OUCS News Michaelmas 2011

1.1. The Challenge

From large-scale divisional computing systems to small-scale research groups or college servers, providing a secure and resilient environment for computing systems can be an expensive and time consuming task. We are all facing the increasing costs of managing those computing facilities, of rising maintenance and power bills, of environmental accountability and increasing pressure on space. Many of us are weighing up the cost effectiveness of further capital investment in data centre and server room hardware or perhaps considering external solutions to managing data in a secure computing environment.

1.2. The Solution

The new University Shared Data Centre (USDC) reduces the need for external solutions and further investment in ad-hoc server rooms. The USDC provides you with a dedicated shared data centre designed to be robust and efficient with high security. It offers colleges, faculties and departments the ability to physically locate their computing equipment within a controlled environment with full lights-out management capabilities.

1.3. Key Benefits of the USDC

• Reduced costs: sharing common infrastructure reduces overheads; the Shared Services Advisory Group estimates that shared services can generate a 20-30% cost reduction in the public sector. (Shared Services in the Higher Education Sector, Report for HEFCE by KPMG, July 2006).
• Reduced risk: the USDC provides a state-of-the-art computing environment which is both secure and resilient.
• Reduced carbon emissions: the data centre meets international standards in sustainability and efficiency and is helping the University meet its carbon emission reduction targets: by 2020 the University must have reduced its carbon emissions by 33%.

1.4. Services from the USDC

A range of services are on offer to everyone within the collegiate University, they are:

• Hosting your hardware in the data centre
• Operating your IT services on the data centre’s virtualised servers
• A fully managed service from the USDC and NSMS teams

More information on the USDC services.