Information Technology Strategic Planning
Projects
Project Title:
Storage Strategy
Project Advocate:
Richard Kogut
Project Manager:
Janet Hines
Project Overview:
Develop a strategy for the deployment and ongoing acquisition of central disk storage. The strategy should encompass a multi-tier “menu” for the ongoing acquisition of storage at different price/performance points suitable for different needs, as well as the disposition of existing storage.
Key Stakeholders:
UC Merced units wishing to acquire storage under our centralized management model.
Internal IT departments requiring storage to support the applications they are responsible for.
Benefits:
Other units benefit by alleviating price disincentives for acquiring centralized managed storage, relieving them of the need to perform many management and back-up functions. Having a menu and deployment strategy will permit more rapid fulfillment of user needs.
IT and the campus will benefit because a) having centrally backed-up storage provides flexibility and much more security from a disaster recovery perspective, and b) we will be better able to project costs associated with growth (and replacement). We will also have a pricing model that includes the cost of disk controllers, etc., avoiding the musical chairs situation where the last department in needs to buy additional, expensive hardware.
Project Deliverables:
1. Allocation of existing storage for current use and reserves (including documentation)
2. Fully priced model for acquiring different kinds of storage
3. User documentation explaining costs and benefits of the different tiers
4. Purchasing/financial process for charging and escrowing initially unspent funds
Initiative(s) Supported:
Related Projects:
Milestones:
1. Plan for existing storage (ASAP)
2. Identification of storage model
3. Implementation of financial/purchase processes – user launch
Costs & Funding (Capital & Operational):
No initial capital costs. Future acquisition costs will be capital costs accrued to requesting department (including IT); future operational costs will be borne by IT and need to be reflected in the IT budget. A proposal needs to be developed as to how to handle replacement costs (at equipment end of life).
Project Team:
- Janet Hines -- Project Manager
- Stan Stavitsky -- technical expertise
- Additional ITOC person – technical expertize
- Nick Hansard -- knowledge of Windows applications and Onstor
- Chris Volkerts – knowledge of purchased storage and AV needs
- Faust Gorham & Brad Harding – knowledge of customer needs
- Steven Dolmseth – Controller, for financial mechanism
Issues/Risks:
Risks of not implementing:
1. unable to permanently increase email quotas
2. running out of disk space at critical times
3. unable to support departmental requests, leading to a hodge-podge of disk storage across campus with associated costs and risks
4. inability to project costs for projects and annual growth
Potential implementation difficulties:
1. may unable to identify and allocate existing storage
2. some applications may not be able to effectively use NAS storage (Starbak)
3. may not find appropriate storage at all needed price points that would be appropriate for our users
4. may not be able to identify appropriate financial mechanism for charging other than actual purchase costs
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If you have any questions, problems, or comments, please contact the IT Help Desk via email at helpdesk@ucmerced.edu, via phone at 209.228.HELP (4357), or visit them in the Classroom and Office Building room 132A.