Computing Service Functional Review
1. Role of the department
The Computing Service is a relatively large service department functionally located within
AIMS (US). The Computing Service supports the use of IT for all members of the University.
We provide the University community with powerful and consistent Core Infrastructure
services that underpin the main University functions of Teaching, Research and
Administration. Our focus is partnership orientated with strong ties with the distributed IT
community, faculties, departments and other University partners and suppliers. Our services
include:
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The campus network supporting Local Area Networks, Routing services and external
connectivity with ClydeNET and SuperJANET
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Flexible network access services including;
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VPN over Broadband and GPRS/3G networks
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On campus self service facilities
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Web servers/caches
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DNS services and IP address management
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File store services including backup and retrieval services
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E-mail relays, servers and SPAM filtering
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End user standard e-mail and diary management service
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Network Directory services for network operating system and resource management
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Network Directory service integration to synchronise relevant information between
directories
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Authentication and authorisation systems providing near ‘single sign on’ and
federated services between authentication domains including partner institutions
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Serviced Desktops providing a secure and productive environment for administrative,
academic and student support
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Information Technology security services including policies, advice, training, best
practises and incident handling
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Help Desk service
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Application support and training for standard packages
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Virtual Learning Environment to support new methods in learning and teaching
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Training programmes for IT support staff
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Negotiation and management of University-wide agreements e.g. Microsoft and other
software licences
The Computing Service was established over 45 years ago and has consistently adapted to
significant technological change and an ever-expanding user base. The Service puts a lot of
effort into explaining its role and functions to the user community it serves. This effort
includes
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Regular meetings with Deans
Regular interactions with the University’s IT support community
Faculty IT committee representation
Inclusive ICT strategy
Comprehensive web presence
In effect the Computing Service provides Core Infrastructure services that are deemed
essential to support the range of IT facilities required by the University. In deciding what the
Core Infrastructure services are, the Computing Service uses Industry standards,
acknowledged ‘best practices’, judgement, experience, comparisons with other Institutions
and a comprehensive ICT Infrastructure strategy. The Computing Service would appreciate
confirmation from senior University management that the services it provides and the manner
by which it provides them are acceptable in terms of the criticality of IT to the University’s
core functions.
2.2 Departmental Performance
Responsive:
The Core Infrastructure services described above are the critical elements required for
delivering and developing effective and relevant IT services. These services are designed to
augment the University’s main functions of Teaching, Research and Administration. Specific
examples of Staff and Student services would be:
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Information security
Identity management
E-mail and Web services
Serviced Staff Desktops (SSD)
Common Student Computing Environment (CSCE)
Virtual Learning Environment (VLE)
GRID and e-Science support
The department ensures that Core Infrastructure services meet end user needs via a variety of
mechanisms including:
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IT leadership and expertise
Listening to Users - User consultation
Distributed IT community consultation
Partnerships with faculties/departments
Consultations with other Institutions
IT market trends
University’s strategic aims
Evidence:
All of the above requires effective consultation, feedback, partnerships and action. This is
achieved via:
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Agreed ICT strategy
Faculty IT representation
Distributed IT community consultations
University committee structure, IPSC etc
Technical Review Group (TRG) short life working group reports
Internal user groups
Help Desk statistics
Student involvement in CSCE support
Participation on external committees and working groups
Efficient:
The Computing Service is structured around a number of dedicated support teams that report
to the Computing Service Directorate. Each support team has a Team Head and a number of
support specialists. The current support team compliment is as follows:
Distributed Support Services
Admin Team
Responsible for sales, software licensing, CS administration and Directorate support
Help Desk/Training Team
Responsible for Central University Help Desk and General purpose IT training courses
Desktop Technicians Team
Responsible for Standard Staff Desktop installations, ongoing SSD Desktop support and
general-purpose end-user problem resolution
JISC Regional Support Centre (RSC) West and South West Scotland
The RSC was established to enable the learning providers in Further Education Colleges
and designated Higher Education Institutions in the South and West of Scotland to realise
their ambitions in deployment of Information and Communications Technologies and use
of JISC services in order to achieve their organisational mission. The RSC is JISC funded
on a rolling 3-year basis. In addition the RSC attracts a significant amounts of external
funding for e-learning activities
Technical Infrastructure Services
Desktop Support Team
Responsible for Serviced Staff Desktop design, implementation, development and
support
Netware and Directories Team
Responsible for User Identity management, Directory Integration, Netware/NDS and the
Common Student Computing Environment (CSCE)
Service Support Team
Responsible for Core operating systems and services support including Unix, Linux and
Microsoft operating systems and DNS, WWW, Cache, e-Mail relays, Exchange, AD and
Moodle services
Network Team
Responsible for the University’s data communication Infrastructure including Backbone
routing service, LAN switching service, Flexible access service, Video
conferencing/teaching service
Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT)
Responsible for information and systems security including Policy definition,
compliance, incident detection, incident handling, security advice and training
E-Science and GRID Computing Centre
The E-Science centre is headed by Professor Richard Sinnot and provides the following
functions
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University of Glasgow portion of the joint University of Glasgow and University
of Edinburgh National E-Science centre
Research into the development and use of E-Science and GRID computing
Teaching in E-Science and GRID computing
Promoting E-Science and GRID computing within the University
Supporting High Performance Compute Clusters and their applications
Distributed support services are managed by the Director for Distributed Support and the
Technical Infrastructure Services by the Director for Technical Infrastructure
Each team has clearly defined tasks and targets associated with the Departments
commitments and the ICT Infrastructure strategy. The Team managers and Directorate are
responsible for reviewing the effectiveness and efficiency of each team. In addition the
technical Infrastructure teams are co-ordinated via the Technical Infrastructure Group (TIG),
which meets weekly. Specific efficiency measures include expert teams, staff training,
minimising duplication of effort and maximising cross team collaborations. By almost any
yardstick the Computing Service can demonstrate ‘Efficient’ and cost effective service
delivery e.g.,
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Staff to user ratio – 434 users per FTE
Staff costs to user ratio - £84.60 per user per annum
Scale and range of services provided
Reliability of services provided
Running costs - £30.50 per user per annum
Progressive:
The Computing Service ethos is the delivery of reliable, robust, effective, secure and relevant
services. This can only be achieved through continuous service review and improvements.
Examples of service improvements (SIP) include:
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Upgrading Video conferencing/Teaching network
Continuous network enhancements including planned backbone upgrades and
improved data communications services to the desktop
New Fibre Channel backbone supporting a robust and scalable Storage Area Network
(SAN)
Business continuity and Disaster recovery planning through the establishment of a
new Disaster recovery site
Information Security
A range of developments aimed at providing new services and added value to
existing services
SIP Planning
The ICT Infrastructure strategy promotes service improvements through a progressive ICT
roadmap including costed programmes for the following:
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Ongoing Data communications Network improvements
Service Sustainability
Server and File store consolidation
Flexible access services
In addition the ICT roadmap provides a framework for investigating, reporting and
commissioning new services through an ‘inclusive’ development programme managed by the
Computing Service and the TRG.
The Computing Service maintains close contacts with other ‘peer’ Universities, this is
achieved though participation on many external bodies, including:
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UCISA
HEIDS
RUGIT
UKMANS
SMCG
UKERNA working groups
Scottish Funding Council initiatives
Corporate
The Computing Service contributed significant staff resources to the University’s Information
Strategy. Computing Service staff participated in all of the IS working groups and in
partnership with faculty representatives produced the University’s Information and
Communications (ICT) Infrastructure strategy. The Computing Services Core activities are
driven by the ICT Infrastructure strategy.
Links with AIMS (US)
The Computing Service supports the whole University community including AIMS (US)
departments. However the Computing Service does have close working relationships with
many AIMS (US) departments e.g.,
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MIS – MIS and CS have a well established relationship with respect to many IT
support issues and work closely in a number of areas including identity management,
Active Directory, WebSURF, ExamSURF, Disaster recovery and Serviced Staff
Desktop (SSD) access to corporate applications
AIMS IT – The AIMS IT office and CS have a well established relationship and
work closely on SSD support and development
Registry – Registry and CS collaborate on a number of ‘Student’ related IT issues
including registration for CSCE, Authentication and Authorisation for WebSURF etc
Human Resources – HR and CS collaborate on a number of ‘Staff’ related IT issues
including registration for SSD, deregistration, Acceptable use and compliance
monitoring
Internal Audit – Internal Audit and CS collaborate on a number of IT security related
issues including Policy, Incident handling and compliance monitoring
Estates and Buildings – E&B and CS have a well established working relationship
with respect to data communications services in all University buildings
Archives – Archives and CS collaborate on FoI issues and CDOCS support
Library – The Library and CS have a well established relationship with respect to
many IT support issues including the library online catalogue, CSCE provisioning
and flexible access
Staff Development – Staff Development and CS collaborate on a range of IT training
issues
Faculties
As stated earlier the Computing Service supports the use of IT for all members of the
University. The Computing Service offers a wide range of Core services many of which cross
Faculty and department boundaries and therefore cannot be provided at faculty or department
level e.g.,
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External data communications services via ClydeNET and SuperJANET
Campus Backbone data communications services
Buildings data communications services
Central DNS service
Central e-mail relays
Central web caches
CSCE
SSD
Video Teaching and conferencing services
Other Core services are provided centrally because it is more efficient and cost effective to do
so e.g.,
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Backup services
General purpose IT training services
Central HelpDesk
IT security services
General purpose High Performance Compute resources
Identity management
Directory services and integration
Software licensing
However a small number of Faculties and departments do provide and support a sub-set of
the Core services that are available centrally these are:
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Engineering – E-mail, Directories, desktop support and some data communications
services
Physics and astronomy – E-Mail, local DNS, security, desktop support and data
communications services
Computing Science – E-mail, local DNS, desktop support, data communications
services, Directories, SAN and backup/restore services
Arts – E-mail, web hosting, directories
Vet School – E-mail, Directories, web hosting, desktop support
Forensic medicine – Almost all local IT support
The Computing Service works with the distributed IT community to foster a relationship
based on partnerships that recognise the environment in which we all operate and the
difficulties that environment presents. This is a relatively new method of working and results
are encouraging in that the ‘Combined’ IT community has a greater appreciation of each
other and the need to strike the right balance between ‘Central’ and ‘local’ IT provision.
Clearly there is still a degree of duplication of efforts between central and faculty provision.
In many cases there are sound local reasons for this and the decision on the degree of local
provisions has been made in the knowledge that there is a ‘Centrally’ funded alternative. In
addition there are many areas of IT provision where agreed standards and direction would
enable a consistent and more supportable solution e.g.,
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E-mail provision
Desktop support
Web hosting
Identity management
Incident handling and other IT security issues
Wireless and other flexible access services
IT support staff training
General University wide Policy compliance
2.3. Self assessment
The Computing Service is a relatively large department with a wide remit for Information
Technology provision for the whole University. Having existed for over 45 years the
Computing Service has adapted to significant technological changes, user expectations and
demands. We pride ourselves on our technical and problem solving abilities our service ethos
and demonstrable Information Technology leadership. For many years the Computing
Service was solely responsible for the specification, design, implementation and support for a
wide range of Core services. This was largely because there was no other mechanism by
which these services would have been provided. Through our IT leadership we continue to
promote, provide and develop Core Infrastructure services that are relevant and compares
favourably with other peer institutions e.g.,
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A pervasive high speed manageable, robust and secure data communications
Infrastructure
Flexible network access provisions
IT Security services
The Common Student Computing Environment (CSCE)
The Serviced Staff Desktop environment
Flexible learning support including Video teaching and a VLE
Combined Helpdesk and training services
The Computing Service is not complacent; whilst we believe that the services we provide are
of a very high quality we accept that there will always be room for improvements. In terms of
service improvements we have a well-developed ICT Infrastructure strategy, however this
strategy depends on financial investments by the University. To date we have only been
partially successful in making the case for such investments. The Computing Service consists
of a number of dedicated specialist support teams who engage in a variety of tasks including:
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Service Design, Implementation and ongoing support
Ongoing Development work aimed at service improvements
Daily problem resolution
Collaborations with other teams
This wide range of activities can result in perceived deficiencies with respect to formal
approaches to project management, configuration management, problem management,
change control and the quality of service documentation. Moreover the specialist nature of
activities can foster single sources of Knowledge to the detriment of overall team working. It
has to be said that these issues tend to be contained within teams and only surface on rare (but
important) occasion, for example disaster recovery. The Computing Service is aware of these
shortcomings and is working hard to implement solutions; for example we are tracking
Investors in People and the ITIL service framework.
2.4 Staffing, Organisation and Resources
Organisational Chart – See Appendix 1
Staff Compliment
The total staff complement within the department in terms of Full Time Equivalent is 75.30
FTE. The FTE breakdown is as follow:
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Administrative Library & Computing = 45.30 FTE
37.30 FTE paid from CLB
6.00 FTE paid from RSC project
1.00 FTE seconded from FE paid from RSC project
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Secretarial & Clerical = 7.00 FTE
6.00 FTE paid from CLB
1.0 FTE paid from RSC project
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Technical = 23 FTE
19.40 FTE paid from CLB
3.60 FTE paid from Discretionary Funds
Non-Pay Budget
The department’s non-pay budget for 2005/2006 is £148K
The department’s non-pay budget for 2004/2005 was £148K.
 Expenditure £114,656
plus
 £33K Demonstrators pay for Student Helpdesk = £147,656
3 Management Representations
Any support organisation has a difficult and demanding role to play. In service delivery terms
we would like the Computing Service and the IT services we provide to be as transparent as
possible. In this scenario services are based on highly productive and integrated tools that are
always available with little need for end users to notice either the services or those who
provide them. Unfortunately there are many reasons why we have not reached such a scenario
e.g.,
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Information Technology itself – Users are all too aware that IT can break or
malfunction in a way that reduces their productivity. Here IT is not as transparent to
end users as we would like
IT investments – Although the University enjoys a feature rich IT environment this
has been achieved with little strategic investments. Under investment results in
increased support loads on IT providers and user dissatisfaction during periods of
hardware failure or poor systems performance
Lack of strategic direction or support for strategic direction – The University is a
complex environment with a range of IT requirements covering almost all
permutations of hardware platforms and applications. Whilst there may be some good
reasons for this complexity, the result can be increased support overheads, lower
service levels and significant strain on scarce resources. Agreeing and implementing
a set of standard solutions could reduce complexity, improve service levels and make
better use of scarce resources
The Computing Service recognises that the role of IT has changed from something that was
available to the privileged few and supported by the ‘IT elite’ to something that the whole
University community depends on. We further accept that those who provide IT services and
support those services should be scrutinised to ensure relevance and value for money.
However the level of scrutiny over the last decade places the Computing Service in an
uncomfortable position with respect to the uncertainties that inevitably accompany such
intense scrutiny. Moreover we have detected an unhealthy attitude within the University that
can manifest itself in the following:
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Colleagues sniping at other colleagues
Departments sniping at other departments
Perceptions of poor performance by specific support groups are often cited with little or no
evidence to back them up. All and all we feel that this does the University no good in that it
would seem to be moving forward as a collection of departments with no common purpose
rather than a collection of co-operating departments with a common purpose.
The Computing Service is housed in one of the oldest buildings on campus (James Watt
North). In the early 1970’s the JWN building was extensively refurbished to house a large
ICL mainframe computer (ICL2970). During the mid 1990s the University moved to smaller
scale distributed computing power and the Computing Service computer room was
decommissioned in favour of office accommodation and teaching clusters. However present
and future computing requirements favour Server and filestore consolidation, high
performance compute clusters coupled with Disaster recovery provisions. There is therefore a
pressing need for the restoration or commissioning of new computer rooms with appropriate
environmental provisions i.e.,
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Ability to support floor loads in excess of 800Kg/M2
Significant power distribution (>120KW)
Power protection via UPS and standby generator(s)
Significant Air conditioning provisions – (>120KW capacity)
This will be a challenge to provide, however the risks to the University’s present and future
IT strategies will be immense if not tackled
Prepared by Rolly Gilmour
December 2005
Appendix 1 – Organisational Chart
Technical Infrastructure
Distributed Support
Rowland Gilmour
(Director)
Iain Logan (Deputy Director)
Network
Administration and Directorate
Support
• Colin Cooper
• Carol Duff
• Sue Marwaha
• Steven Jack
• David Clark
• John Young
• June Winning
• Donald Lavety
• Andy Wishart
• Sylvie Binse
• Marion Wright
• Janet McClure
• Joan Smith
System Support
Desktop Technicians
• Derek Higgins
• Alan Garrett
• Gavin Watt
• Charles Hannaway
• Colin Farrow
• Robert Gill
• Ian Walker
• George Mills
• Stephen Gallacher
• Willis Nelson
• Andrew Cooper
• Ian Woodrow
• Mark Meenan
• Kevin Maguire
• Tony McGrachan
• James Daly
• Jaswant Munday
• Barry McKay
• David McComb
• Sinaid Baird
• Lorna Smith
• Neil Ferguson
Desktop Support
Helpdesk / Training
• Mark Partridge
• Bill Wright
• Aileen Dickinson
• John Buchanan
• Ammar Khan
• Judith Harriman
• John Aiton
• Andrew Lynch
• Marion McLean
• Kenny Whyte
Central Operations Technicians
Software Support
• Caroline McGregor
• Lesley Drysdale
• Scot Ramsay
• Elizabeth McAlavey
• Liz Watt
• Vacancy
CIRT (Information Security)
Information
• Christopher Edwards
• Drew McConnel
• Steven McIntosh
• David Clark (.5fte)
Network Technicians
Notes
• Andrew Chapman
1. Post to be filled
• Barry Soulis
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• Ronald McDonald
• Samantha Quinn
Directory Infrastructure
Porters
• Pete Mitchell
• Colin Dickson
• David Anderson
• David Cummings
• Anthony Cummings
• Colin Orr
• Alan Beattie
Regional Support Centre (RSC) - Located at Todd Campus Garscube Estate
• Charles Sweeney
• Fionnuala Cassidy
• Joan Walker
• Theresa Duffy
• Margaret McKay
• Kirsty Menzies
• Claire Smith