
IPSC
3 Months
£50,000
£0
01/05/2010
Not Funded 2
40744
Network/
Security
7FTE
1.0 FTE
(3)
IPSC
4 Months
£50,000
£0
01/05/2010
Not Funded 2
Flexible Access
40743
Network Team 2.0 FTE
10FTE
(6)
IPSC
4 Months
£50,000
£0
01/04/2010
Not Funded 2
Directory
Integration
43805
Novell Team
2FTE
1 FTE
(2)
IPSC
6 Months
£25,000
£0
01/11/2010
Not
Funded
WEB 2.0
Developments
43807
CS/MIS/TRG
2.5 FTE
IPSC
6 Months
£15,000
£0
01/11/2010
Not Funded 2
2
(5)
Service
Sustainability
40742
All teams
28FTE
2.5 FTE
(6)
IPSC
5 Months
£80,000
£80,000
01/05/2011
Complete
1
DR/BC
enhancements
40740
All teams
28FTE
3.0 FTE
IPSC
6 Months
£250,000
£250,000
01/05/2011
30/12/2011 1
(6)
Student clusters 41777
Admin/Novel/ 0.33 FTE
DST/DTT/TIG (1)
4FTE
IPSC
4 Months
£200,000
£200,000
01/04/2011
Complete
1
Teaching space
upgrades
MCU
2FTE
IPSC
3 Months
£100,000
£100,000
15/07/11
Complete
1
(8)
(6)
Investment
43111
Cost
Consumables
Staff
Resource
Cost
Cost
Capitalised Revenue
15.33FTE
£430,000 £107,500 £200,000
Roadmap 2011/12
The items for 2010/11 have been extended and modified to take account of new strategic priorities and the
opportunities presented by changes in the external environment and funding
Enhancement of Campus LAN switching Infrastructure – Status Ongoing
Continue to improve the network infrastructure within University buildings through the replacement
of ageing Ethernet equipment.
Priorities for this year include significant provisioning works, Router upgrades and additional
Fibre Optic circuits required to support the VoIP project implementation.
Benefits
Dedicated bandwidth to the desktop, particularly for researchers, and specialised research facilities
and enhanced Network security, quality of service and management tools (Ref. Information Strategy
Universal Access Working Group, e-Science and the Grid working group, University Strategic Plan
1.6.3).
Risks
Users experience poor network and applications performance. Ageing equipment leading to
increased failure rates and Network downtime. Inadequate network management and security
capabilities requiring more staff effort to maintain service levels
Network Segmentation – Status Ongoing
Continue to implement Network segmentation to limit the exposure of key services and provide
inherent containment measures against hacking, viruses, worms etc. (Ref. Information Strategy
Information Systems Security Working Group and Universal Access Working Group; University
Strategic Plan 3.3.5)
Benefits
Reduce key systems exposure and provide inherent containment measures against hacking, viruses,
worms etc. (Ref. Information Strategy Information Systems Security Working Group and Universal
Access Working Group; University Strategic Plan 3.3.5)
Risks
High risk of systems compromise, virus and worm propagation leading to potential loss of
confidentiality, integrity and availability of the University’s information assets. Significant staff
resources required for handling security incidents.
Directory Integration – Status ongoing
Continue to develop the infrastructure that will provide secure authentication and authorised access
to IT resources for the individuals who are entitled to use them. Priorities for this year will include

Guest account management system improvements for approved visitors and guests e.g.,
conference delegates, visiting academics etc. Ongoing

Maintain Active Directory populated staff and student accounts serviced via the Identity
Vault including password self service

Additional Federated authentication services against central directories to promote
GUID adoption. TRG to oversee.

JISC sponsored ‘Shibboleth’ federated services and Public Key Infrastructure ‘PKI’
investigations - Ongoing
(Ref. Information Strategy Authentication and Access Control Working Group; University Strategic
Plan 3.3.4)
Benefits
Comprehensive Identity management system enabling a variety of current and future developments
including CSCE, SSD, SSO, Shibboleth realms, Virtual organisations, portal developments and
unified messaging including IP telephony
Risks
Poor or limited Identity management provisions will result in:

Increased security incidents and staff efforts to resolve

Proliferation of different authentication domains and systems
Leading to

Duplicated staff efforts and in-ability for staff in one authentication domain to access
resources out with their domain

In ability for the University to fully participate in national initiatives e.g., Athens realm, EScience collaborations and cross institutional federated services
2
National Middleware Initiatives – Dependant on Directory Integration
Continue to implement and support the JISC framework for ‘national’ middleware services based on
the open source, open standards Shibboleth framework, which is designed to integrate with
institutional directories.
Benefits
Provide robust authentication and authorisation services for staff and student access to institutional
services and also datasets and other sources of electronic information, which are held externally. It is
intended that the X.509 certificates used by Grid middleware will be integrated into the national
middleware initiative. Whilst HEFCE have allocated £3.2M for the rollout of Shibboleth in England,
SHEFC have not indicated, as yet, that there will be commensurate financial commitment for
Scotland. Progress to date includes the Athens replacement authentication system now being used by
the Library, the Janet roaming service and Eduroam
Risks
Failure to participate in National developments will isolate the University and make it more difficult
to for the University to participate in future collaborative projects including GRID/e-science research
projects.
Serviced Desktop for Staff and Students – Status ongoing
Continue to develop and actively promote solutions for desktop systems management and security.
This area was considered a significant concern in various information security audits carried out by
Delloite’s.
Priorities for this year include;

Promoting Standard Staff Desktop (SSD) version 7 based on Windows 7 and AD

SSD migration from Novell based file and print services to Active Directory (AD) managed
servers.

Promoting the SSD managed solution within Colleges and Schools
 Renew Sophos anti-virus site license
Benefits
Improve security, productivity and reduce IT support overheads so that some resources can be
redeployed to value added activities at the faculty/departmental level (Ref Information Strategy
Working Group Common Baselines and Delivery Platforms; University Strategic Plan 3.3.4)
Risks
SSD stagnation would result in poor uptake, increased security incidents and duplicated IT staff
effort
Wifi Flexible Access Provision – Status ongoing
Continue to develop flexible network and IT infrastructure access solutions.
Priorities for this year include replacing end of life access points (APs) and a complete service
review to define and implement service improvements, making the service easier to use and
able to support a wider range of Wifi enabled mobile devices.
Benefits
Allow staff, students and authorised visitors to use their own personal systems to access IT resources
from a consistent, secure and reliable network infrastructure. (Ref. Information Strategy Universal
Access Working Group; University Strategic Plan 3.3.4)
Risks
Ad hoc solutions will result in increased security incidents, inconsistent solutions across campus,
duplicated efforts, confusion amongst users and higher capital and support costs
3
Service Sustainability – Status ongoing
Priorities for this year include

Server virtualisation to provide additional disaster recovery and business continuity
capabilities and reduce the environmental impact of introducing new services

Additional filestore to support SSD/CSCE/e-mail services

Web Cache service replacement
Background The web cache service was introduced to help reduce the University’s Network
bandwidth charges. Changes in the way JANET(UK) levy Network charges has removed
this requirement. However the web caches provide a valuable monitoring point to help with
Acceptable use monitoring and incident investigation. It is also true to say that on occasions
the web caches cause user frustration due to increased WWW page load times.
Proposal: IT Services would like to remove the web cache service but preserve the ability
to monitor AUP compliance and support incident investigations, without impacting WWW
page load times.

Establish a Moodle version 2.0 development environment. All Colleges and schools depend
on the Moodle service to support their teaching and learning activities. In addition Moodle is
a critical service with respect to the University’s ‘Student experience’. The current Moodle
service has been stable for a number of years and it is imperative that major Moodle
upgrades i.e., to version 2.0 is carried out in a manner that does not impact on the reliability
and performance of the existing Moodle service. To facilitate this requires investment in an
appropriate Moodle 2 development environment. The development environment would be
used to identify and resolve barriers to Moodle migrations and determine the most
appropriate server and application support infrastructure necessary to provide a robust,
scalable and high performance Moodle 2 service.
Designing sustainable services will require a higher initial investment however the expectation is that
over the lifetime of the service the benefits in terms of the service levels provided will be greater and
overall costs in terms of management and other support costs will be less. All too often services
evolve from a basic level supporting a few users to a critical mass with many watersheds along the
way that require significant support efforts, service downtime for upgrades and user dissatisfaction
during periods of poor service performance.
Benefits
Service sustainability is about designing and improving services to ensure that they are:

Robust and resilient

Scale to meet user demand and legitimate expectations over time

Provide continued high performance, availability and reliability

Provide service assurance metrics that indicate when improvements, upgrades and
replacements are required. This implies that suitable funding is made available for server
upgrades and replacements. This would be analogous to the agreed workstation four-year
replacement cycle.

Are supportable and secure
Risks

Increased frequency of Systems and Applications failures

Poor applications performance
Leading to

User dissatisfaction

Poor business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities

Increased support load on systems teams

In ability to introduce new productivity features and other service enhancements
Improve e-Science support Network – Status Ongoing
Build on existing relationships between the National e-Science centre, e-Science researchers, GRID
computing systems administrators and other GRID support personnel to establish an e-Science
support team.
No financial priorities for this year.
Benefits
Significant co-ordinated support network for GRID computing at the University
Risks
Disjointed approach to GRID/E-science computing, resulting in duplicated efforts amongst support
staff and a loss of prestige in the e-science research community
4
Implement Disaster recovery and Business continuity solutions for Core infrastructure services
Continue to review Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity plans for all Core services. Update
and amend operational procedures and roles and responsibilities as appropriate. Expand the Boyd
ORR building DR site to include systems that will provide DR and BC solutions for critical services
as per DR/BC plans (Ref Information security/continuity working groups).
Priorities for this year include;

Increased power provision within the James Watt North, Boyd Orr and St Andrews server
rooms and improved power protection.

Additional backup capacity to support the increased data foot print for a wide range of core
services
Benefits
Ensure core services continue to operate at acceptable levels during disaster situations affecting core
sites or major hardware or network failures. Significant expansion of Standard Staff Desktop
deployments and the exchange e-mail service will protect user file store and e-mail folders against
local system failures. Expanding the central backup capabilities will allow IT services to provide an
enhanced back up service for faculty and other units critical data.
Risks
Prolonged failure of core services or data loss will seriously impact the University’s ability to
conduct business and fulfil its legal and statutory duties with respect to information processes.
Lifecycle Replacement and Enhancement of Student (PC) Clusters
Annual Student PC cluster replacement
The 2011/2012 investment was brought forward to financial year 2010/2011, therefore no spend is
anticipated this financial year.
Benefits
To ensure that reliable and modern workstations are available for student use and to improve the
workstation to student ratio. (Ref. Information Strategy Provision of on-Campus Student C&IT
Facilities Working Group; University Strategic Plan 3.3.6)
Risks
Increased failure rates on cluster systems would lead to higher support costs and increasing
complaints from students re IT facilities. Unreliable and or slow workstations could cause difficulties
for students to deliver assignments on time. Poor ratings in HE surveys
Review File store and Server consolidation strategy
Continue to measure the effects of the current file store consolidation and server consolidation
strategies.
Priorities for this year include, producing a joint IT services and College business case for
sufficient central filestore provisions to accommodate College and school requirements. The
Business case will be submitted to IPSC for consideration.
Benefits
Quantify the benefits obtained from a centralised file store and server consolidation strategy and
propose future strategic direction. Reduced cost for file store and server provisions for all Colleges
based on economies of scale, consolidated purchasing power, lower operating costs and reduced a
reduction in staff resources allocated to file store management.
Risks
Inappropriate strategic direction leading to higher cost for core service deployments
IT Staff Training
Continue to implement the TRG working group recommendations for IT support staff training.
Benefits
The benefits would be improved skill sets, IT staff morale and productivity
Risks
IT support staff expected to perform technical, sensitive and critical functions without proper training
and staff development
5
Review of Computer room provisions on campus – Status Ongoing
Server and file store consolidation, Service sustainability and HPC cluster provisions are placing
heavy demands on existing computer room (Data Centres) facilities including space, floor loadings,
electrical provision/protection and air conditioning/handling. It is important to continue to review
existing provisions to determine whether or not University strategies with respect to Disaster
recovery, Business continuity, service sustainability and e-Science are likely to be compromised by
inadequate computer room provision.
Priorities for this year include increased power provision and protection within the James
Watt North and Boyd ORR server rooms and installing power protecting for the St Andrews
building communications room.
It is projected that the existing computer rooms operated by IT services will have reached full
capacity by 2012. Service outages caused by power overload and air conditioning deficiencies are
increasing. Significant funds have been used to improved the environmental conditions within
existing data centres however the fundamental problems associated with the poor condition and
limited space of existing data centres remain a significant risk to core services.
Benefits
Identify the risks associated with the condition and capabilities of existing Data Centres to the
University’s business and IT strategies with respect to Disaster recovery, Business continuity and
service sustainability.
Risks
Poor computer room accommodation will result in significant risks to a progressive IT strategy and
business continuity/disaster recovery planning.
Unified communications and Web 2 developments
Investigate and propose strategic solutions for end user access to integrated e-mail, diary
management, telephony, fax, IM, document and applications sharing and other forms of personal
communications.
Priorities for this year include integrating a number of current projects to provide a true
Unified communications environment.
Benefits
Unified communications will provide a more productive end-user communications environment and
allow users to more quickly find and communicate with the people they need to. Developments in
Web technologies are likely to provide a greater choice in the way IT applications are deployed and
supported. It is therefore desirable for the University to be made aware of these developments and
any measurable benefits that may impact the University’s ICT strategy. Areas of particular interest
would be social networking and collaboration tools, Software as a service paradigm, Virtual desktops
and a variety of productivity tools based on Rich Internet/Interactive Applications (RIAs) e.g.,
special purpose widgets, gadgets and sidebars.
Risks
Poor or badly integrated personal communications systems will frustrate users and lead to more time
being spent managing communications channels and communications content
Portal Services
Continue to develop comprehensive Portal services for Staff and Students, based on SharePoint, and
align with other infrastructure developments including SSO/Identity management, SLP, SSD and
CSCE developments.
Benefits
Student portal services will be important to the student laptop scheme and would integrate WEB
based student resources including Moodle, WebSurf, ExamSurf, e-mail, file store and print services
Staff portal services would provide simplified access to web based resources including e-mail, diary
management and other collaboration tools e.g., Desk Top conferencing, instant messaging, Wikis,
Blogs and IP telephony
Risks
Without a robust portal service it will be hard to integrate, in a consistent way, the web based
services that are being used or likely to be used to front end core applications. Poor or badly
integrated Portal services will frustrate users and reduce the effectiveness of web-based applications.
6
Teaching Space Improvements – Status ongoing
Continue to improve IT and A/V provisions within all centrally supported Teaching Space (TS) in
accordance with the proposed Teaching Space strategy and associated roadmap.
Priorities for this year include replacing old projectors, AV upgrades to various venues to
support Lecture recording or Video Teaching and improving the effectiveness of the remote
diagnostic and management systems.
Benefits

(within available budgets) Ensure that Teaching Space facilities are kept up-to-date with
respect to technology and reasonable expectations

Ensure that Teaching Space support is fully co-ordinated across all relevant service
boundaries and measured against agreed performance indicators

Ensure teaching spaces are flexible and capable of supporting new requirements e.g., lecture
recordings, video teaching.
Risks

Teaching Space IT and A/V facilities remain inconsistent between venues and difficult to use

Teaching Space support remains uncoordinated and inefficient

Poor Teaching Space provisioning and support leading to significant user dissatisfaction
Review of Student e-mail provision
The focus for this year will be to review the operation of the Microsoft Exchange based student email and calendaring solution. Options for cost savings will be explored including service
provisioning using lower cost disks and the possibility of externally hosting the service at
Microsoft’s live.edu or Google’s G-mail.
Benefits
The Student e-mail service is embedded as a pivotal service within the University’s Student IT
provisions. Most out of band communications between University departments and the Student
population occurs via e-mail and indeed it is viewed as a critical means of communications for
important alerts such as exam reminders, assessment reminders, tutorial and lecture changes etc. Our
student e-mail provision should provide the following:

High Performance and sufficient mail box size

User friendly interface and functionality including spell checking, address books and diary
management

Integration with other student IT facilities e.g., VLE, SRIP, Portal etc
Risks
Failure to address future Student e-mail provisions will result in the following:

Deterioration of existing service

Potential inability to deliver important messages when needed

User dissatisfaction leading to ad-hoc uncontrolled solutions
Software Licence Policy Management – Status ongoing
Continue to review the implementation of the software licence policy management project.
Specific objectives for this year will be the continued role out of the auditing tool, based on
Microsoft’s Systems Centre Configuration Manager, to all SSD and CSCE desktops and establish a
robust auditing and reporting process.
Benefits
Reduce the University’s exposure to the risk of litigation due to software copyright infringements.
(Ref. Implementation of Software Licensing Policy approved by Court)
Risks
Copyright infringements resulting in significant staff time to resolve and potential legal actions
against the University
7
Projected Costs for 2011/12 – All Priorities.
Activity
Project
Cost
Cost
Cost
Capitalised
Revenue
Consumables
Source
Priority
1=high,
2=Med,
3=Low
Enhance Networks
in University
Buildings
40745
£50,000
£12,500
University
2
Network
segmentation
40744
£50,000
£12,500
University
2
Flexible Access
40743
£50,000
£12,500
University
1
Directory
Integration
43805
£25,000
£6,250
University
2
Student clusters
41777
£0
University
3
Unified
communications
and WEB 2.0
Developments
4306
£15,000
University
2
Software Licensing
40739
University
2
IT Staff Training
40737
University
2
Service
Sustainability
including Moodle 2
developments and
web cache
replacement
40742
£160,000
£40,000
University
1
Disaster
recovery/Business
continuity
including Power
upgrades*
40740
£275,000
£68,750
University
1*
Increased central
file store provision
40742
£150,000
£37,500
University
1**
Teaching space
upgrades
43111
£100,000
£25,000
University
1
Sophos ant-virus
renewal
40739
University
1
Totals
£10,000
£2,500
£25,000
£20,000
£870,000
£217,500
Funds Requested
£60,000
Revenue Plus £277,500
Consumables
* Power upgrades and increased power protection are budgetary estimates and implementation should be
handled via E&B.
Projected Costs for 2011/12 – Priority One elements only
Activity
Project
Cost
Cost
Cost
Capitalised
Revenue
Consumables
Source
Priority
1=high,
2=Med,
3=Low
Flexible Access
40743
£50,000
£12,500
University
1
Service
Sustainability
40742
£160,000
£40,000
University
1
Disaster
recovery/Business
continuity
40740
£275,000
£68,750
University
1
Increased central
file store provision
40742
£150,000
£37,500
University
1**
Student clusters
41777
University
1
Teaching space
upgrades
43111
University
1
Sophos antivirus
renewal
40739
University
1
Totals
£0
£100,000
£25,000
£20,000
£735,000
£183,750
Funds Requested
£20,000
Revenue Plus £203,750
Consumables
8
Project requests
to IPSC (11/12)
Head Count
Staff
Allocation
Enhance Networks Network Team 1.0 FTE
in University
7FTE
Buildings
Time
Estimate
Funding
Requested
Funding
Allocated
Start Date
End Date
Priority
1=high,
2=Med,
3=Low
(4) IPSC
5 Months
£50,000
£0
01/05/2012
30/09/2012
2
Funding Source
Network
segmentation
Network/
Security
7FTE
1.0 FTE
(3)
IPSC
5 Months
£50,000
£0
01/05/2012
30/09/2012
2
Flexible Access
Network Team 2.0 FTE
10FTE
(6)
IPSC
5 Months
£50,000
£0
01/06/2012
31/10/2012
2
Directory
Integration
Novell Team
2FTE
1.0 FTE
(2)
IPSC
7 Months
£25,000
£0
01/03/2012
30/09/2012 2
WEB 2.0
Developments
CS/MIS/TRG
0.5 FTE
IPSC
6 Months
£15,000
£0
01/04/2012
30/09/2012
2
IPSC
6 Months
£10,000
£0
01/04/2012
30/09/2012
2
2 Month
£25,000
£0
01/05/2012
30/06/2012
2
(5)
Software
Licensing
DST
1.0
(2)
IT Staff Training
Admin/Help
0.1 FTE
Desk/Training
4FTE
Service
Sustainability
All teams
1.0 FTE
(6)
IPSC
6 Months
£160,000
£0
01/05/2012
28/10/2012
1
DR/BC
enhancements
All teams and 2.5 FTE
IPSC
6 Months
£275,000
£0
01/04/2012
30/09/2012
1
Student clusters
Admin/Novel/ 0.0 FTE
DST/DTT/TIG (1)
4FTE
IPSC
0 Months
£0
n/a
01/04/2012
28/07/2012
3
Business case for
central file store
provision
SST/TRG
1.5 FTE
IPSC
9 Months
£150,000
£0
01/02/2012
28/10/2012
1**
7FTE
(4)
Teaching space
upgrades
AV/IT
2FTE
IPSC
3 Months
£100,000
£0
15/07/2012
15/09/2012
1
(8)
(6)
Sophos
DST
0.1FTE
IPSC
1 Month
£20,000
£0
1/07/2012
1/08/2012
1
antivirus
(4)
(1)
Investment
28FTE
E&B
(1) IPSC
(6)
Cost
Consumables
Staff
Resource
Cost
Cost
Capitalised Revenue
13.7FTE
£870,000 £217,500 £60,000
9
Project - Other
Head Count
road map projects
with staff
commitments
National
middleware
initiatives
(Shibboleth)
Staff
Allocation
Novell/Server/ 0.5 FTE
MIS/E-science (5)
5FTE
Start Date
End Date
Priority
1=high,
2=Med,
3=Low
Funding Source
Time
Estimate
Cost
IT Services
Ongoing
N/A
1
Serviced Desktop Novell/DST/
for Staff and
Server
Students
9FTE
4.0 FTE
(9)
CS
Ongoing
N/A
1
Improve e-Science Server Team
support Network 2FTE
1.0 FTE
(2)
CS
Ongoing
N/A
2
IP Telephony
3.0 FTE
(8)
CS
Ongoing
N/A
1
CS
1 Month
N/A
1
MCU/E&B
2.5 FTE
Continue to review Server/
0.25 FTE
file store and
Netware 3FTE (3)
server
consolidation
strategy
Investment
8.75 FTE
Totals
22.45 FTE
10
Appendix 2 – TRG short life working group reports
The following TRG reports have been produced
Report on Professional Development of Distributed IT Support Staff
Report on Software Audit Tool
Report on Student Clusters
Report on Patch Management
Report on Platform Flexibility
Report on Multimedia Communications
Report on E-mail, Diary Management and unified messaging direction
Review of file store and server consolidation strategy
Review of Computer room provisions
Report on Flexible access provisions for teaching, research and administration support
Teaching space strategy
Future TRG reports may include
Review of file store and server consolidation strategy
Report on Domain Name Service and IP address management direction
Report on Apple OSX requirements and support
Report on Linux requirements and support
Report on Open Source Software solutions
Report on Authentication and Authorisation services on campus and with other Institutions
Report on Network and Information systems security
Report on e-Science support
Report on Web2.0/3.0 and the potential impact on the University’s ICT strategy, IT support and the services and
applications that would be relevant to the University’s IT user base
11