Adventures in Higher Ed Information Technology

Banner Application Hosting – 0383

Application Hosting

–       Core Components for the Service Offering

• Data Ceneter
• Server Hardware
• OS Licensing and Security
• OS Database and Appolication Administration
• Monitoring

–       Purpose Built Data Center

• Built to be a multi-customer data center

–       Data Center Utility Platform

• High Performance Data Center Utility
• Sungard managed
• High Availability, Scalability and Flexibility
• High Performance ISP Connectivity
• Multiple ISP Connectivity

–       Server Hardware

• X86
• Dell Primary Servers

–       Storage

–       Backups

• Use VRanger and ArcServe
• Level 1 Disk 2 Disk Backups
• Level 2 Robotic Tape Library

–       Comprehensive Information Security Model

• SGHE Staff – AD using two factor authentication
• Encrypted access protocols

What is included in the Application Hosting Solution

–       Client Responsibilities – User Liaisons, Application Support, Programmer Analysts, Application Licenses, Management/ Director

–       SunGard Responsibilities – Information Security, Data Center, Server and Network Hardware, Server and Network Administration, Operating System Administration, DBA, Application Administration, Systems, Monitoring, 24X7 Contact Support, OS Licenses.

Application Management – Subset of Application Hosting

–       OS Administration, DBA, Application Admin, App Monitoring, 24×7 Support

–       Will support third party application hosting also.

–       Will coordinate scheduled upgrades with client liason… Development, Test and Production Instances.

Sungard HE has been in the hosting business for about 7 years.

–       Clients would benefit from the many skills and experiences.

–       Team members are application specialists

–       Well over 500+ person years of experience.

–       No single human point of failure.

Customer Benefits

–       Predictable Costs – Hardware Layer, Software Layer and Administration Resources

–       Peace of Mind – Secure in the skillset of the resources assigned to your team

–       Skill Gap – Availability of staff talent.

• Resource Loss.

–       Excess Demand – Reduction of stretched staff responsibilities. During the peak periods when we need additional support, the agreement can be leveraged to get additional staff in place to support the priorities of the institution

–       Enhanced Reliability – Removal of single points of technical failure.

–       Enable customer centric activities. 

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Commentary: 

It seems that this service offering is a natural fit for institutions who are looking to outsource hardware, os, application and database administration support to a more predictive approach to service management and provisioning. It would be an interesting exercise to conduct an apples to apples comparison of the fiscal impact of institutional hosted solution versus SunGard hosted solutions. The primary areas of savings potential is human resource, hardware and remote data center disaster recovery sites. 

One good point made during the presentation was the fact that IT talent, specifically in the areas of database administration and banner applications administration, is hard to come by in rural areas. When working with an outsourced vendor to provide application management and administration support, this issue becomes less of a critical issue as SunGard provides top-notch talent for all administrative areas. 

Overall, the session provided a good breakdown of the Application Hosting Service offering. However, more information concerning the cost of the ‘typical’ hosted environment would have been beneficial. Justification of cost savings from institutional hosting to SunGard hosting would have helped in making a case for a shift in model. 

Regards, 

TJ