ARCHIVED: Completed project: Intelligent Infrastructure

Primary UITS contact: Rob Lowden

Completed: February 27, 2008

Project completed: Project components outlined for this initiative were completed December 2007. Future enhancements are planned to the Intelligent Infrastructure service and will be announced as those items are made available. For further information related to Intelligent Infrastructure, visit the IU Intelligent Infrastructure website.

Description: IU Intelligent Infrastructure (IUII) is based on virtual platforms and can be dynamically adjusted to meet the current and future needs of your organization. Traditional server models of the past required purchasing resources based on forecasting models and potential future growth. IUII allows you to rapidly deploy the system you need today and adjust it tomorrow as your needs change. This competitive advantage allows you to pay for only what you need now and expand as your needs require. Additionally, ensuring a solid, enterprise-class infrastructure allows you to focus on your competitive business advantages and not be distracted by hardware-related issues. IUII enables options for High Availability (HA), Disaster Recovery (DR), and standardized backup solutions. Strategically move your resources from supporting one-off solutions, limited business continuity, and duplication of efforts to a streamlined, detailed, and complete solution. IUII enables departments, units, and schools to meet all of their IT infrastructure needs from simple backups of existing equipment or rapid deployment of a server resource to cross-campus DR and HA.

Outcome: Leverage UITS Enterprise Infrastructure (EI) strategies of consolidation, standardization, automation, and virtualization of the infrastructure by leveraging the economies of scale obtainable with volume. By utilizing this strategy, IUII will enable all units within IU to leverage a substantial competitive and financial advantage when it comes to providing technology infrastructure.

Milestones and status:

• January 2007: Begin pilot projects with 10 or fewer units.
• September 2007: Share information about IUII at the Statewide IT Conference.
• December 2007: Review and incorporate recommendations.
• January 2008: Provide service to any interested units within Indiana University.

Benefits:

• Cost reduction: Buy only what you need, when you need it. You no longer need to invest your capital budget in more than what you need and can use.
• Accelerated provisioning: Initial or additional virtual systems and computing resources can be added more rapidly.
• Enhanced disaster recovery: Virtual system images and O/S copies are stored in an off-site secure location where, if needed, disaster recovery can occur.
• Data backup: Additional TSM services provide for secure off-site backup of your data, for data recovery or disaster recovery.
• Enhanced availability: Technology allows movement of a system from one physical hardware server to another without disruption to your service or application
• Automated recovery: The technology can automatically restart systems after detected errors or failures.
• Focus on your business: EI staff will manage the hardware and will deal with cooling, power, UPS, wiring, networks, hardware issues, equipment retirements, and replacements. You continue to fully control and manage your applications and business.
• Security: EI provides a variety of security services located within hardened data centers, protected against intrusion and disasters.
• Flexibility: You can provision for today's demands and expand as needed, when needed. You can start with backups or a single virtual machine, or expand to multiple systems at a pace you are comfortable with.
• Enterprise level: The components we use to deliver these services are the same high-performance and high-availability hardware we use to deliver mission-critical university-wide applications and services.
• Virtual systems look, feel, and perform just like a physical server.
• This approach reduces the quantity of physical servers, hardware costs, maintenance costs, rack space, power/cooling needs, and management requirements.
• An application in a virtual system is prevented and protected from impacting another application when upgrades or changes are made, just as though they were on separate physical servers.
• A standard virtual server build can be easily duplicated to speed up server deployment.
• Multiple operating system technologies can be deployed on a single hardware platform (e.g., Windows Server 2003, Linux, Windows 2000).
• Additional system resources can be added quickly when needed and only when needed.
• IUII provides enhanced physical security and access to systems and data. Hardware is located in a hardened and secure data center, with off-site backup and recovery capabilities
• Increased consolidation and standardization of equipment provides overall purchasing economies.
• Consolidation into virtual environments reduces the overall institutional demand for power and cooling, contributing to a greener data center, and enhanced participation in the federal EPA direction.

Project team:

• Intelligent Infrastructure
• University Information Security Office (UISO)