COST SAVING (AND

QUALITY IMPROVEMENT!) WITH IT IN THE CLOUD.

Robin Gadd

Head of Information and Systems Development

Microsoft Briefing for FE Principals and Policymakers 2011

Midsize Tertiary FE College Central southern England in SE Region (just) New Forest National Park – semi-rural, wide

(international) catchment c.11,000 learners per annum, 14-104 years

old, pre-entry to foundation degree level, and a pre-school nursery

c.200 key employers (mainly SMEs)

Beacon College since 2004 Technology Exemplar Provider since 2008

We do education and training outstandingly well

We’re not an IT service provider(although we try hard to do this outstandingly well

too!)

MY CASE STUDY…

A brief guide to Cloud Computing for Principals and Policymakers – demystification!

Explain what we’ve been doing at Brock, and why

Outline the perceived costs and the benefits Contextualise in the “shared services”

agenda Highlight some things to think about

So that we… Can think some more about how cloud

computing fits in FE sector IT Strategies going forward

EVER READ THESE?

“All those government bodies likely to procure ICT services

should look to do so on a scaleable, cloud basis” (Digital Britain,

p213)

TECHNOLOGY HYPE CYCLE 2010 (GARTNER)

http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1447613

Gartner: Cloud computing is “the most hyped subject in IT today”!!

TRADE-OFFS OF “TRAD” IT INVESTMENTS

Hardware Fixed costs; fixed performance! Five-year capitalised ownership = out-dated equipment!

Variable asset utilization Most servers run at 5-20% of processing capacity Even virtualised servers get nowhere near 100%

Data redundancy and security Computing/networking reliability & redundancy Backup and DR (disaster recovery)

Power and cooling efficiency Datacentres: 1 watt to the server, 1.5 watts in overhead!

Personnel costs Recruitment, retention, training

But we want to spend more money at the frontline of teaching

and learning, don’t we?

WHAT ARE WE ACTUALLY TALKING ABOUT HERE?

Cloud computing is “a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a

shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage,

applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider

interaction”.

(US National Institute of Standards and Technology)

Er…? In layperson’s terms?

“Technology services deliveredover the internet”

THE CLOUD COMPUTING PROPOSITIONCLOUD CAN BE A WAY OF…

Focussing on what we’re good at (educating) Getting more Providing more Spending less £ Innovating Sharing services Improving

cashflow Capex → Opex

clarionledger.com

THREE CLOUD SERVICE TYPES…

• Email• Office apps• CRM• Facebook

• Developer tools• Databases• Web apps• Azure

• Storage (disk space)

• Content delivery• Backup/DR• Compute (processors, memory)

So what is cloud computing?

Looking for economies of scale?Rent a piece of this 7 acres…

CLOUD STUDENT/ALUMNI EMAIL

Exchange Server(s)

ForeFront IM on an existing (virtual) server syncs our AD with the Live ID cloud service

Typical in-College infrastructure

Elastic storage!(expands and contracts on

demand)

LOTS OF COST; NOT MUCH BENEFIT!

In-College Student Email Service Levels at Brock in 2007 Inbox (200MB) Network file store (200MB) Lost USB sticks galore No external mail send by default No system redundancy A mediocre experience Low usage

£££ Hardware, software, anti-virus, backup, DR Maintenance & support

HOW MUCH COST?

£ Per Year (x4)CAPEXServer Hardware 2,500Licensing 1,250Installation 500Setup/Config 500AV & Antispam 1,250SSL 125

OPEXBackup 1,000Admin (5 hrs/wk) 9,100Training (admin, helpdesk, end users) 2,000

18,225

MORE QUALITY AND LESS COST!

Outlook.com Service Levels 2008 Inbox (10GB) Online file store (25GB) Anti-virus and anti-spam Email for life (Alumni? Destinations tracking?) An experience that meets expectations High usage (>3000 mailboxes) 99.9% uptime guarantee£££ Free! Fewer servers, less software, reduced

maintenance

No brainer?(providing you have Microsoft systems and can get ForeFront working easily!)

(oh… and a working knowledge of PowerShell is quite helpful too!!!)

CASHFLOW, ROI, AND CAPACITY PLANNING

£18k investe

d

+£18k investe

d

+£18k investe

d

+£18k investe

d

Elastic as demand grows (or contracts)

In-College Exchange

In-Cloud Exchange

SO IS THERE A FUTURE FOR IN-COLLEGE IT?

Yes. Less. But still probably a lot! PCs, printers, networking, high-end

media But different ownership models; different support

models; utility computing; thin clients A data centre

But smaller; bridge between the college and the cloud; more proactive monitoring/self-healing; shared services

An IT Support structure But smaller? More contract and supplier

relationship management etc… skills gaps?

The Cloud presents many organisational development

implications!

GREY CLOUDS – RISKS?

Our data is somewhere “out there”? Security; public or private cloud? is the door

locked? Where in the world is our stuff?

Legal jurisdictions? regulatory compliance; data protection? £-$ exchange?

SLAs Service/support; uptime guarantees (with financial

penalties?); technical support; time zones? Partners

Trust; reliability Single point of failure moves elsewhere

JANET connection: capacity/cost; redundancy?

Lots of due diligence needed!

FLUFFY WHITE CLOUDS – OPPORTUNITIES!

Expenditure management Spending less; shared/managed services; fewer

fixed costs; elastic capacity; moving Capex → Opex; enhanced cashflow

Quality improvement Getting more service/capacity; providing better

services to our customers Innovation and agility

The world changes; IT changes; opportunities change; keeping up with the next big thing!

Focussing on what we’re good at! Keeping what adds value, outsourcing what

doesn’t, adding more value by buying-in just the services we need

So why wait? can save you

money - this year!

CONCLUSION: THE BOTTOM LINE

Nick Carr was right! Most computing is

now a “utility” – we can’t live without IT, and yet “IT doesn’t matter”

IT infrastructure is not a key differentiator in the FE sector!

May 2003

So why spend any more £ (or $) than absolutely necessary on IT?

THANK YOU!RGADD@BROCK.AC.UK