- Washington University in St. Louis will adopt a Hybrid Cloud strategy that is Cloud First for software and Cloud Preferred for IT platforms and infrastructure.
- In line with Washington University’s IT’s “Buy before build” guiding principle, significant cloud adoption efforts will take place over 5 years (2018 thru 2023) to replace existing University applications with cloud-based software and to migrate IT platforms and infrastructure to the cloud.
- On premise infrastructure will be gradually reduced but not fully eliminated as some business needs will continue to be better served by on premise technology.
- To meet the challenges associated with cloud migration activities, critical staff skills will be developed or acquired to fill new key roles associated with modernized, cloud-powered University community.
- The benefits of adopting cloud computing services include streamlined collaboration with peer Universities and strategic partners, access to best-of-breed software that is aligned with industry trends, enhanced resiliency of IT services, and a reduced need for on campus data center space.
- When a business need is presented, WashU will seek IT solutions as high up in the technology stack as possible (SaaS first, PaaS second, IaaS, third)
- Key Roles will be filled through a combination of resource reallocation, targeted staff training, professional services engagements, and strategic hiring
- WashU will appropriately migrate IT workloads to the public cloud in order to avoid expansion of on campus data centers
- A unified cloud governance model will be developed and integrated into the existing IT procurement policy and investment request processes
- A unified cloud support model will be developed and integrated into the existing WashU IT organization
- For PaaS and IaaS migrations, Microsoft-based workloads will generally move to Azure, Linux/Unix-based workloads will generally move to Amazon Web Services, and some research-centric workloads will move to Google Cloud Platform
- WashU will leverage all readily available information security tools and best practices across the range of cloud computing services
- Information Technology:
- Drive toward continuous and rapid innovation
- Latest software and tools are frequently only available in the cloud
- Higher Education:
- Increased need for interdisciplinary and inter-organizational collaboration
- Large scale, short-term research computing needs
- Washington University in St. Louis:
- Need for modernization of enterprise IT systems
- Desire to leverage infrastructure investments through the end of their useful life
- Drive to enhance IT services while maintaining current levels of IT spending
- Adjust to a more opex-focused cost model for IT
- Avoid significant capital expenses associated with build-out of new data centers
- Improve the ability for faculty and staff to focus on teaching, research, and patient care
- Streamline core business functions through the modernization of enterprise applications
- Leverage improved availability inherent to geo redundant cloud-based solutions
- Power advanced research through rapidly scalable cloud compute/storage resources
- Enhance both internal and external collaboration
- Reduce on premise datacenter footprint by > 30%
- Reduce faculty/staff time spent on IT overhead by > 10%
- Increase uptime for critical IT systems by > 25%
- Business Analyst: Focuses on understanding how cloud applications can be integrated into institutional business processes
- IT Liaison: Works to ensure that IT is included in the product or service decisions taking place within business units on campus
- Project Manager: Serves as the liaison between users, technical staff, and vendors
- Strategic Sourcing Manager: Experienced in the unique nature of cloud contracts and risk mitigation
- Vendor Manager: Maintains an ongoing relationship between the consumer and the cloud provider
- Application Administrator: Handles the configuration, management, and access control for SaaS
- Cloud Architect: Designs solutions that integrate multiple cloud (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS) and virtualization platforms, including on-premises services and solutions and data sources
- Emerging Technologies Analyst: Provides research insights into future cloud technology trends.
- Integration Engineer: Implements and maintains cloud integrations
- Data Custodian: Manages how institutional data is stored and secured in the cloud
Information Security Analyst: Responsible for information security standards and requirements, third-party risk assessments, and mitigations plans
- Cloud Computing: The practice of storing data or running applications on servers that can be accessed through the Internet
- Cloud First: The University strongly recommends using vendor-hosted technology, using on-site technology only if absolutely necessary
- Cloud Preferred: The University recommends using vendor-hosted technology first, but may use on-site technology if there is an approved business reason to do so
- Private Cloud: Cloud computing services where the supporting technology is owned and operated internally
- Public Cloud: Cloud computing services where the supporting technology is owned and operated by an external partner (Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, etc.)
- On-Premise: Cloud computing services where the supporting technology is owned and operated internally (Private Cloud)
- Hybrid Cloud: When software, platforms, or services are delivered using a blend of public cloud and on-premise infrastructure
- Software as a Service (SaaS): Web-based software that requires little or no on-site IT equipment (Office 365, Box, Canvas, etc.)
- Platform as a Service (PaaS): Managed IT platforms designed to simplify and streamline various IT functions (managed databases, web tools, etc.)
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): Managed IT building blocks used as a foundation for IT services (servers, networks, raw data storage, etc.)
- Integration with equipment that must be on site (lab instrumentation, etc.)
- Need for extremely low latency (10ms or less) or extremely high throughput (10GB/sec or more)
- Ability to comply with legal or regulatory requirements
- Hardware appliances (no cloud-based replacement available)
- Quote for cloud-based replacement is significantly higher than on premise hardware