Memo

TO: Sandy Jensen, Information Services Committee

FROM: Ryan Nagamatsu, Associate Director of Systems and Operations

DATE: May 26, 2016

SUBJECT: Progress Report for Proposal

 

This progress report covers work done the Project Proposal in regards to implementing a new service at Information Services. The purpose of the proposal is to implement a new service, Microsoft Azure, which would provide a cost cutting solution in response to President Schill’s recent announcement. Azure is a viable alternative to physical hardware as well as administration because of difference in cost, amount of FTE required to run services offered by Information Services, and the abundant services which could be additionally offered through the implementation of this Microsoft service.

Past Work

The work done on the Project Proposal has been a little behind deadline, however, it has not made a significant impact in the process at this time. At this time work done has primarily been researching as well as completing rough drafts for the proposal. Despite the delay in the timeline, all work that was planned for this project has been completed with the exception of including a writing document or report. The results of the proposal may impact current employment at the organization, but will also add numerous services that are not possible without the implementation of Microsoft Azure. Due to the fact that this is a service maintained in the cloud, we have ran into some issues regarding security and high availability. At this time, it is uncertain on the level of encryption for the traffic to and from Azure servers as well as whether there will need to be changes in our current Service-Level Agreement.

Future Work

Within the next two weeks, minor tweaks and last minute adjustments will be made to make this proposal as presentable and convincing as possible. Currently a reference to a report or written document is needed and should be included by the end of the upcoming week. Additionally I would like to add the amount of expenditure the university is able to save if the service is implemented as proposed. Several rounds of proofreading and editing will be offered for external recommendations.

Conclusion

As President Schill stated in his recent announcement, there needs to be a change within our current expenditure of the budget for the fiscal year.  Though the implementation of Microsoft Azure may result in the loss of current staff, with an additional offering of services and less FTE required for the administration of current services, current staff have the opportunity to refocus their efforts on these new services which potentially could make this organization operate efficiently and effectively.

Recommendations

Though the issue of security and the level of encryption have the potential to leave the university more vulnerable to attacks, we are currently making assessments on whether or not it will be a significant increase and if this added risk weighs too heavily on the security team.

Memorandum

TO: Sandy Jensen, Information Services Committee 

FROM: Ryan Nagamatsu, Associate Director of Systems and Operations

DATE: May 24, 2016

SUBJECT: Proposal to Implement Microsoft Azure

 

Dear Ms. Sandy Jensen,

I am writing you this proposal in regards to the recent letter distributed by President Schill. The recent letter suggests that all central services will be asked to propose “cost-saving steps” as well as “streamline services and achieve significant cost savings.” This proposal in which you approve, will allow Information Services to provide additional services at no extra cost as well as requiring less administration from the current staff levels.

Please contact me if you have any further questions.

Sincerely,

Ryan Nagamatsu
Associate Director of Systems and Operations
ryannagamatsu@gmail.com
(541)-123-4567

 

 

Introduction

With the timing President Schill’s recent letter to the organization, there will be budget cuts across the board which will most likely mean that Information Services (IS) will be short-staffed. The current expenditure of our department totals $1.8 million with four vacant positions which have not been filled at this time.

It is with careful consideration that the Systems and Operations Team will need to make a significant reduction to our budget in order to be in line with the message from our President. This is a proposed plan that will allow the Systems and Operations Team to face minimal job cuts, while implementing a service which will be beneficial to departments across the entire university.

Presented is an opportunity in which IS can fully obtain the benefits by our largest vendor, Microsoft. In addition to these benefits, all staff will be able to contribute less full-time equivalent (FTE) to the current services and projects in which IS is providing and working on.

This proposal will cover the following:

• Areas of significant spending
• Benefits of implementing Azure
• Proposed time frame
• Cost of service
• Conclusion

Areas of Significant Spending

Employment

Currently there are 2.0 FTE who are Windows Administrators, 2.0 FTE who are Linux Administrators,  3.0 FTE who are administrating email across campus, 3.0 FTE in operations, 1.0 FTE who are in virtualization, and 2.0 FTE who are managers. The cost of the current staffing can be see in Table 1.1. Though two of the five areas mentioned are critical enough to have 2.0 FTE, the rest of these areas would be able to run with an availability of four nines (99.99%).  The areas which are critical to have sufficient staffing is in email and virtualization. Doing so, would either allow the remaining staff to focus on additional services to those in which we are already providing, or for management to make cuts in redundant positions. This is possible because all employees are able to fulfill the duties of a system administrator and a computer operator, while there only needs to be a single manager in this department.

Hardware

The services in which IS offers at this time are using expensive hardware which require support contracts as well as cost to keep this hardware running. In addition, services are provided by numerous vendors which also require additional support contracts as well additional spending for these separate services. In total there are three vendors for hardware which require three separate support contracts, as well as cost of keeping the hardware running. The hardware we use consist of physical servers for production and virtualization, servers for back up, and load balancers. The cost of maintaining physical hardware can be seen in Table 2.1. In addition to the cost of hardware, IS is also responsible for the cost of the services we provide. Currently there are three vendors which we pay for the use of their software and applications. The services IS provide consist of video conferencing, workstation management, email, and monitoring. The cost of these services can be seen in Table 2.2.

Benefit of Azure

Microsoft Azure, a cloud computing and software service, will allow IS to virtually eliminate all hardware cost and most of the service cost. Though we will still need to pay for Red Hat and Nagios services, implementing Azure will provide a significant increase in services at a lower cost. By implementing Azure, in addition to all of our existing Microsoft services, we will be able to provide 59 services to the to the rest of the university which can be seen in Figure 1.1. Services which are current offered and could be replaced with Azure include:

• Virtual Machines
• Application Services
• SQL Databases
• Storages
• Cloud Services
• Active Directory & Active Directory Domain Services
• Load Balancing
• Skype for Business

 

Proposed Time Frame

To fully implement this service and decommission our current hardware, IS will need to follow the proposed time frame in Table 3.1.

Cost of Service

The cost of implementing Azure will be a mere $0. With our current package from Microsoft, Azure is included, but not enabled. In addition, our Microsoft Technical Account Manager (TAM) has agreed to provide a Premier Field Engineer (PFE) for two weeks to help us transition from our services on physical hardware to the cloud. This is equivalent to about $38,000 in which we would normally have to pay for a PFE for 80 hours of work.

Conclusion

This proposal will not only allow IS to implement a vast range of software to the rest of the University of Oregon, but will be able to cut back on the cost to maintain these services mentioned above. With the timing of budget cuts and a mandate to decrease spending, I strongly believe that it is the perfect time to implement this great service offered by Microsoft. The implementation of this service has the potential to cut the entire cost of hardware and the service, Blue Jeans, in which IS currently offers. This reduction will save the department $260,390 in hardware and service cost and could potentially save $269,899 in salaries if the administrators for those services and hardware are no longer needed. Combined, this gives Information Services the potential to reduce the departments’ cost of operation by $530,289 per year.

Feasibility Report – Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

Memorandum

TO: Information Services Committee

FROM: Ryan Nagamatsu, Windows Team System Administrator

DATE: May 7, 2016

SUBJECT: Feasibility Report for Load Balancer Purchase

As requested by the Information Services Committee, I have prepared a feasibility report regarding the purchase of load balancers for the data center. This request was made to find replacements to the F5 Load Balancers which are nearing their end of life.

With recent cost cuts made clear by the President, cost will be one of the main concerns in the options provided. In addition to cost, support policy will also be highly considered in this process. The cost of each load balancer in comparison to the life expectancy needs to be in our price point.

With careful consideration and extensive research, the load balancers that I have found to be the best options is the Barracuda Load Balancer ADC 540 for the price of  $19,117.99.

If you have any further questions, ideas, or concerns, please contact me at ryannagamatsu@gmail.com.

Introduction

System Administrators must configure their servers to be utilized at an optimum level of efficiency. In order to do so, it is imperative that we consider the replacement for the current F5 Big IP load balancers, which are coming to their end of life next month.

If we do not consider the replacement to these load balancers, essential services like Exchange, LDAP, and much more will suffer severe performance issues. These performance issues will not only promote unnecessary stress on the servers, but our stakeholders will be able to notice the decline in performance from these affected servers. With the end of life nearing next month, this issue was presented by a Linux Administrator who has contributed and confirmed the results in my research.

This feasibility report will cover the committee’s’ criteria for the purchase of new load balancers with the comparison of three different load balancers from various vendors. This report will conclude with a recommendation that will be best suited for Information Services in regards to budget and support.

Objectives

With various vendors of load balancers, I have chosen ones that can be easily placed in our datacenter and that have support plan options which is crucial in regards to our current SLA.

The

The durability of the scrub tops, in regards to the type of fabric blends , is of high importance, because the goal is to have these circulate for a long time in the hospital. The functionality aspect is taken into consideration for the use of pockets, to carry different types of medical equipment around. The overall objective of this report is to find and compare different options of scrub tops, and narrow them down to a feasible, yet affordable choice.

Method

The data collected was configured from three well name vendors in load balancers, F5, Cisco, and Barracuda. These companies are the highest rated load balancers that come at a premium price point. While researching these units, the following criteria were well considered:

1. Cost: Given recent talks on cost cuts across the organization, the goal was to find a load balancer that would be a sufficient replacement to our current one.
2. Support: With our current load balancer which had a total cost of $53,489 with the cost of the unit and support for the life of the unit, a unit with a similar support policy will be carefully considered. All three units and their support contracts are listed below.
3. Specifications: Each load balancer must be able to handle at least 500 transactions per second and support remote access due to our large enterprise environment. It is important that the load balancer has an ample amount of ram to facilitate traffic connecting to our servers.

Below is the table of the three units that have been considered to be replacements to the current F5 load blancer, the results of the three criteria comparisons, and user reviews from cdw.com (one of our current vendors):

 

Discussion

The three recommended load balancers would be a good choice for replacing the current F5.  All of the brands that were suggested meet our criteria in cost, support and specifications. However, the cost of support from F5 is more than the price of an additional load balancer. Only KEMP and Barracuda come with the amount of RAM that is comparable to the the current F5 specification that we have in place. While KEMP and Barracuda offer a higher RAM and SSL offloading, the F5 Big-IP could be easily swapped without any real configuration.

 

Conclusion

Cost, support, and specifications were the criteria in which a new load balancer would be chosen upon. With little reviews by users on each unit, the three criterias that were mentioned previously were heavily weighted in consideration of these products.

The three options that were deemed viable from this research offered remote management, a preferred rate of SSL offloading, and support packages which were within budget. The F5 Big-IP had one of the best support packages for 1 year which consisted of hardware replacement, phone and on-site support for 10 hours a day / 5 days a week, and a guaranteed response time of 10 days or less. The KEMP LoadMaster, offered a competitive support contract for half the price, but only guaranteed tier 1 support within 1 hour for 24 hours a day / 7 days a week. Tiers 2 and above were limited support and did not specify the response time for those tiers. Barracuda offered a support package of tier 1, 2, and 3 support for 24 hours a day / 7 days a week, with a response time of 1 business day. In addition they offered hardware replacement and the hardware came with a 5 year support contract for no cost.

Recommendation

After careful consideration, the Barracuda Load Balancer ADC 540 is the best option for Information Services. Coming with an unbeatable support contract at such a low price, it is in my opinion that this load balancer will be able to meet our standards of operation while cutting back on unnecessary cost. Having phone, email, on-site, and instant replacement support guarantees that this is a valuable purchase for Information Services.

Technical writing is important in the field of Computer Network Operations because of documentation, proposals/requests, and emailing. Processes and procedures must be documented with clarity and accuracy because of it’s complexity as well as on-boarding and off-boarding employees. As a system administrator, you are often delegated the task of project management. As a part of the process in this, creating proposals for new equipment or software must be given to those who are higher up than you. Working in a large enterprise or corporation, you must remain with those in administrative positions (directors, chief information officers, etc.) as well as vendors. It is important to keep emails to those positions professional and concise.

In my search for a professional blog, I chose a technology blog in which I keep up with called Gizmodo. Majority of the articles posted on this site contain an image or animation pertaining to the topic the article. I like the design of this site because it is simple, yet professional. Having a white background for me is easy as a reader because of contrast and it allows images to stand out instead of blending into it. The main page is well designed with a short excerpt of the article itself and an image.

I would say that the style of my blog is semi-professional. I have only recently chosen a them and have not yet customized it. With the first assignment, my primary concern was getting the assignment done on time and did not realize I there was a way to change the theme of my blog. Setting up my first blog did not cause too much trouble. However, I was confused on how to get the class widget on my profile.

In other areas in your professional career, why do you think technical writing is important?

 

My name is Ryan, and am I am pursuing a Computer Network Operations degree at Lane. I am currently in my second year in the program, and plan finish my degree by the end of summer. I’m from Seattle and have only recently been adventuring around Oregon. I like most outdoor activities, watching sports, and have gotten into photography over the past few years. I posted a picture I took over spring break from Disneyland of Slinky Dog during a parade. I think technical writing will help me in my career by showing me who to properly read and write professionally. Documenting processes and procedures are common in the career path that I am choosing. What are some of your hobbies?