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In this issue:

Creating an IT strategy for U-M: A message from Laura Patterson
Over 200 staff/faculty express their IT opinions in summer town halls
ITS strategic priorities for FY2010: IT Rationalization, Shared Infrastructure, Shared Products and Services

Listen to this message
From Laura Patterson

Our partnership is important as we move forward on an IT strategy for U-M

Learn more in this five-minute slidecast about how we want to work with you to:

Maximize IT resources in support of U-M’s mission
Pursue the most cost-effective solutions for campus needs
Enable you to focus on the unique IT needs of your unit

I look forward to your feedback on the changes our new organization is making and other ways we can work together.

-Laura Patterson

Shared Infrastructure

ITS established implementation plans for several new services

These plans are based on recommendations from IT Commons and other campus feedback. There has been a lot of activity on the following three large initiatives:

Storage Project

This moduralized data center has state of the art cooling. It’s the kind of data center needed for high-performance computing (HPC).

Focus: deliver several storage solutions to campus, including:

Basic file storage service at low cost to meet researchers’ growing data storage needs.
Administrative storage service to enable unit technical teams to meet the growing file storage needs of their faculty, students, and staff.
Long-term back-up/archiving to allow researchers to store data for long periods (years).

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Project

Focus: make software delivery to students, staff and faculty easier and more efficient.

Allow easier access to Campus Computing Sites software remote locations such as homes, residence hall rooms, or offices.
Help units make software more easily available to their students, staff, and faculty by leveraging the campus-wide virtual desktop infrastructure.
Reduce software installation and troubleshooting time.
Reduce software licensing costs.

Data Center Consolidation and Planning Project

Focus: plan data center management across the university more efficiently. On our space-limited campus, there are over 180 data/server rooms, which incur significant energy costs. We will pursue a more efficient solution using a phased approach, with these phases running concurrently:

Data/server rooms can incur significant energy costs and use up valuable space.

Phase I – By Spring 2010, implement short term solutions to address immediate campus needs for more data center space.
Phase II – Implement long-term solutions to fulfill high-performance computing (HPC) needs on campus.
Phase III – Develop a comprehensive data center management/governance model. Also, create a Data Center Management Service from ITS, including a funding model.
Phase IV – Implement a plan to use university data centers/computing resources most effectively.