Open Letter to UF OIT Staff

From Dr. Marc Hoit

The conversation has started. A draft Information Technology reorganization plan is circulating that outlines a vision for the transformation of IT services at the University of Florida.

Information Technology (IT) is a critical and strategic infrastructure for a top tier research institution. E-mail, file sharing, websites and other services are fundamental tools for daily business operations including academic and research functions. Very high speed networking, high performance computing, electronic platform learning systems, collaboration tools and other advanced IT services are required to be competitive for the best research institutions. Commitment by the University to provide these services in a robust, cost effective and secure environment is crucial to enhancing its strategic opportunities.

The reorganization plan is focused around two principles: 1) Quality of service and 2) Security. The vision is to reorganize around services (Networking, Learning Support, etc.) and provide a minimum base level of services at the highest level of quality. Many services like networking, e-mail, web hosting and others have become commodity level services and are fundamental to all faculty, staff and students. These services will be offered to all campus units through central managed services by university funding. Specialized needs and services will always exist and be handled by individual units based on their needs or through central services on a per cost basis.

The plan shifts central campus IT from an organization based structure to a service focused structure. Focusing around services will allow merging of operations and moving of people to gain efficiencies (single data center, single structure for mail, web services, etc.). Any cost efficiencies will be re-invested to support a portion of the IT budget shortfall.

As part of this reorganization, we propose to offer the following new campus wide services; E-mail, collaboration and file services, web hosting and wall plate. As an example, we currently have 750 mail servers across campus (150 of which are registered to send off campus). Efficiencies can be created by offering services which gain through economy of scale. The overall benefits from combining these services include: high quality services for everyone on campus, improved disaster recovery, universal backup for all services and improved security.

The plan is to start by engaging and incorporating early adopter units into the central services model. This is an initial opt-in plan to build structures and systems that can, over time, include the entire campus. The annual costs for new services (FTE and hardware) are expected to be covered by shifting people, budget and hardware from early adopter units and existing central services and offering these services at no additional cost to campus. Small campus units will benefit the most since they often have a single technical staff person that covers all their needs and would not contribute to the central services. Units with larger IT staff would possibly contribute FTE and equipment but would also benefit by freeing up staff time for other IT needs. All of this requires individual conversations to find opportunities and will be implemented in stages ensuring continuity of service and people.

This draft plan is a conceptual plan. Discussions, focus groups, planning and implementation teams and governing structures are flexible and will be developed through the cooperation of all affected groups. Detailed implementation plans will be produced through this cooperative and inclusive process. The budget shortfall is not expected to be erased through this process, only reduced some. Some savings might be recovered by reducing the need for temporary OPS hires for IT needs. There is no plan to layoff people. Additional funding is required in order to support all the required services on campus and new funding is planned. Please take active part in these activities to ensure our information technology services are transformed into a world class support function that helps us meet our strategic goals.

Current information on the status of the reorganization can be found at: http://www.it.ufl.edu/reorg

Marc Hoit

Associate Provost for Information Technology

Stand-alone version of this letter, for printing or e-mailing.