Seneca ITS Cloud Strategy 2017-19 · Seneca ITS Cloud Strategy 2017‐19 Background The Information...
Transcript of 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
Managed Hosting Q4 2016‐17
Security & Event Management Services (Sumologic)
Services requiring high maintenance
SaaS Q4 2016‐17
(Proof of Concept)
2017-18
In 2017‐18, the following services are prime candidates for moving to cloud
Service Name Reason for moving to cloud Type of Cloud Timeline
Blackboard (My Seneca)
Critical student facing service. The move will improve system availability and help keeping the system current.
Managed Hosting Q2 2017‐18
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
Services requiring high maintenance
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
Q3 2017‐18
I3 Erp Test and User Acceptance systems
Services requiring high maintenance
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
Q3 2017‐18
Oracle Business Intelligence Systems
Service requiring high maintenance
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
Q4 2017‐18
(Proof of Concept)
School of Fashion – Catalog service (Omeka)
Critical Student facing service SaaS Q2 2017‐18
Blackboard BI Analytics Service
Service requiring high maintenance
Managed Hosting Q4 2017‐18
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
In 2018‐9, the following services are prime candidates for moving to cloud
Service Name Reason for moving to cloud Type of Cloud Timeline
Oracle Business Intelligence Systems
Service requiring high maintenance Platform as a Service (PaaS)
Q2 2018‐19
I3 ERP Production Systems
Services requiring high maintenance
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
Q2 2018‐19
(Proof of Concept)
2019-20
In 2018‐9, the following services are prime candidates for moving to cloud
Service Name Reason for moving to cloud Type of Cloud Timeline
I3 ERP Production Systems
Services requiring high maintenance
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
Q2 2019‐20
Hyperion Planning System
Services requiring high maintenance
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)
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
Software as a Service (SaaS)
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.
Software as a Service (SaaS)
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.
Platform as a Service (PaaS)
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