CANHEIT 2012
Building the Digital University
Disaster Recovery
Through Cooperation
Disaster Recovery
Through Cooperation
We had a Dream - also a Nightmare
•Where we have been
•Where we are today
•Challenges
•Where we are going
Who We Are
•St. Thomas University in
Fredericton
•Mount Allison University in
Sackville
•Université de Moncton in
Moncton
We had a Dream...
Or Nightmare
•How would we cope?
•How would we get there?
•Who would pay for it?
•Who would join us
Where We Have Been
•ECN
•Datatel cooperation
•Virtualized servers at
one datacentre
The ECN
•The NB/PEI Educational Computer Network
•Forty Years (!) of cooperation - Yes... There
were data networks 40 years ago... Maybe
smoke signals???
•Great Organizational model
•Great Financial Model
•Network, Spam filtering, software licensing etc.
ECN Network
Fredericton to
Sackville:
250km or
< 10ms
St. Thomas at
Fredericton
Université de
Moncton at
Moncton
Mount Allison
at Sackville
Datatel Cooperation
• MUSIC Consortium from 15 years ago
• Workorder system run from MTA
• MTA makes customizations etc.
• STU has provided analyst expertise
• Single team - lots of savings
VMs at one site
• MTA early adopter of VM technology
• STU brought capital to the table
• MTA built datacentre, has staff
• Two Universities (120 VMs) in a rack
• Great efficiencies
Where We Were 2010
• Virtualized Servers working very well
• Current agreement works and is model for
small university cooperation
• Very productive, staff train and work together
• Huge positive environmental impact
• Management shares common vision
Timeline to 2010
Shared Datacentre
Datatel
ECN Network
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
Challenges
• NO credible disaster recovery capability
• Rapidly growing storage requirements
(memory and disk)
• Server Hosting/Maintenance Agreement
ending 2012
• Current Infrastructure EOL in 2012
Where are we going?
• Original agreement set to expire in 2012
• Refresh of current infrastructure (with
NO DR capability) would cost about
$250,000.00
• Background of rapid growth in storage
and to a lesser extent RAM requirements
KIP Funds
•STU Applied for KIP funds for
several IT projects
•Received 485K
•Gave us funds to BOTH refresh
datacentre AND establish DR
facility
DR Site
•Looked at several options
•STU - didn’t want to build a machine room
•MTA - didn’t want to expand a machine room
•UNB - in the process of gutting a machine room
•Private rackspace vendors - problem was getting
data to them (cost of bandwidth)
•Best solution - a University on the ECN network
•Ended up at Université de Moncton.
D/R Process
• Technical Staff did considerable research
framing the problem and looking for a solution
• We issued an RFI - received 5 responses
• Pursued discussions with one respondent to
further define plans
• Issued an RFQ to finalize numbers
• Bulletproof was chosen as the partner
Adopted Solution
MTA - Refresh
UdeM - New
Servers
Storage
(magic
)
Automatic Replication
over ECN Network
Engaging UdeM
• We are excited about engaging another
partner, in this case to house equipment
• Offer on the table for UdeM to put a rack
at MTA
• Leverages ECN investments
• $500/month + Power
Dell Equallogic
• Sticker Shock - but it’s “ALL IN” and easy
to manage...
• Atomic Unit is the SAN
• Simple and powerful
• Replication is part of the package
• Peace of Mind (priceless)
Key Points
• New data centre infrastructure PLUS
DR site
• Five years maintenance up front
• Retain leadership position in IT
• New partner U de M, more welcome
• We sleep better now - much better!
... But there’s more
• We’ve been approached by two other
institutions, both wish to eliminate data
centres, both have received quotes from
commercial providers.
• Our costs are about 1/2 the commercial
providers
• We must be doing something right!
New Timeline
New Partners
Datacentre + D/R
Shared Datacentre
Datatel
ECN Network
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010 2015
The Future
• (1 year) We hope to be hosting servers for at
least four institutions - Huge win financially,
environmentally and politically.
• (1 year) ECN plans to conduct a review to
explore further cooperation/consolidation
• (3-4 years) be positioned to take advantage of
what options exist - ECN Datacentre?
Commercial providers? Rebuild of current sites?
"the cloud"... Who knows.
Further out...
Forecast is
cloudy....
But we will
be ready
for it.
Dilbert
• ...of course there's a relevant
Dilbert...
• We are too cheap to pay $45 to
show you the cartoon, so see
cartoon for 25/May/2012 at
http://www.dilbert.com
CANHEIT 2010
2010... Nearby...
Questions ?
? ? ?