Contents
Service Department: Oxford University Computing Services (OUCS)
Summary of the department’s remit:
The Mission Statement of OUCS is to:-
OUCS will fulfill its Mission by:
OUCS consists of a series of groups (below) and externally funded research projects:
1. Vision, and summary of the department’s main objectives:
This report sets OUCS’s objectives for 2011-2015. We begin with a short review of our last five-year plan, and then proceed to discussing the key challenges and issues facing the department, especially arising from the increasing financial pressure.
Considering the future some key objectives do stand out. Many of these depend on funding proposals under the ICT Capital envelope or elsewhere, and will always require the support of the Divisions. The following objectives should also be read alongside the Five-Year Strategic Plan for the Office for the Director of IT (ODIT).
The next few years will be spent increasing the resilience and reliability of our core services (I), meeting the changing demands of technology (II), but at the same time taking forward services in the light of new opportunities afforded to us and the demands of the users (III). It is OUCS’s responsibility to also plan for the development of the capacity and growth of existing services to meet future predicted demands, but at the same time constantly investigate more cost effective provision (internal or external, open or closed source - IV). We are also a centre of excellence for IT in the University, and see our role very much as working collaboratively with IT providers across the collegiate University (V). At the same time we have to constantly keep an eye on several important factors:
OUCS will endeavour to produce briefing documents for senior officers in the University keeping them in touch with our achievements over the next year. In addition we also intend to put together an annual trends analysis of the changing landscape of IT. This five year plan already points to several areas:
These are all against the background of the essential requirement to maintain our core services in a cost effective manner (see Challenges below).
2. The department’s strategic challenges 2011 to 2015(including the impact of reductions in resources):
2.1. Retrospective Consideration of Previous Plan
At the beginning of 2010 OUCS produced its revised five-year plan(see http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/internal/5yr/). This provided a detailed analysis of the future initiatives and developments within OUCS, listed a series of specific goals and tasks, and demonstrated how these took forward the aims and objectives of the University.
OUCS has achieved considerable success in meeting the objectives set out jointly by the department and the divisions. Our major projects are all delivered on time and within budget, with notable successes in the roll-out of the Nexus service (over 40,000 mailboxes) – which as well as accommodating all the previous Herald users, has now attracted several departments and colleges to the central service allowing them to wind down their local instantiation (notably UAS, Chemistry, and IMSU). Our NSMS service has led the way in virtualisation allowing other units (e.g. BSP) to share this expertise and reduce its costs, and the team is also providing front-line IT Support for some faculties (e.g. English) which has allowed the local department to reduce expenditure.
Despite the fact that demands on our services, and for new services are increasing all the time, we have also managed our expenditure to year-on-year reduce deficits. Considerable success has been achieved here in attracting external funding which in 2009-10 generated nearly £500k in FEC. At the same time, whilst remaining financially prudent we have also managed to develop our services in new and imaginative ways – e.g. extending the network (OWL and Eduroam) to within NHS properties, allowing for remote backup to the HFS via VPN, achieving the 5m download milestone on the OUCS supported iTunes U project and becoming one of the first Universities to launch ePubs through the gateway, developing Mobile Oxford, etc. This was achieved through projects taken to the PRAC ICT Envelope with the support of the Divisions, or from external sources, e.g. JISC.
2.2. Challenges, Issues, and Monitoring
At an abstract level the underlying challenge for OUCS remains the same, namely to:
Considering the range of critical services - the backbone network, Nexus, identity and access management services, the HFS, our training programme, advice and support – and the demands for new IT services which match the ambitions and reputation of a top-flight University, the challenge is considerable. Over recent years we have been asked to make cuts on predicted expenditure that have led to a year-on-year reduction in baseline funding with little access to development funds, and like all service departments have been asked to budget a 10% cut in net expenditure by 2013 (see below). As a result it is increasingly difficult for OUCS to meet the challenge noted above.
It is important, therefore, that our performance (financial, service provision, and development) is constantly monitored and scrutinised by the Divisions through the OUCS Management sub-committee and ultimately the PRAC ICT sub-committee. This is a fully transparent process in which on an annual basis the new OUCS Management sub-committee analyses our services (as defined in our complete set of Service Level Descriptions), suggest changes, reviews usage, and assists in setting the budget for the following academic year. This is but one stage in a now established review process of OUCS (see Key Performance Indicators – below).
[ N.B. This report does not cover Telecoms’ finances which in keeping with previous years are treated as a separate case. Telecoms runs entirely as a cost recovery service, and any surpluses built-up in year have been agreed with the Divisions and colleges as a means of funding the peaks in expenditure needed to maintain and upgrade the system. These surpluses need to be safeguarded, therefore, and carried forward year-on-year.]Computing Services
OUCS was asked in 2010 to set out a plan for achieving a 10% saving in net
expenditure over three years set against the 09/10 budget. The targets and steps
agreed with the divisions and in the budgeting process of early 2010 meant that
OUCS aims to reduce net expenditure through:
The agreed target was £532k (by 2013) but it was requested, if possible, that we should try to achieve greater than that (£605k – this assumed contributions from colleges of c. £15k each).
With reference to the above we can report that by end of AY2011-2012 we will have
achieved:
TOTAL: £214k
(against a target of 113k + 44k + 4k = 161k for end 2011/12)
In our budget forecast for 11/12 we provide details of our payroll and equipment spends. It is worth noting a couple of points also:
Finally we are still pursuing the college contribution. If that materialised at the level we expect then we would make up the shortfall. This is currently being discussed.
In Hilary Term 2011 OUCS will move to UAS, and come under the jurisdiction of the Registrar. This will mean leaving the Academic Services and University Collections division.
The change in governance is one of the recommendations emerging from a report by the internal auditors which reviewed IT across the main central IT providers (excluding the libraries). It also recommended the appointment of a CIO for IT.
OUCS is fully committed to supporting these recommendations and looks forward to a time when the major IT providers (OUCS, ICT ST, and BSP) come under the same governance structure for reporting and financial matters. However, it is also keen to maintain its identity as an academic computing service driven by the needs of the divisions.
2.5. Future Plans and Initiatives
What follows is a reflection on some of the objectives set last year, and a plan for how we can take services forward over the next five-year period bearing in our finances. Drawing on the objectives set out in published University strategies, we focus on key academic areas such as teaching, research, and overall support services. Under these we then list the key objectives OUCS proposes which will assist the University in meeting these strategies. In writing this we have attempted to align the appropriate goals with those presented in the strategic plan for the Office for the Director of IT (ODIT).
In some cases these new initiatives would require new money and we will look to the internal ICT Project Development (PD) Envelope for this, or external funding (through bodies such as JISC). In Appendix A we have listed major new objectives that require funding in excess of £50k. The most important of these being the replacement of the backbone network beginning in 2011. Within its recurrent budget OUCS has no development funds of its own to draw on so the ICT PD Envelope provides the main avenue for development. However any projects suggested would need prior approval by the OUCS Management Committee, PICT, BSC, and ultimately PRAC – and would only be submitted with the support of the divisions.
OUCS provides advice and support related to the use of ICT in traditional teaching, learning and research in all disciplines, as well as specific training for IT staff. The former is mainly through its Learning Technologies Group and the latter co-ordinated by the IT Support Staff Service (ITS3 – also covered under ‘Personnel’).
The LTG runs the highly successful IT Learning Programme (225 courses per annum, consisting of 660 individual sessions, with around 13,000 attendees). It also supports and develops the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) for the University (WebLearn), tailored to the needs of students and staff. In 2010 OUCS continued to develop our new WebLearn service, with new tools and features in response to user feedback and identified needs in Divisions. This is an ongoing development project, and in 2011 we will continue to offer services in response to new technologies and increasing demands from academic staff. We consolidated and advanced the WebLearn User Group in order to best gather feedback and respond to our growing user community. Our plans for WebLearn in 2011-12 include:
The LTG promotes and supports the use of online multimedia for learning and teaching, particular highlights of 2010 were the development of a new ‘Make’ programme of creative and digital media training and the success of the ongoing Open Educational Resources (OER) projects - OpenSpires.
The OpenSpires project was a successful initiative to establish a sustainable set of policies and workflows that allows departments from across the University of Oxford to regularly publish high quality open content material for global reuse. In less than a year 140 Oxford academics and visiting speakers donated material to support their subject communities, each contributor signing a Creative Commons licence that allows their material to be promoted for reuse in education world-wide. The material was generated in the life of the project and the subjects covered include politics, economics, globalisation, environmental change, business, research ethics, medicine, physics, English, philosophy, classics, and art history. The project focused on audio-visual recordings and supporting resources as this had an existing cost-effective content creation process. The success of the project was due to a clear workflow process for department support staff to follow which minimised academic support time. Institutional marketing and a clear communication strategy helped the discoverability of the digitised material leading to consistent download figures. Reports of usage by learners encouraged the academics involved and reflected well on the work of the departments.
In 2011 we plan to develop this further, encourage re-use of these materials for teaching, and ensure that the high profile, high value media, assets created by Oxford staff and students can be managed and stored appropriately. We will be responding to the increasing use of mobile and handheld devices by developing appropriate interfaces and services for mobile learning. Three more JISC funded OER projects will report in the spring of 2011: Ripple, Triton and Listening for Impact.
OUCS also provides specific support to IT Support Staff in terms of training via its ITS3 service. This arranges the annual conference and a programme of training opportunities throughout the year. We are noticing increased demand for these courses by local IT officers, and our objectives list the ongoing process of constantly revising these activities to meet changing needs.
OUCS is not directly affected by the size and shape of teaching and learning, as it does not run matriculated courses for students, nor is it involved directly in student recruitment. However, a shift in the size or demographic of the student body will affect the demands on some of the services offered by OUCS (including the VLE and IT training programme) and needs to be reflected in the resources given to OUCS to run its services (see ‘Finances’). As with all our services offered to staff and students we will be ensuring that our practice is inclusive, up-to-date and in line with user needs and that the services can meet any up-turn assuming appropriate funding is found.
Considering our activities since the last five-year plan we would note in particular:
In recognition of the skills development and learning needs of all members of the University the OUCS training programme, and courses offered by ITS3, provide University staff and students with training in IT literacy and technical skills and how to effectively use C&IT in teaching and research. We promote the use of technology in teaching at Oxford via our user communities, websites, news publications, workshops and events and we provide well equipped teaching and training spaces for use by members of the University and external guests. In 2010 200 people from across the University attended our new series of ‘Make’ courses. We will continue to develop bespoke and discipline specific training courses, and support senior staff in their use of IT for management and decision making. We also seek to support departments and divisions in getting best value for money from the classroom technologies in which they have invested. We provide training and advice in the use of these and in the design of technology enhanced learning spaces, most recently in conjunction with Humanities Divisions in planning the development of the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter.
To ensure that we continue to foster and support excellence, innovation and best practice, the LTG also carries out and disseminates research into the latest developments in the use of C&IT in traditional university teaching and learning. This work has continued in 2010 and new projects investigating support environments of learning design and the re-use of OERs will report in 2011.
In 2011 the LTG’s focus will be on ensuring value for money for the University by making special efforts to target services equally across each Division. Particularly we will be exploring ways in which we can support students in developing their graduate employability skills and supporting research staff in maximizing the impact in their work.
In Appendix A we provide a list of our major objectives over the next five years, but with reference to teaching and learning it is worth noting the following:
OUCS has an established ‘Research Strategy’ (http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/internal/research/strategy.xml) outlining the key areas that the department will target in the future for R&D projects (from internal and external funds). It also has a full process to assess new project bids to make sure they are in line with OUCS’s five-year strategy, and a project management methodology. Considered below also is OUCS’s services to research elsewhere in the University. One of the stated objectives in the mission statement of OUCS is to:
‘foster and support excellence, innovation, best practice, and value for money in the use of IT in teaching, learning, and research across the University’
OUCS has a cross-department initiative – the Research Technologies Service (RTS - http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/rts/). The aim of the RTS is to work with other University departments to establish the ICT requirements of their research communities, offers services to research projects across the University (see http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/rts/rtsservices.xml). These range from project planning, through to offering advice to projects underway, assisting in development, and helping complete an exit strategy. In connection with this, OUCS particularly collaborates with the Oxford e-Research Centre (OeRC) and other relevant University units to investigate the development of tools to support the administration and auditing of research activity.
2010 saw growth in demand for the InfoDev section. This is a team of developers (8 staff) at OUCS operating on a cost recovery basis that can be bought in by University research projects as appropriate. Help ranges from the Web Design Consultancy, through to project management, tools development, text processing, etc.
OUCS also acts as a major bridge with national funding agencies such as HEFCE, JISC, the Research Councils, and seeks sponsorship for major IT projects through the Development Office, OUCS’s own Research Facilitator, and KTPs (Knowledge Transfer Partnerships). OUCS activities and project outputs contribute to relevant research and software development communities. In turn it will seek to inform faculties, departments, and colleges about new funding opportunities; as well as bidding for external grants to cover some of its own new initiatives.
In Appendix A we provide a list of our major new objectives over the next five years, but with reference to research it is worth noting the following:
The above are just a sample of specific projects that we will be taking forward. However, we are also aware of other activities that, if funding was available, we would wish to explore such as open data and linking data across sources of information and projects.
OUCS’s primary focus is on supporting the needs of the collegiate University. However, in so doing it offers support to faculties and departments seeking to engage more with the wider society. In 2010 it produced a guide for departments and colleges on how to use IT in assisting with public/business engagement and impact activities (IT, Impact, and Public/Business Engagement - A Brief Guide). We would also note:
OUCS continues to refine its personnel procedures and career progression. Two documents are maintained for staff outlining career progression and decision-making at OUCS, and in 2010 we added a further document on management training. OUCS staff are also encouraged to join internal SIGs (Special Interest Groups), new teams, and are trained in project management methodology. Through its IT Support Staff Service it also seeks to promote career development of the dispersed IT Staff. The OUCS ITLP training programme offers opportunities for skills development and IT training needs analysis to the personnel in the collegiate university. Furthermore our continued emphasis on staff reviews shows our commitment to developing our staff (though like the rest of the University we were kept to a freeze on merit awards in 2010). Specific targets:
OUCS has made strenuous efforts to keep its FTE and headcount under control, though the advent of the new NEXUS service led to an increase by 3 FTE. OUCS also has a duty, through its IT Support Staff Services, to assist in the career development of IT Staff across the University. To this end specific targets are:
Although OUCS is not directly involved in this activity as it does not deal with admissions, nor is it involved in student recruitment, it does provide services which assist in these activities. In addition, as noted above any major change in the size or demographic of the student body will possibly affect the demands on some of the services offered by OUCS. For example, increased recruitment of international students will necessitate seamless access to the Universities from increasing numbers of remote sites. Moreover, changes to the admissions process and recording of student data also impacts on our services.
As noted earlier (‘Teaching and Learning’), WebLearn is increasingly bringing together tools that will support teaching and OUCS is proactively working with Student Systems, participating in the ongoing review of student administration and services. OUCS has also helped the dissemination and promotion of material to do with admissions in such initiatives as iTunes U; and is now offering a WebEx videoconferencing service, partly driven by the needs of the admissions interviewing process.
3.4.3. Academic and Student Services
This section has primary relevance to OUCS as it focuses on service provision, and the underlying infrastructure, though as will be obvious OUCS has contributions to make to all the above categories. We have already noted earlier that a key priority of OUCS is to maintain its core service provision and to expand this (as directed by the Divisions and if resourced accordingly). Here we look at specific targets for the next five years.
OUCS is currently undertaking a series of major projects that will directly enhance the services offered to staff and students – most of these involving expertise drawn from across the department. These are integrated with the plans set out by the Office for the Director of IT. The most notable of these is the new Shared Data Centre, which will provide a primary data centre for our core services, and a space to locate services from other departments. This is a state-of-the-art facility that should be open to take in services from elsewhere in the summer of 2011. More importantly it will overlap with a refurbishment of the existing data centre at Banbury Road to provide dual site resilience. With specific reference to this area we will be:
In addition to these major initiatives OUCS also, on an ongoing basis:
Considering our activities since the last five-year plan we would highlight, in particular, the following achievements (see also the previous points in ‘Teaching and Learning’ and ‘Research’, and OUCS’s Annual Report 2009-2010):
These are but some of the achievements over the year and are presented here as a representative sample showing the diversity of major new launches, and service developments.
In terms of underlying trends we constantly analyse user data and feedback and have observed: increasing demands for mobile support and wireless technology; greater demands on the network; increasing reliance on the HFS by departments and units for back-up and archiving; need to consider carbon-impact of IT projects and green issues; virtualisation; increasing penetration of Macs resulting in more support demands; and a need to look more proactively at service oriented architecture for joining up core systems and services. The University is in an excellent position to take forward all of this provided sufficient funding is made available. Changes are also taking place with our telecoms service, and we are gradually rolling out such initiatives as Voice over IP.
Although our ability to develop existing services or launch new ones is extremely limited, without any development or enhancement budget, we attempt to maintain some flexibility through our pay-per-use service – NSMS. This invaluable resource allows us to offer new services more quickly, albeit on a chargeable basis. It runs on a break-even concept and is now being seen as a shared service for departments and units, supporting key infrastructure (e.g. BSP’s Virtual Infrastructure), key support facilities (e.g. acting as the IT support for some faculties), and developing new innovative projects (e.g. the Mac Managed Platform).
Specifically therefore, over the next five years OUCS plans to achieve a series of new major objectives listed in Appendix A
1These will be the responsibility of several groups across the department, and many will be in conjunction with ODIT. In addition we have also identified those projects which would cost in excess of £50k (some already approved, others, should the bid go ahead, would be assessed by the Divisions first). That list is attempting to show major initiatives that would have far reaching effects across the collegiate University (financially and strategically) but we also have several other objectives to improve or develop our services. These include:
We are also considering, in some detail:
It is becoming increasingly the case that many of the projects and objectives we undertake nowadays are collaborative efforts with OULS, UAS, BSP, ICT ST, and local units. We envisage that this will continue to grow as all central units seek to rationalise costs and integrate systems.
The problem that we have invariably had to face is how do we operate a modern cutting edge technological service within the confines of Grade II listed buildings originally designed as domestic accommodation. Nevertheless, we are committed to providing the most cost effective service in a manner that complies both the latest University sustainability policies as well as statutory requirements on accessibility. Some space has been freed up recently by the relocation of the ICT ST to Blue Boar Court.
In the longer term we will be carrying out works to ensure that we continue to fulfil these requirements which are to include:
OUCS’s finance and administration is in full compliance with University Finance Regulations and have no outstanding audit issues. The 2010 Statement of Compliance was completed without further recommendations. Quarterly management accounts comparing and commenting on significant variations from budget are submitted via the ASUC Divisional accounting structure together with updated year end forecasts, and we also now receive monthly statements to compare projected income/expenditure with actuals. A budget submission process is also used to approve the Annual Budget. For the future, we hope to design & implement a new asset register with work starting on this within the 2010/11 financial year.
The current financial climate which the Higher Education Sector is currently faced with is reflected in the need for OUCS to maintain services but at maximum cost efficiency. Whilst planning the first phase of these financial cutbacks care has been taken not to reduce our service levels but to rely on cost cutting through the Oxford Mobility Incentive Scheme and the re-organisation of some aspects of our operations. Whilst service considerations are to the fore of our plans for any future budget reductions there will, by necessity, be a need to reconsider what services we can continue to offer on a reducing budget.
In 2010-11 the 123 model was trialled and will be used fully in 2011 onwards. OUCS provided input to the development of the formulae used and usage figures for the drivers. In 2010 we also ran and completed a small JISC-funded project that applied TRAC costing models to IT services.
OUCS is governed by its Management sub-committee which has full divisional and collegiate representation. This in turn reports directly to the ICT Sub-committee of the Planning and Resource Allocation Committee (PRAC). The latter is a single point of governance for ICT across the collegiate University, and the principal advisory body to PRAC and Council and other University bodies on all aspects of ICT. It determines a strategy and policy framework for the collegiate University, and reviews the scale, quality and cost effectiveness of the services offered directly to users by the Oxford University Computing Services. It is establishing an ICT framework to enable centrally and locally provided services to work together efficiently, reliably and cost effectively.
In 2011 this is due to change and OUCS will become part of UAS, coming under the jurisdiction of the Registrar. It is not clear, at the time of writing, how this will affect other reporting lines. However, this move will allow OUCS to work more closely with other sections in UAS, notably BSP. As part of these moves PICT itself will also be reconstituted.
3.5. Risk Management Strategy:
As with all departments and divisions OUCS prepares and maintains an annual risk register. This used to form part of the ASUC risk register, but in future will be part of UAS’s (details to be confirmed). However, with reference to this plan the risk to the University of not completing or achieving most of the above mainly falls under two categories. First our IT infrastructure will be compromised, especially with relation to business continuity; but also in terms of the facilities we can offer to the staff and students. Oxford would begin to seriously fall behind its competitors in terms of what it can support. Second, picking up on a common theme throughout this plan, unless the critical funding issues identified by the SFWG meetings are tackled then key services will be put at risk.
OUCS has an established set of disaster recovery plans and business continuity plans which are considered each year. In particular we have:
We have also begun to adopt a dual-site resilience for core services (notably Nexus) and with the advent of the SDC this will be developed further.
3.6. Key Performance Indicators:
OUCS now has an established process whereby its performance is assessed by the Divisions (via the OUCS Management Sub-committee), and its plans are aligned to their demands. This includes:
At our termly meeting we discuss these with our Management Committee and assess against spend, etc. Any benchmarking information we have is also presented. A fuller analysis is undertaken at the end of each year.
Major New Objectives, 2011-2015
This section is divided into two parts. The first lists the major new objectives we have set out for the period of this report (in addition to those noted throughout). We define major here as a project or objective that will affect the strategic direction of the collegiate University, rather than just a smaller service improvement.
In the second part we have listed those projects which would require funding in excess of £50k. Many of these are already on the ICT Project Development Envelope roadmap, as agreed with PICT and BSC. Those that are not, i.e. are new projects, would not be submitted without the prior approval of the Divisions and then would be scrutinised by PICT (or its successor) and the BSC. In some cases, these projects may be overtaken by events, and in all we would seek external funding first (e.g. through JISC).
The projects are listed in date order but for the first table we also indicate LOW, MEDIUM, HIGH in terms of the impact (strategic and financial) to the collegiate University.
Items Requiring over £50k expenditure
The following items are drawn from the above list of objectives. Those in bold and underlined are already on the ICT Capital Envelope road map (http://www.ict.ox.ac.uk/odit/ITgovernance/ICTexpenditure/Plans2010-11/PBCliteReports.pdf). Those in italics will hopefully be funded from other sources (in part at least). The others are suggested and would be presented as a proposal in due course for divisional approval before submitting to PICT.
| Title | Cost (£k) | Start and Duration (in chronological order) | |
| Core User Directory Implementation | Implement the Core User Director Service (http://www.ict.ox.ac.uk/odit/ITgovernance/ICTexpenditure/Plans2010-11/05PBC-CUD2010.pdf) | 132 | 2010 for 18 months |
| Development of Feedback and Assessment Tools (WebLearn) | See http://www.ict.ox.ac.uk/odit/ITgovernance/ICTexpenditure/Plans2010-11/09bPBC-WLAF-2010.pdf. | 100 | 2010-2012. |
| Managing capacity for backup and archiving: infrastructure upgrade, phase 2 | Upgrade to the tape drives (contained within http://www.ict.ox.ac.uk/odit/ITgovernance/ICTexpenditure/Plans2010-11/03PBC-backup-capacity2010.pdf carried forward). | 375 | 2011 for 6 months |
| Shared Data Centre – completion | Funded from OUED budget as part of soft-fit out. | 782 | 2011-2012 |
| Podcasting Infrastructure | See http://www.ict.ox.ac.uk/odit/ITgovernance/ICTexpenditure/Plans2010-11/13PBC-Podcasting2010.pdf | 100 | 2011-2012 |
| Dual Site Resilience in Shared Data Centre | See http://www.ict.ox.ac.uk/odit/ITgovernance/ICTexpenditure/Plans2010-11/07PBC-Resilience2010.pdf. | 400 | 2011-2012 |
| Enhancing OUCS Web Publishing Services | Depends on current survey of user needs, as to whether OUCS should be bidding to run a central CMS for the collegiate University. This will be a collaborative project looking at free/central provision and NSMS paid-for services. | 50 | 2011-2012 |
| Full disk encryption service | Depends on outcome of Information Security Best Practice initiative. | 50 | 2011-2012 |
| Review and Upgrade of OUCS Registration database | This is a definitive source of information for many departments, and needs to be reviewed and improved. This will depend though on work in terms of progressing CUD. | 50 | 2011-2012 |
| Managing capacity for backup and archiving: 'clientless' backup, phase 3 | Feasibility of offering a restricted, quota-based, clientless backup service for undergraduates and others; together with development project if validated (<http://www.ict.ox.ac.uk/odit/ITgovernance/ICTexpenditure/Plans2010-11/08PBC-backup-capacity-home-backups2010.pdf>). | 270 | 2011/12 for 18 months |
| Network improvements: Backup JANET link and IPv6 | See http://www.ict.ox.ac.uk/odit/ITgovernance/ICTexpenditure/Plans2010-11/04PBC-Janet-IPv62010.pdf | 2011-2012 | |
| Federated Storage Infrastructure and Research Data Management Service | Feasibility/pilot for supporting federated storage for research, etc (http://www.ict.ox.ac.uk/odit/ITgovernance/ICTexpenditure/Plans2010-11/11aPBCResearch-data-storage2010.pdf and also http://www.ict.ox.ac.uk/odit/ITgovernance/ICTexpenditure/Plans2010-11/11bPBC-RDM Service2010.pdf). This will very much depend though on whether some/all of this work can be funded from the external grant under the University Modernisation Fund. Should that be the case this funding would not be needed. | 200 | 2011/12 for one year |
| Replace Backbone Network | Feasibility study funded which will run in 2011. Upgrade to start asap, funded from without the ICT Envelope. | £2.5-3m | 2011 to 2013 |
| Nexus Exchange and SharePoint Upgrade: Phase II | Meeting capacity and replacement of end of life hardware for both Exchange and SharePoint. The amount specified includes a) meeting capacity, currently 900GB per month (£150K, 2011/12; further £150K 2014/15, including data backup); b) replacing hardware (£500K, 2012/13). The amounts required partly depend on whether fundamental changes are made to the Nexus storage architecture with the upgrade to Exchange 2010. | 600-800 | 2011/12 - 2014/15 |
| Mobile Oxford, phase II | Depending on results from Mobile Oxford Phase I, will further develop services for mobile devices – especially key student services. | 100 | 2012 |
| Managing capacity for backup and archiving, phase 4 | Replacement for tape robot (solution to be decided on basis of feasibility studies in Federated Storage and Research Data Management Service projects) | 550 | 2012/13 for one year |
| OUCS Data Centre refurbishment | Refurbishment of OUCS data centre (actual budget dependent on feasibility study). It is suggested a) this could result in a phased series of options (e.g. replace AC units first); b) some funding will come from Estates. | 800 | 2012/13 for 18 months |
| WebLearn: ‘hybrid’ Sakai2/3 | Project to deliver new version of WebLearn (Sakai 3). | 100 | 2013-2014. |
| Shared infrastructure services (Capacity planning) | Projected capacity planning and end-of-life hardware replacement for shared infrastructure services | 500 | 2014/15 for 9 months |