horizon scanning and future trends

Horizon scanning & future trendsMartin Hamilton

Photo credit: CC-BY-NC-ND Flickr user sigurdrHorizon scanning & future trends

Horizon scanning & future trends

1. Horizon scanning in context– Jisc’s vision and mission– Building on the Janet network & cloud brokerage

2. Future of cloud computing– Open questions from Jisc’s cloud survey – Horizon scan report: Potential R&D actions– Feedback from cloud think tank– Next steps: Jisc cloud strategy

3. What’s next?– Other trends and technologies we’re looking at


1. Horizon scanning in context

1. Context

What Jisc does:›Delivers shared digital infrastructure and services for universities and colleges

›Brokers sector-wide deals with IT vendors and commercial publishers

›Provides expert and trusted advice and practical assistance

1. Context

MissionTo enable people in higher education, further education and skills in the UK to perform at the forefront of international practice by exploiting fully the possibilities of modern digital empowerment, content and connectivity

VisionTo make the UK the most digitally advanced education and research nation in the world

1. Context

› Jisc’s annualfunding

1. Context

› Janet network

1. ContextNetflix

VoicenetAkamai

Virgin Radio

Bogons

Logicalis UKPipex / GXN

BBC

Datahop

InTechnology

INUK

Simplecall

LINX multicast

Gamma

Google

Simplecall Redstone

Updata

aql

Voicenet

Google

Limelight

Limelight

AkamaiBTnet

Init7

Amazon

Microsoft EU (via TN)

Telekom Malaysia

Globelynx

10Gbit/s 1Gbit/s

100Gbit/

s

GÉANT

GÉANT+

LINX

Microsoft EU (via TW)

Total external connectivity ≈ 1 Tbit/s

Leeds

Akamai

Google

VM for LGfLInTechnology

NHS N3

Exa Networks

Synetrix BBC (HD 4K pilots)

One Connect

Glasgow&

Edinburgh

HEAnet

BBC (Pacific Quay)

Gamma

BBC (HD 4K pilots)

NHS N3

SWAN (Glas)

SWAN (Edin)

Manchester

Telecity

Harbour

Exch.

Telehouse

North & West

VM for LGfLRM for

Schools

VM for LGfL

RM for Schools

Global Transit

Tata IXManchester

IXLeeds

Global Transit Level3

Global Transit Level3

1. ContextJisc brokered cloud deals: Google Apps for Education» The University of Westminster estimates that it saved £1m by moving to

Google Apps for Education for email and other online collaboration facilities. They also state that “an additional benefit has been the reduced time spent in systems and user support with a minimal number of calls for support for such a significant system”, and that moving to the cloud has “liberated staff and students from the smaller storage limits of the previous in-house solution.”

http://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/univofwestminster.pdf

» Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College have also migrated to Google Apps. They observe that “each year, 20,000 new accounts are created providing 600 terabytes (around 150,000 DVDs worth) of storage in less than five minutes.” Subsequently to this article being written, Google moved to offering free unlimited storage.

http://www.wlc.ac.uk/college/news/article.asp?newsID=4228

http://services.google.com/fh/files/misc/univofwestminster.pdf

http://www.wlc.ac.uk/college/news/article.asp?newsID=4228

1. ContextJisc brokered cloud deals: Microsoft Office365» The University of the West of London moved its 14,000 students to Office365, and

observes that once a student graduates “they can maintain that Office365 account through the University for life. We can continue to supply them with information about the University, help them find their second job, their third job and so on. This isn’t just about collaboration while studying, it’s about creating a life-long connection between the students and the University.”

http://www.slideshare.net/Microsofteduk/university-of-west-london-case-study-office-365

» The University of Dundee migrated all of its 22,000 student accounts to Microsoft’s Office365 for Education service over a week. They note that this was achieved with zero down time, and estimate that Office365 “will save us at least £500,000 in infrastructure and staffing over five years.”

http://www.slideshare.net/Microsofteduk/university-of-dundee-case-study-office-365

» Now over 100 UK universities using Office365






1. ContextDogfooding› We moved

our own core infrastructure to AWS

› Estimate that this saved >£100K p.a.

› Cloud first / mobile first for new stuff

[Image credit:Mike Jones]

1. ContextJisc’s Amazon cloud portal› Monthly invoicing - credit cards are no

longer required for payment› Itemized billing - consolidated across

users/departments› Billing in GBP, not dollars› Setting of budget limits for individual

user accounts or departments› The retrieval of service usage

information within own areas of responsibility

› Volume-discounts through aggregation across multiple educational institutions

1. ContextOpen questions from Jisc’s recent cloud survey:

› 29% of the CIOs responding to our survey told us that they had no plans to use public cloud to support research at their institutions

› 31% indicated that they were reluctant to move business systems to the cloud

› 61% of respondents said that financial aspects of cloud computing were a major concern

Need to address these in Jisc’s Cloud Strategy (under development)


2. Future of cloud computing(report & think tank)

2. Future of cloud computing

Photo CC-BY Jisc, from an original by Phil Wolff


https://community.jisc.ac.uk/blogs/regulatory-developments




2. Future of cloud computingThink tank feedback:› Actual and perceived cost issues

around public cloud, e.g. egresscharging versus anecdotal evidencearound “credit card professors”

› Institutions and funders strugglingwith shift from capex to opex – RCUKCloud WG will look at research view

› Need to raise awareness of sharedresponsibility for security, role of ITdepartment to facilitate

Amazon, Microsoft and Google at the cloud think tank


Three big ideas in our future of cloud report:

›Cloud as a utility›App as a Service›Building capability

Read the report: bit.ly/jisccloudfutures

http://bit.ly/jisccloudfutures



›Cloud as a utility“Our key recommendation is that Jisc should work with the sector and public cloud providers to make it easier for institutions to switch between cloud providers and to migrate workloads between the public and private clouds – leveraging public investment in the Janet network.”



http://science.energy.gov/~/media/ascr/pdf/program-documents/docs/Magellan_Final_Report.pdf

›Cloud as a utility







›Cloud as a utility









› App as a Service“Smartphones and tablets have established a culture of ‘package once, install a billion times’, but our colleges and universities still commonly package common applications separately and independently for distribution to users. This is inefficient and it diverts highly skilled IT staff from activities that could genuinely add value.”


See http://blog.martinh.net/2011/11/post-pc-manifesto.html

http://blog.martinh.net/2011/11/post-pc-manifesto.html






›App as a Service


http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2014/11/07/cerns-openstack-cloud-to-reach-150000-cores-by-2015/

›Building capability“It is clear from the results of the Jisc cloud survey that practice with established cloud technologies is still quite variable. We believe that there is a need to come together to share our experiences of what works, building capability at institutions and identifying areas where further intervention would be helpful.”





https://www.jisc.ac.uk/news/uk-education-divided-in-its-adoption-of-the-cloud-14-jul-2015


http://www.datanami.com/2013/09/23/cern_turns_to_google_for_datacenter_direction/

›Building capability






2. Future of cloud computingThink tank feedback:› Our efforts would be best focussed on

particular domains and use cases, e.g.cloud HPC orchestration, cannedworkflows, Windows apps

› Lots of interest in OpenStack forprivate/community clouds andDocker for app portability

› Feeling that cloud could potentially freeup significant amounts of IT staff time to work witheducators and researchers

Amazon, Microsoft and Google at the cloud think tank


3. What’s next?

3. What’s next?

Upcoming topics›Data-driven decision making›The digital institution›Open by default›Personalised learning›Research in a connected era

3. What’s next?

Photo CC-BY Flickruser codep8

Data-driven decision making›How do we move from business intelligence to the sort of data-led culture that internet-native firms like Google and Amazon have built their decision-making processes around?–How can we improve our approach to

data gathering and sharing both internally and externally?


That’s all folks…

Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under CC-BY

Martin HamiltonFuturist, Jisc, London

@[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

horizon scanning and future trends

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