Our sincere gratitude to our key partners throughout the university who are contributing their time and their expertise in support of our goal of guaranteeing baseline IT services to all members of the UVM community. I am grateful to the ETS staff and our counterparts in the academic units who have contributed to the ongoing success of our IT Shared Services model as we approach our one-year anniversary. Some of the main areas of focus for Shared Services during this fall semester include:
1. The Refinement of Processes in the IT Service Hubs
We’ve taken advantage of the fall semester to observe and refine processes and workflows in the two IT Services Hubs that were established earlier in August. More information about the composition of the Hubs and the units they serve can be found at https://www.uvm.edu/news/it/it-shared-services-august-2021-update. Over the past two months, we’ve gradually been migrating to a single IT issue tracking system to help improve service delivery and track consistent metrics.
Beginning in January 2022, both IT Services Hubs will transition completely to a single issue tracking system to support the units to which they have been assigned. Consequently, in the spring semester, requests for IT services must be submitted through the Help Line at helpline@uvm.edu or by calling X62604.
2. Expansion of Research Computing Support
In collaboration with the Office of the Vice President for Research, ETS has embarked on a significant expansion of UVM’s research computing capabilities. As part of this effort, UVM has spent $1million to completely refresh the Vermont Advanced Computing Center’s (VACC) original High Performance Computing cluster (BlueMoon). The project has so far doubled the computational capacity of this important part of our Research IT infrastructure. The remaining phase of this project will increase the research storage capacity of the VACC by an additional 33%.
Aside from the refresh of BlueMoon, we are also delighted to start offering 5TB of free and reliable network storage to every UVM faculty member to support their research, scholarship and creative pursuits. We encourage you to visit our Bulk File Storage Service https://www.uvm.edu/it/catalog/service/bulk-file-storage to request access to this network storage.
Consistent with our philosophy of providing guaranteed baseline services, ETS has built a high performance shared virtual machine environment as part of the institutional common good services to meet the needs of all researchers. Researchers can now request virtual machines to support their research IT needs. These exciting improvements will help complement the recent research computing support framework that a small group of UVM researchers helped create in June 2021 (see https://www.uvm.edu/news/it/it-shared-services-june-july-2021-update). Essentially, the new research support framework paves the way for a paradigm shift from stand-alone computing clusters or workstations to a shared virtual machine environment that exists as a common good to serve the needs of all researchers. In other words:
- The VACC will be considered as the default research computing environment.
- The use of UVM's Virtual Server Environment (VMWare) will be considered in those cases where the VACC does not meet the unique needs of a particular researcher.
- In circumstances where both the VACC and the VMWare environment are not able to meet the computational needs of a particular researcher, consideration will be given to the implementation of stand-alone research computing hardware as an exception.
3. Wireless Network Infrastructure Refresh
Our IT Shared Service model has also allowed for significant investments to address some issues related to our digital deferred maintenance, particularly around the UVM wireless infrastructure. In the first phase of our efforts, Shared Services has recently invested close to half a million dollars to refresh 375 wireless access points in various academic and administrative buildings on campus. The project will not increase wireless coverage throughout the university; however, it will bring the almost 10-year-old wireless access points in those buildings up to current standards. Due to international supply-chain challenges, we expect to make these updates in summer 2022.
Please note that additional projects to upgrade our network infrastructure will be forthcoming, as we look to improve both the wired and wireless experience. We ask for your patience as we seek to address this portion of our digital deferred maintenance.
4. Support for Extension Sites
In collaboration with the Extension Office, our IT Shared Services model has envisioned a new way of delivering technology support at all 11 Extension sites that are spread across the state of Vermont. After several months of design and engineering, we are in the process of extending the UVM network, along with all our IT services, to all 11 sites. The ultimate goal of this important project is to make sure members of the UVM community who work at those sites have full access to guaranteed baseline IT services without delay.
Our partnership with key stakeholders from across campus has enriched our Shared Services model overall. While we are excited about the opportunities IT Shared Services is bringing, we remain mindful of the deliberate actions and steps that are necessary in order to minimize undue stress and disruptions as we get ready for the second phase of Shared Services that begins in January 2022.
We invite you to visit the IT Shared Services page at https://www.uvm.edu/it/sharedservices for more information about the overall progress of our journey.