1. ICT Infrastructure Strategy and Technical Direction

2. ICT Infrastructure Strategy
Has a vision and guiding principles
Defines the Technical Environment
Defines and maintains a progressive IT roadmap for service delivery and development
The overall aim is to define the technical environment and direction that the IT roadmap will follow such that centrally provided and faculty/department provided services meet the University’s requirements over an agreed timeframe
Identifies standards based ‘cost effective’ technology that will provide supportable ‘timeline' and evolutionary solutions to the above

3. ICT Infrastructure Vision
The University will provide a feature rich, integrated, supportable and secure technological environment that provides staff and students with seamless, any time, any place, access to the Information Technology resources that support and enhance their activities.

4. ICT Infrastructure Environment May be Categorised as
Persistent – ‘Always on’
Transparent – Integrated and reliable
Dynamic – Relevant over time
Borderless – Accessible from anywhere
Flexible – Able to adapt
Community based – To enhance activities

5. Guiding Principles
The University recognises the strategic importance of information technology and is prepared to invest in the continual development of its IT resources
The University will develop and communicate policies and strategies that will govern the use and provide direction on support of IT resources
The University sees value for money as an important consideration in all IT investments and will seek to take advantage of economies of scale wherever possible
The University will implement industry standards, best practice and supportable solutions

6. Guiding Principles
The University will promote an ICT Service ethos supported by the most appropriate technology
The University is a major research led institution and as such places demands on the technical infrastructure
The University will seek to maximise the opportunities offered by external funding where the activities to be undertaken can be properly resourced in terms of staffing and which dovetail with the IT roadmap
IT resources must be of a high quality, secure and universally available to authorised users

7. Guiding Principles
The University recognises that support overheads must be addressed when costing IT investments
The University will increasingly adopt IT to support its core functions, users will become increasingly IT aware and expect access to feature rich, reliable, secure, integrated and easy to use services
Users will increasingly require access to IT resources via a variety of devices including personal computers, portable computers, PDAs and other mobile devices
Communities will be established to promote effective consultation, knowledge transfer, sharing of best practice and avoidance of duplicated effort
The University recognises the need for user and IT support staff training

8. Technical Environment
Technical Infrastructure
Core Services
Network Applications and Services
Common
Teaching
Research
Admin
User Base

9. Technical Infrastructure
First Building Block for Strategic Service provision and development
Provides Campus wide data communications infrastructure and Routing services
Provides flexible connectivity options
Provides Resilience, High Bandwidths, QoS and security
Implements Industry standard solutions

10. Core Services
Second Building Block for strategic service provision and development
Brings strategic services together under a single management domain to achieve economies of scale and consistency of provision
Provides services that are sustainable, resilient and highly available e.g
Access to technical infrastructure including Flexible and remote access
DNS and IP address management
relays, SPAM filtering
Web Services, caching
Information Security services
File store delivery and data management
Directories and ID management

11. Common Services
Access to and other personal communications methods
Access to WWW including rich media content
Security including advice, incident response and patch management
Access to serviced desktop environments providing common authentication schemes network file store, print services, platform security and relevant applications
Support – help desk, specialist teams and training
Site licenses and license management for common applications

12. Applications and Services
Provides specific solutions for University strategic requirements e.g
To leverage the benefits of IT in support of the University’s core activities; Requires
Applications and Services definition and implementation
Integration with technical infrastructure and core services
Delivery and support
Ongoing review
Management and support domains need not be the same but should be consistent and co-operative

13. Teaching
Open access and Faculty specific clusters operating common authentication schemes and desktop environments; providing, security file store, print and relevant applications
Portals and VLE
Interactive Video teaching
Flexible access facilities for accessing IT resources using personal systems

14. Research Access to high bandwidth Local Area Network connections
Flexibility in accommodating research projects requiring special features
Access to high performance computing resources; locally, nationally and internationally
Ability to store and manipulate large data sets
Access to worldwide virtual organisations and research communities

15. Administration
Holistic approach to corporate information systems development
Secure and authenticated access to corporate information systems
Integration with other connected systems to provide comprehensive solutions e.g., Agresso, WebSURF, ExamSURF, HR systems etc

16. User Base Staff, Students and other partners
Must have access to relevant, reliable and secure Information Technology resources
User view will be via a suitable Platform providing access to common resources and all necessary teaching, research and administration resources

17. ICT Infrastructure Roadmap Third Building Block For strategic provision and development
The ICT Infrastructure Roadmap identifies the proposed work programmes required to meet the aspirations of the ICT Infrastructure Strategy. The work programmes cover a three year planning horizon i.e., the current financial year and the two following financial years. The roadmap for each year identifies all areas of strategic activity as well as areas where specific funding is required.

18. ICT Roadmap Funding requirements for 2005/06
Activity
Cost
Source
Enhance Networks in University Buildings
£100K
University
Network segmentation
Campus backbone network upgrade
£410K
SRIF-3/LTIF
Service Sustainability
Video Conferencing replacement
£200K
LTIF
Flexible Access
£40K
Student clusters
£500K
Patch Management
£10K
Software licence policy management
£50K
IT Staff Training
Totals
950K
Other
610K

19. ICT Roadmap Funding requirements for 2006/07
Activity
Cost
Source
Enhance Networks in University Buildings
£100K
University
Network segmentation
Campus backbone network upgrade
£410K
SRIF-3/LTIF – if slippage
Service Sustainability
£100k
Disaster recovery/Business continuity
£50k
Flexible Access
£50K
File store and server consolidation
Student clusters
£500K
Extend dark fibre contracts for teaching hospitals
£20K per annum onto CS unavoidable expenditure
ClydeNET Upgrades
£870K covering 4 years
SHEFC/UKERNA

20. ICT Roadmap Funding requirements for 2007/08
Activity
Cost
Source
Enhance Networks in University Buildings
£100K
University
Network segmentation
Computer room enhancements
New Builds
Service Sustainability
£100k
Disaster recovery/Business continuity
£50k
Flexible Access
£50K
File store and server consolidation
£75K
Student clusters £?
Unified Messaging
ClydeNET Upgrades
£870K covering 4 years ( )
SHEFC/UKERNA
Totals
550K (+)
Other
Part of 870K