Proposal Report

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.

Chart of staffing cost

Table 1.1 Cost of Staffing

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.

Chart of hardware cost

Table 2.1 Cost of Hardware

Char of service costs

Table 2.2 Cost of Services

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
Azure Offerings

Figure 1.1 Trent, R. (2014, August 4). Microsoft’s Cloud Ecosystem Categorized and Visualized. Retrieved June 03, 2016, from http://windowsitpro.com/azure/microsofts-cloud-ecosystem-categorized-and-visualized

 

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.

Table of proposed schedule

Table 3.1 Proposed Schedule

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.

5 thoughts on “Proposal Report

  1. Hello Ryan,
    I believe you have a great start to this proposal. After reading it, with the list of things to look out for (in the Writing Circle #5 and instructions page) here are some things I would consider if I were you:
    1) I think you need to have at least one picture on this report. Maybe something to do with Azure?
    2) I would break up your text blocks a bit in the ” Areas of Significant Spending.”
    3) For the Cost section, are you volunteering your time? Would the TAM person be paid to get in touch with the PFE person?
    4) Some of the language you used was hard for me to conceptualize. I’m aware that you are enriched in the knowledge about technology, and I tip my hat to you! I don’t know what “with an availability of four nines (99.99%)” meant. If you could perhaps go further with some of your terminology, that could help me and maybe others who are not as technologically advanced as you are.
    5) I think we need to include a writing document, perhaps from the past feasibility report.. I don’t know if you did your feasibility report on the same subject, but if you didn’t, you could probably make up something to reference to.

    Over all Ryan, you have shown that you have done your research. I liked the order you categorized your proposal. Your charts are clean captioned and referenced well in your text. Just some minor improvements and you’re good to go.

    ~Meredith

  2. Ryan,
    I enjoyed reading your proposal. It was educational and to the point. I have a couple suggestions you could use to enhance your paper. (1) Add a comma in your second sentence of the first paragraph after “cost-saving steps.” (2) The first sentence of your introduction could be rephrased for better flow. Either adding the word “of” after timing or take out “With the timing” and just add “according to.” I liked your used of tables to provide a visual for the different cost. Are they real or made up? Overall, I thought your proposal was well thought out and straight to the point. Good Job.

  3. Ryan,

    Great proposal. I would add a reference page and expand in your costs section, maybe make a table. Also I agree with Meredith that sometimes I have no idea what you are talking about. If you could use simpler terms I think that would help you a lot.

    Kallista

  4. Hey Ryan,

    I thought your use of bold text helped break the page up nicely. Your tables seem really solid as well. I do agree with my fellow classmates that it can be a bit hard to understand at times and that some clarification or simpler terms could be good. I may re-iterate some of the points concerning money in the conclusion just to re-emphasize them.

    -Adam Kincaid

  5. Ryan,
    Good project concept!
    My thoughts as I read through:
    • It’s good to address the boss as the boss has indicated he or she prefers to be addressed
    • “This proposal in which you approve,” doesn’t actually make sense. It is also a REQUEST, not a demand, so “a proposal I hope you will approve,” or “I request that you approve.”
    • “With the timing President Schill’s recent letter to the organization,” doesn’t actually make sense. Word missing?
    In the introduction, there are three instances of “which” phrases that are missing their preceding commas.
    • Your stated superstructure is:
    This proposal will cover the following:

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

    The assignment superstructure has some flexiblity, but this is the standard template used across multiple professions. You have some of the sections, but you also skip some:
    Introduction
    Background
    Benefits and feasibility
    Description of the proposed work
    Method, procedure, theory
    Schedule
    Qualifications
    Costs, resources required
    Conclusions

    I appreciate the way you integrated your table information into your text. However, once again, every image needs a caption–and it should communicate completely, not in shorthand. That is followed by the image attribution, and I have shown exactly how to do that in multiple venues, i.e. http://jensens.edublogs.org/2016/03/13/how-do-i-attribute-blog-images/.

    I can see you thinking about basic page design, and that is part of technical writing.
    I appreciate the thinking and organization that went into this project!
    Sandy

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