We assume that the OCIO Infrastructure team provides variing levels of server support. From just the basic environmental resources (just physically locate the machine in IOP) to full ownership and maintance (like they do for IMAP, LDAP, and WWW) For this document let's use four levels (The Infrastructure group has the last word on these definitions.)
- Properly configured room for server storage(temperature, power, etc.)
- above plus: Data storage and backups
- above plus: Operating system management
- above plus: Application management
Everybody agrees that getting servers into the controlled environment of IOP is a good thing, as long as a couple of us are granted access to the computer room (to perform maintenance on machines that stay at service level 1.) We're not sure that Infrastructure needs any admin rights to these boxes. Things get trickier as we migrate to higher levels of service.
Level 2 service may be greatly simplified after the SAN is implemented and space is made available. For many situations, the SAN will do both the data storage and backup. Maybe the only thing left is a hot swap system drive or something like that.
For now, each server entering level 2 service will require a service agreement.
As for service levels 3 and 4, unless Infrastructure has well defined service levels, we'd expect to help write service agreements for servers we have ready to transfer.
We currently manage 8 "server" class machines that run a mix of developmental, staging, and production applications.
- Two NHLBI-Proteomics grant machines (mike/ike)
- Two IRB web application machines (kicken/chicken)
- Two main application and database machines (code/red)
- A Windows 2003 server machine for Windows compatibility testing (kyle)
- A development and backup storage machine (bfs)
The IRB and Proteomics machines are configured as primary and backup machine pairs.
IRB servers(mike/ike)
- Hand off all management to OCIO-IS OS and applications. Work with the IRB developer to facilitate this hand off.
- Level 4 handoff.
- Currently located in the IOP server room.
For the Proteomics servers(kicken/chicken)
Decouple the primary and secondary server. Work with OCIO-IS to enable connectivity to the SAN for primary server for data storage/backups. The primary Proteomics server will run as usual. Once this is done, demote the primary Proteomics server to secondary. OS and Application management of this server will remain with us to comply with the grant; [I don't like the grant defense, how about the site/server is under development -jji] backups and data storage will be handled by OCIO-IS.
[I heard that the grant relies on "us" handling those servers. If that is true, the "grant defense" should be perfectly valid and acceptable. --satyap]
- Level 2 handoff.
- Currently located in IOP server room.
Our Windows testing server(kyle)
- Surplus this equipment and use OCIO-IS provided RDP accessible Windows machine that we can install and test applications.
- Level 4 handoff.
- Currently in Library offices.
Our primary servers(code/red)
- Keep current hardware as is, but as this hardware is near end of life, obtain new hardware from OCIO-IS that will be configured to use the SAN as its primary data store and for backups. Migration to new hardware will be handled jointly by OCIO-IS and us. Management of the new systems will be handled by OCIO-IS.
- Level 4 handoff.
- Currently located in IOP server room.
Our secondary/development machine(bfs)
- Currently our developmental machine. A somewhat stable environment to develop and test applications. It is also used as backup store (for the Proteomics servers and our primary servers) and contains our offline backup storage drive(tape drive).
- Level 2 handoff.
- Currently located in 21 Ehrhardt. Will be moved to IOP server room when space, power, and networking are available.