Making a Difference Using IT Analytics Michael Boyle, Doug Brown

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES “Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion” W. Edwards Deming

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES Where were we this time last year? Well-established service with various IT operational use cases across our infrastructure and services: –Monitoring –Reporting –Investigations Looking to expand our use cases into non-technical areas Planning to develop a platform for teaching and research

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES What does the service look like? 27 servers across 2 datacentres 200GB ingested daily Logs and inventory data from majority of infrastructure and mission- critical services Services (12+) OS Virtualisation Network Storage Hardware Provided as a service to 16 stakeholders with more than 200 users

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INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES Where are we now? Our platform is now all but ubiquitous for IT Ops at QUT and forms part of our IT Service Management strategy Continuing to consolidate tools and resources for non-IT analytical where it’s the right tool for the job: –Monitoring sensors –Business intelligence –Research projects

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES Use Cases

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES Radiation Monitoring Sensors QUT’s Department of Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) are required to measure radiation in certain areas of the university (radio isotope stores, X-ray labs, etc.) HSE needed an easy way to collect, store, monitor, and report (but hopefully not alert) upon staff and student dosage TLDs (passive detectors) couldn’t satisfy requirements 75 year retention period required for compliance.. Biggest challenge was getting the data out

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INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES Radiation Interactive Dashboard

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES Big Data Analytics for Researchers The needs of researchers is very different to professional users –Project-focused authorisation –Project-based retention periods –Project-based usage patterns -> resources required –Mostly large structured (CSV/JSON) data sources –Greater autonomy (relaxed permissions) –Everything is custom Licensing -> Community support model

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES –Faculty of Business research project to quantify the effect game play has on behaviour in the reduction of low income household energy consumption –Data sources: Electricity meters Registrations Surveys Mobile app usage Social media © CitySmart, all rights reserved, images used with permission.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES Analytics for Libraries Libraries are adapting to changes in a bid to remain relevant in modern education Our library collects various data about resource usage: –Helpdesk queries –Database usage –Events and programmes –Support services –Publications –Gate counters But analysis can be manual and time-consuming

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES Analytics for Libraries Questions: Who are consuming resources (by school, course level, etc.)? Which resources are in contention/under-utilised? What usage patterns are evident? What are students requesting vs what we are delivering? How are resources consumed? Can we tailor service offerings to better meet demand? Where should time be spent improving engagement?

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES Library Helpdesk Interactive Dashboard

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES Future Improvements

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES Challenges Ensure users know our service is available –Reduce duplication of time, money and effort Define the service offering better –We provide the framework and assist with ingestion –We don’t do your analysis for you, but consultation.. Resources and training –Answer the question once for everyone

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES Possible solutions Delegate responsibility for consulting with researchers to research support staff? Provide more structured/formal resources and training? Continue to encourage social forums? Your thoughts?

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES Questions?