The World of Tomorrow: An update on the UT Web Infrastructure and the Mobile Strategy Task Force Projects

Editor's Notes

• #3: Image saved 2013-03-28 from: http://www.allposters.com/-sp/Sci-Fi-Future-Atomic-City-1942-Posters_i6044505_.htm
• #6: The key objective of the Web Hosting Architecture Assessment is to modernize and improve the web hosting architecture at The University of Texas Austin as it applies to Web Central. The assessment has been divided into two deliverables. Deliverable 1 being a high-level design of a web hosting architecture for the University. Deliverable 2 being a detailed design and detailed implementation project plan for the architecture designed as part of the first deliverable.Deliverable 1 requires the creation of a high-level design that:Addresses the requirements outlined for the environmentLeverages existing University technology investments where appropriate, requiring an understanding of the current stateConsiders the best technology solutions in light of fit, total cost of ownership, and viability over timeTo date, all of the above have been completed, in addition to a proposed high-level adoption and change management plan.
• #7: The requirements defined by the University and approved by the project’s steering committee were jointly reviewed between UT project managers, technical staff, and Sense Corp to ensure a common understanding between everyone. Afterwards, the requirements were analyzed and a list of common themes were identified across all the requirements. These themes led to the establishment of twelve high-level goals as are presented here. The mapping of each detailed requirement to a high-level goal can be reviewed in the supplementary document.
• #8: Once the high-level goals were identified and an understanding of current state infrastructure was gained, the high-level goals and requirements were compared to the current infrastructure to determine where the gaps lie between the current world and the ideal world. Requirements that are being met today are grayed out, while those in bold are either not being met or only partially met today. Please note that while all requirements were considered, a greater focus was placed on the “Must Have” requirements. It should also be noted that in defining a recommended solution, non-gaps were also evaluated in order to determine if the current approach to meeting each goal would continue to make since in the new architecture.
• #9: The fundamental reason for offering three levels of service is to meet both the various technical skill levels and disparate needs of UT Web’s customers. From a skill level perspective, the three service offerings range from novice to expert with Managed CMS being the easiest to use and Dedicated VM being the most difficult. From a needs perspective, the service offerings range from standardized to customized with Managed CMS being the most standardized and Dedicated VM being the most customizable.A workflow will be developed for UT Web to guide new/existing customers through the intake process. The workflow could be implemented as a wizard that guides the customer through the questions necessary to determine the proper service that meets their needs. The process would start with the most standardized solution offerings aimed at the most novice users with the simplest needs and conclude with the most customized solution offerings aimed at the most advanced users with the most complex needs. In the event that none of UT Web’s service offerings are appropriate, the customer would be referred to UT-V to discuss the possibility of a Dedicated VM. The overall goal being to guide all customers, to the simpler, more standardized solution offerings as appropriate.
• #10: Two of the primary challenges for the University today is the lack of centralized administration and lack of self-service features. The breakdown presented above demonstrates how the majority of Web Central’s customers are using highly customizable services that lead to decentralized administration and require Web Central administrators to address customer requests individually rather than as part of a standardized maintenance plan for several controlled environments such as a Managed CMS.One of the primary reasons so many customers are using Shared Virtual Hosting today is because the Managed CMS offering was only more recently introduced. Also, other than UT CMS which primarily used by the University Communications (although recently more users have been added), the managed WordPress offering is mainly marketed as a blogging platform with limited website functionality. As part of the Web Central redesign it will be important to expand on Web Central’s Managed CMS offerings in order to meet the needs of more customers.Please note that the exact number of sites that would be categorized into each of these different service offerings is not tracked today. Therefore, the breakdown presented above is an estimate based on ITS staff input. This series of slides is a representation of how we envision the adoption of service options transforming over time.
• #11: Predictably, as the Managed CMS offerings are expanded upon and the benefits of the upgraded service offerings are communicated, new customers, as well as existing customers, will be more inclined to choose the standardized Managed CMS service offering. This shift in the breakdown of services will lessen the administrative burden that exists today and will reduce the time required for new customers to launch and maintain their websites and applications. As more and more customers choose a Managed CMS service offering, it will also ease the tracking of overall usage and determining who owns what.It is understood that the Managed CMS service option will not be for everyone. Select customers will still require a level of customization and control that cannot be achieved with a Managed CMS. Over time, it is possible that the Shared Virtual Hosting environment will be retired and those who require the higher level of customization will move to Dedicated VMs or the opposite may occur and the Shared Virtual Hosting solution offering will grow.In order to achieve one of these future states, there will certainly be some challenges, but the benefits will far outweigh the drawbacks.For example, extra legwork may be required by UT Web in order to transition several sites off the Shared Virtual Hosting environment. UT Web may need to assist customers with the move to a Dedicated VM or Managed CMS if the customers staff on hand does not have the necessary expertise.Additionally, the communication around upgrades in the Managed CMS environment(s) will become much more critical as customers will need to be aware of how each upgrade may affect their current site. However, with the planned addition of development and test environments, issues should be able to be proactively detected prior to the upgrades reaching production.
• #12: This is a logical and technical diagram and should be used for informational purposes only. A high-level UT Web architecture diagram has been constructed based on the high-level goals and requirements as defined by the project steering committee. The recommended architecture is primarily based on an internal virtualization solution using the virtualization technology and services available from UT-V. This architectural approach leverages the University’s substantial pre-existing investment in its data centers and ensures the isolation of Category-1 data. It also offers straight-forward access to ITS supporting services such as databases, identity management, and backup/recovery.The following key differentiators should be noted:A reverse proxy server has been introduced to allow for shared virtual hosts with different owners to share the same namespace (e.g. www.utexas.edu)All environments have a corresponding development and test environment to support a proper software development lifecycleAll environments can be scaled both horizontally and vertically as neededFuture investments in technologies such as Virtual Cloud Director (VCD) from VMware (which is currently on the UT-V roadmap) would allow for increased scalability and disaster recovery in the public cloudNote: A dotted box in the diagram indicates the opportunity for future expansion.
• #21: Image saved 2013-03-28 from: http://modernwomans.blogspot.com/2010/10/welcome-to-world-of-tomorrow.html
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