seneca its cloud strategy 2017-19 · seneca its cloud strategy 2017‐19 background the information...

Seneca ITS Cloud Strategy 2017‐19

Document Owner Information Technology Services

Creation Date 01/10/2017

Last Updated Feb/2017

Version 1.0

Revision History

Version # Change Description / Reason Date Revised (MM/DD/YY) Author / Revised By

0.1 Initial ITS Draft 01/10/2017 Radha Krishnan

1.0 Final Version 02/08/2017 Radha Krishnan

Table of Contents

BACKGROUND ............................................................................................................................................ 4

DRIVERS FOR ADOPTING CLOUD ............................................................................................................ 4

UNDERSTANDING CLOUD SERVICES ..................................................................................................... 4

DEFINITION OF ITS SERVICES .................................................................................................................. 5

ACQUIRING NEW SERVICES - THE CLOUD FIRST APPROACH ........................................................... 6

MOVING EXISTING SERVICES TO CLOUD ............................................................................................... 7

INFRASTRUCTURE IMPLICATION ............................................................................................................ 8

3-YEAR PLAN FOR MOVING TO CLOUD .................................................................................................. 8

CURRENT FISCAL YEAR 2016-17 .................................................................................................................................. 9 2017-18 ..................................................................................................................................................................... 9 2018-19 ................................................................................................................................................................... 10 2019-20 ................................................................................................................................................................... 10

UNDERSTANDING CLOUD SERVICES ................................................................................................... 11

DEFINITIONS OF CLOUD COMPUTING ............................................................................................................................ 11 CHARACTERISTICS OF CLOUD COMPUTING ................................................................................................................... 11 CLOUD SERVICE MODELS ........................................................................................................................................... 11 ILLUSTRATED EXAMPLES OF CLOUD SERVICE ................................................................................................................ 13 CLOUD DEPLOYMENT MODELS .................................................................................................................................... 14 BENEFITS OF CLOUD COMPUTING ................................................................................................................................ 14

Seneca ITS Cloud Strategy 2017‐19 Background The Information Technology landscape is ever changing with new technologies being utilized in new ways

to increase efficiency and effectiveness. Cloud computing is a relatively recent technology advancement

that provides the ability to utilize remote computing services to supplement the traditional on‐premises

Data Centres that Seneca maintains. In the past one year, the maturity and adoption rate of cloud

computing has significant momentum increased and has reached infection point. The objective of this

document is to provide strategic direction on how Seneca can take advantage of cloud computing. This

strategy document is a “rolling plan” that will be reviewed and updated once per year.

Drivers for adopting Cloud The focus will be on risk mitigation and improving ITS service delivery without significantly increasing total

cost of ownership. Leveraging cloud technology will allow ITS to improve on its service level to

stakeholders by overcoming challenges like technology obsolesce, high maintenance, capacity

management, availability and infrastructure issues beyond its control. At the same time, not every service

from our data center requires to be moved to the cloud. The criteria for moving to cloud is detailed under

section ‘Moving existing Services to Cloud’. The intention of adopting a cloud strategy is not to achieve

headcount reduction or achieve significant cost savings.

Understanding Cloud Services The term Cloud Services is generally defined as a service that is made available to clients that run in an

off‐site Internet‐based environment. This differs from traditional “on premise” IT services that are

normally housed on‐site in a secure Data Centre.

The three main types of cloud services are Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS),

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). A similar type of service called “Managed Hosting” is not strictly a cloud

service but for the purposes of this document, we will consider Managed Hosting as a Cloud Service as it

provides similar benefits.

In broad terms, cloud vendors can be categorized into two buckets as Solution based cloud providers and

Platform service providers.

Solution based cloud providers who specialize in providing cloud services for their proprietary

products. Example: Microsoft and Oracle. Solution based cloud providers generally specialize in

Software as a Service (SaaS). Microsoft is the leading cloud vendor for hosting Office 365, Email

and SharePoint. Similarly, Oracle specializes in hosting PeopleSoft and other Oracle specific

products.

Platform service cloud providers specialize in providing Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and

Platform as a Service (PaaS). Example: Amazon Web Services. Many large enterprise customers

consider Amazon as replacement to their data centers.

For a detailed understanding of each type of cloud service, please refer to Appendix‐A

Definition of ITS Services Seneca College currently has two major Data Centres located at the Newnham and Seneca@York

campuses. These Data Centres house the production and development environments for most of the

major enterprise systems including i3 systems such as Student, HR and Finance and other systems such as

My.Seneca, and other smaller web applications. ITS Services can be broadly classified into 4 types as

below.

Service Name Description of Service

External Systems Integrated third party vendor provided systems like Seneca Works (Orbis), Ex Libris Alma, Lynda.com, Accommodate, Adobe eSign, etc. Typically, these systems are ideal candidates to be hosted as Software as a Service (SaaS) or for Managed hosting.

Web Applications Home grown ITS developed applications for managing important business operations like Continuing Education Web Site, International Applications Web Site, Locker rental, etc.

Home grown applications may continue to be served from in‐house data center or depending on their criticality may qualify to be hosted as Platform as a Service (PaaS) depending on the criticality.

Enterprise Systems Mission critical enterprise systems like My.Seneca, Email, ERP, etc.

Of all the services, Enterprise systems will undergo most scrutiny. Clear business benefits need to be established before moving these services to the cloud. Enterprise systems are typical candidates to be hosted with a solution based cloud provider.

Infrastructure Covers Servers, Storage, and internal Data Centre network, Internet, Load balancers, Routers, Firewall

Most infrastructure services are typically local to a data center except for Storage and Servers. Platform service cloud providers are good candidates for moving our Servers and Storage.

Departmental Systems Departmental subscriptions for academic or administrative purposes like Workday, OscarEMR (Health Centre), Matrix, Warp, Zenith, etc.

These services are generic and may be moved to either Solution based or Platform service cloud providers.

Traditionally, ITS has been the manager or provider for all of the above business requirements. With the

adoption of cloud, ITS role may include to be an advisor of solutions as explained in later sections under

the column ‘ITS Role’.

This document covers the ITS cloud strategy for both acquiring new services and moving existing services

to cloud.

Acquiring New Services ‐ The Cloud First Approach As part of the Seneca ITS Cloud Strategy, ITS will be ensuring that all new services utilize Cloud Services

where available and appropriate. Since cloud services are provided by vendors at various levels,

depending on the solution, ITS will follow the hosting preference in order for new solutions as follows.

Preference Service Name ITS Role

1 Software as a Service (SaaS)

As an Advisor, ITS will assist the user department in setting up and getting the services up and running.

ITS will provide integration support to Enterprise data where needed including authentication support for single‐sign on.

The user department will maintain the operational duties of the system with ITS providing technical support when required liaising with the vendor for technical matters and issues

ITS will provide centralized contract management and budgeting support for long term subscriptions

ITS will ensure that new SaaS vendors go through a rigorous screening process on behalf of the college

2 Managed Hosting All services as listed under SaaS

In addition, ITS will ensure that the data centre is built as a Tier 3 Data Centre or above. ITS will review and approve co‐location services for performance, backup, exit strategy, data ownership and other risks

3 Platform as a Service (PaaS) / Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

As manager of the service, ITS will configure and administer the service from a technical standpoint including integration support and single sign‐on.

ITS will assist in the design and architecture of the solution to ensure there are appropriate resources available for the scale of use

ITS will maintain the operational duties of the system with ITS providing technical support when required liaising with the vendor for technical matters and issues

ITS will ensure that these solutions are deployed in approved cloud services

4 On‐premise hosting As Provider and manager of the service, ITS will configure and administer the service from a technical standpoint including integration support and single sign‐on.

ITS will help acquire and create the appropriate computing resources required for the solution.

ITS will further configure and administer the service from a technical standpoint.

ITS will maintain appropriate resources and perform regular maintenance duties and ensure that performance remains acceptable

When new services are being planned and considered for use, ITS will assist in the selection process with

the client department, to ensure that the college can support the service with any integrations to

enterprise data and ensure that there is a smooth launch and support plan.

In 2016, the following services were acquired using cloud first approach: BoardEffect, Adobe eSign,

Qualtrics Survey software, etc.

Moving Existing Services to Cloud Moving forward with this Cloud strategy, ITS is reviewing all ITS services for cloud readiness by applying

following criteria for moving to cloud. The services likely to get most benefit from the migration will be

given the preference.

Criteria Description

Services requiring constant up keeping Example: Seneca Works (Orbis) which requires monthly updating of software releases in multiple environments

Services requiring agility and elasticity Some services are used heavily at certain times of the year and not as much for the remainder of the year. Services like this will be identified and reviewed. Example: Number of servers required for Blackboard can be reduced by 50% during the summer term.

Critical Student facing enterprise services which need to be available on 24x7 basis

Example: My.Seneca (Blackboard)

Cost Services where the cost of maintaining on cloud is approximately the same as maintaining on‐premises

Technology obsolescence As existing vendors provide cloud based alternatives, ITS will review these with the user department.

Since cloud services operate on a subscription model, it is assumed that increased adoption of cloud

services will result in transitioning from a CapEx to OpEx driven funding model as explained below

The traditional Data Centre incurs initial capital spending for the infrastructure and software

needed to be put in place to run IT services. This capital spending is depreciated in the accounting

books over a period of time. We also pay a pre‐define maintenance fee during the life of the

equipment. All infrastructure items have a pre‐defined end‐of‐life when equipment needs to be

replaced because it is no longer supported. The hardware then needs to be refreshed requiring

fresh capital spending.

By moving to cloud based service, Seneca will be subscribing to service that include infrastructure

already established by the vendor. This subscription will be a fixed ongoing fee. As more services

move to cloud, Seneca will be spending less in the form of initial capital spending.

Through careful analysis and justification, ITS will have to ensure the total cost of ownership

continues to remain the same or lower.

However, there will be marginal differences in overall financial impact to the college.

ITS will establish a baseline operational cost of running the services from on‐premises data center which

will assist in the decision to move a service to the cloud.

Applying the above criteria, the following services are already moved to the cloud

Service Name Reason for moving to cloud Type of Cloud

Office 365 Critical Enterprise Service Software as a Service

eMail Critical Enterprise Service, Services requiring elasticity

Software as a Service

SharePoint Critical Enterprise Service, Services requiring elasticity

Software as a Service

Identify Services Critical Enterprise Service Software as a Service

Board Effect Services requiring high maintenance Software as a Service

Adobe e‐Sign Services requiring high maintenance Software as a Service

Oracle Marketing Cloud (CRM Email Campaigns)

Critical Enterprise Service Software as a Service

Infrastructure Implication As we move services to the cloud, the demand on our network and internet is expected to significantly

increase. For the past 3 years, ITS has been working to revamp and upgrade our network infrastructure.

This project is now 90% complete. This transformation will be complete by summer of 2017. When

completed, the network will have full redundancy and accommodate for surge in traffic due to cloud

adoption.

ITS recently increased our internet capacity by 5 times. In early 2016, we had 2 Gb of internet capacity

split between different campuses. The capacity has now increased to 11 Gb and is also consolidated

through a single gateway, with a fully redundant path through alternate campus, to provide improved

internet experience.

As we move more services to the cloud, ITS will continue to evaluate and implement additional measures

to ensure our network and internet capacity keep up with the demand.

3‐Year Plan for moving to Cloud Detailed below is the yearly plan for the next 3 years for moving existing services to cloud. The accuracy

of this plan will be 90% for the first year of implementation and will reduce by 20 to 30% for each following

year due to cloud based services continuing to evolve.

Current Fiscal Year 2016-17

In 2016‐17, the following services are prime candidates for moving to cloud

Service Name Reason for moving to cloud Type of Cloud Timeline

Blackboard (My Seneca) Pilot

Critical student facing service. The move will improve system availability and help keeping the system current.

Managed Hosting Q4 2016‐17

Exlibris Alma Replacing Voyager system for Library


Security & Event Management Services (Sumologic)

Services requiring high maintenance

SaaS Q4 2016‐17

(Proof of Concept)

2017-18



Blackboard (My Seneca)

Critical student facing service. The move will improve system availability and help keeping the system current.


Academic Services (Matrix, Warp, Zenith)

Critical Student facing services IaaS/PaaS Q1 2017‐18

Security & Event Management Services (Sumologic)

Service requiring high maintenance

SaaS Q1 2017‐18

i3 Erp Development Systems


Platform as a Service (PaaS)

Q3 2017‐18

I3 Erp Test and User Acceptance systems



Q3 2017‐18

Oracle Business Intelligence Systems



Q4 2017‐18

(Proof of Concept)

School of Fashion – Catalog service (Omeka)

Critical Student facing service SaaS Q2 2017‐18

Blackboard BI Analytics Service



My Photo Critical Student facing service Platform as a Service (PaaS)

Q2 2017‐18

Library System Proxy Service (EZProxy)

Critical Student facing service SaaS Q3 2017‐18

SenecaWorks (Orbis) Service requires high maintenance

Managed hosting Q4 2016‐17

2018-19



Oracle Business Intelligence Systems

Service requiring high maintenance Platform as a Service (PaaS)

Q2 2018‐19

I3 ERP Production Systems



Q2 2018‐19

(Proof of Concept)

2019-20



I3 ERP Production Systems



Q2 2019‐20

Hyperion Planning System


Software as a Service (SaaS)

Q1 2019‐20

Appendix‐A Understanding Cloud Services Definitions of Cloud Computing

• A model of computer use in which services stored on the internet are provided to users on a

temporary basis (Collins English Dictionary)

• In the simplest terms, cloud computing means storing and accessing data and programs over the

Internet instead of your computer's hard drive or corporate servers (PC Magazine)

• Cloud computing, aka 'on‐demand computing', is a kind of Internet‐based computing, where shared

resources, data and information are provided to computers and other devices on‐demand (Wikipedia)

• It is the business of renting time on computer to others

Characteristics of Cloud Computing

• On‐demand Self‐service

Consumer can unilaterally provision computing capabilities as needed automatically without requiring

human interaction

• Broad Network Access

Capabilities are available over the network and accessed mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and

workstations

• Resource Pooling

Computing resources are pooled to serve multiple consumers using a multi‐tenant model, where

resources are assigned and reassigned per consumer demand

• Rapid Elasticity

Capabilities can be elastically provisioned and released, in some cases automatically, to scale rapidly.

To the consumer, the capabilities available for provisioning often appear to be unlimited

• Measured Service

Resource usage can be monitored, controlled, and reported, providing transparency for both the

provider and consumer of the utilized service.

Cloud Service Models

As described in the main document, there are 3 types of cloud computing as

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)



The definition and purpose of the 3 types of cloud computing are as explained below

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

An IaaS based cloud service is where the vendor provides raw network, storage and compute

resources and ITS installs the operating system and application software on top of this off‐site

environment and configures the services from the ground up. The vendor provides support on the

hardware and network service and ITS provides support for the application. At present, ITS is also

using IaaS for provisioning some of the academic use servers for students via Microsoft Cloud Services.


A SaaS based cloud service is run by the vendor or cloud service provider and clients access the service

as an individual user. The hardware and software are maintained off‐site by the vendor and include

updates as required. Service owners may do some minor software configuration. For central services,

the service owner may be ITS. A good example of this is Office365. There is minor configuration done

by ITS but the service is entirely run and maintained by Microsoft.


A PaaS based cloud service is run by the vendor or cloud service provider but configured and

maintained by both the vendor and the service owner to varying degrees. The hardware is

provisioned and maintained by the vendor and the base application software (platform) is installed

by the vendor but the service owner can choose when software upgrades occur and handle all aspects

of configuration. Seneca is using PaaS for provisioning some of the academic use environments for

students via Microsoft Cloud Services.

Managed Hosting

Managed Hosting is not technically defined as a cloud based service but it is an Internet based service

that hosts our software at a remote site that is managed by a vendor. They provide the hardware

resources and the management of the application, including support and maintenance but Seneca

retains the license agreement and can choose to switch Managed Hosting providers or manage the

host on‐site. Seneca is working with Blackboard to move hosting from our Data Centre to Blackboard’s

Managed Hosting service.

Illustrated examples of Cloud Service

The following explains the different cloud service options from a layman’s perspective taking Pizza

delivery as an example. The following illustration is color coded for easy understanding.

Now, the following illustration applies the same analogy to an IT service. As you see in the diagram, the

“on premises” option is the equivalent of ITS managing everything from infrastructure to the software

solution. As you progress through each type of cloud service, the role of ITS changes from managing a

service to be an advisor of selecting the appropriate service.

Cloud Deployment Models

Similar to the different type of cloud service, there are different types of deployment options as Private,

Public and Hybrid.

Large enterprises typically choose the private cloud option. However, public cloud is most popular

among small to medium sized organizations. In addition, public cloud is popular with large enterprise

solutions like Office 365, SalesForce, etc. Hypbrid cloud option selectively implements best of both

worlds.

Benefits of Cloud Computing

If implemented correctly, cloud computing has the potential to deliver significant operational and

business benefits to the organization. Some of the benefits are as mentioned below

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