COMMODITISATION OF SERVICESRecent debate @ the RedIRIS Community

Debate about commoditisation at the RedIRIS Community

• 2007: Some universities participating on the IRIS-MAIL working group pointed out that the mail services they provided had a low usage rate in relation to the investment done for the maintenance of the service• 2009: Some universities reported interest in

outsourcing (in most cases, Google Apps) • 2010: Widespread debate about outsourcing

of university mail services

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Recent activities in 2010

• 2010: Main activities related to commoditisation of services taking place within the IRIS-MAIL working group: March 2010 - Videoconference (EVO): University

of Deusto – migration to Google Apps Edu April 2010 – Draft Document “Study on e-mail

outsourcing – pros & cons” April 2010 – Event (CRUE-TIC) “Cloud computing

services for Universities” May 2010: Survey about “Outsourcing of ICT

services at Universities”

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Videoconference (March 2010)

• Videoconference “Exchange of experiences” Agenda:• Presentation by the University of Deusto about its

experience migrating its mail services to GoogleApps Edu• Presentation by the University of Burgos about its plans to

outsource mail services for its students 62 participants from approx. 50 universities Questions focused mainly at:

– Time and resources required for the migration– Privacy, security and data protection– Support provided by outsourcing companies, both to the

University during the migration, and to the users, once it is completed

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The experience of University of Deusto

• Opendeusto: migration to Google Apps Education Edition at the University of Deusto http://www.opendeusto.es/lang/es/jornadas-rediris-crue/ Creation of a user community with tools to share information:

Gmail, calendar, Google Docs, instant messaging & telephony over Internet (GTalk), videos, web pages…

GoogleApps connected to e-learning platform based on Moodle “deusto.es” for teachers – “opendeusto.es” for students Users can choose the name of the account and keep it for life (in

order to ensure high usage rate)

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Draft document (April 2010)

• Draft document “Analysis of mail outsourcing” Prepared by several university experts working under

the umbrella of the IRIS-MAIL Working Group Previous studies related to other services (e.g., anti-

virus – resulted in joint negotiation with providers, obtaining better prices and service conditions)

Description of features and prices of the main providers (GoogleApps Edu and Microsoft Live@edu)

Pros and cons of outsourcing Analysis of the Total Cost of Ownership Key questions to consider before migrating

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CRUE-TIC Workshop (April 2010)• Workshop “Cloud computing services for

universities” (CRUE-TIC) ICT Group of the Conference of Heads of Spanish Univ. More than 100 attendees representing most Spanish

Universities Agenda• Presentation of Google and Microsoft• Presentation of succesful experiences of partial outsourcing

from several Universities (Univ. Alfonso X, European University of Madrid, University of Deusto)• A non-so-successful experience: Polytechnic Univ. Madrid • Legal aspects of cloud services

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Survey (May 2010)

• Survey “Outsourcing of ICT services at Universities” Participation: 69 universities Target: ICT managers at universities Goals of the survey• Data gathering about the state of ICT services• Study trends in ICT outsourcing at the university sector

– Segmentation (staff vs. students)– View on pros & cons– Identification of major players– For those not outsourcing: interest in development of cloud

services among universities

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Activities of RedIRIS (I)

• RedIRIS wants to know which is the situation, and how can it help both those migrating to commercial cloud services and those that do not want to

• Connectivity is a key factor for the adoption of commercial or internal cloud services by universities

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• For those willing to use commercial outsourcing: New, improved dark fiber network (RedIRIS-NOVA) Negotiating peering with Google AAI services to connect with services like those of

Microsoft (Dreamspark, MDSN) and Google (pilot)• For those willing to set up their own cloud services: Networking, AAI, plus advice• For those wanting to have some outsourced services, but

not wanting to set them up: New e-mail filtering service provided by RedIRIS On-going studies about web videoconferencing services

and collaborative suites that could be provided by RedIRIS

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Activities of RedIRIS (II)

Conclusions

• Recently, the debate about commoditization of some ICT services in universities is becoming quite intense• Mainly bottom-up (ICT managers) – but then

decisions are often “top-down”• Debate might be influenced by economic crisis• Currently mainly focused on service to students –

but not only• RedIRIS wants to know what it’s happening, and

how could it help within its remit and means

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.Thank you for your attention!!