Central/Distributed Svcs at UM Kitty Bridges

U Michigan / IT Central Services Environment UM highly decentralized and decision making and authority greatly distributed Core strength of institution is distribution of responsibility for mission Strong central administration and strong deans Many resources – across the institution

U Michigan / IT Central Services IT organization Central: MAIS (Administrative computing) IT Central Services (ITCS) (Infrastructure, networking, academic computing) Media Union (instructional technology development, media services) Schools/colleges MCIT (Medical Center IT) Other Units

U Michigan / IT Central Services Before ITCommons Silo’d infrastructure, applications, etc. Multiple servers Multiple authentication systems and directories Multiple help desks Multiple AFS cells Multiple Kerberos domains More than one backbone…. Highly fragmented, making life difficult for students and inter-disciplinary activities Lack of trust in others in IT Independence, control

U Michigan / IT Central Services Getting to a New Place Centralized computing led to centralized planning and management with little or no diversity Distributed computing led to distributed planning and management with diversity, but little or no coordination NOW: Learning coordinated autonomy

U Michigan / IT Central Services Primary Goals Manage our distributed IT structure in ways that are strategic from the center as well as the edge. Enable experimentation, flexibility, and agility in the academic units. Facilitate collaboration and shared capability. In other words, strategically manage IT in ways that do not do violence to Michigan culture and in ways that play to our strengths.

U Michigan / IT Central Services ITCommons Emergence Collaboration Opt in, opt out Critical mass Sourcing Barriers to collaboration Economic - full cost vs. margin Staffing already in place everywhere Cultural

An ‘Organizational Architecture’ framework, that illuminates opportunities to share capability… 1 Drivers of demand (units)… Colleges, central units, constituencies, etc. n … … …have priorities, which imply… capabilities, some unique… …others that can be shared. These rest on a set of underlying and common… core infrastructure services. 2 … e.g.: directory services, authentication & authorization, network middleware, printing,

U Michigan / IT Central Services Infrastructure & shared capability Infrastructure Storage services (re-aggregating, specializing) Enterprise directory project (enterprise focus, usefulness to academic units) Security (central coordination, unit volunteers) Shared capability Exchange (shared among schools and central) Sitemaker (community support for locally developed service)

U Michigan / IT Central Services How This Plays Engineering Needs to be first, different and right Hospitals and Health Centers Different drivers LSA, Small schools/colleges Real opportunity Admin computing Better collaboration

U Michigan / IT Central Services What’s different Create community, minimize territoriality Support of IT colleagues Progress on some infrastructure issues Managing for a collaborative environment Shifts in services are underway Mood and collaborative behavior is substantially different