Bluearc
ITS performed life cycle replacement upgrade from a TITAN head 1 to the newer generation of TITAN head. We have had to perform a number of benchmark test to evaluate bottle necks for the configuration. We initially installed a 10Gb capable TITAN head. However we noticed significant performance issues in this configuration due to the the slower connection speed of clients being 1Gb and 100Mb. This configuration caused multiple packets to get dropped and retransmitted. This increased the utilization of the network to the point were it was detrimental to service usage. Once identified, we implemented a new configuration involving 3 2Gb uplinks to the Bluearc on the 3 separate networks (ACCRE, Campus, MC). This configuration produced much better performance, and we have settled on this configuration currently. ITS does plan on re-evaluating a 10Gb infrastructure for the BlueArc.
VDI
ITS has been doing diligent research on a feasible and scalable virtual infrastructure to support desktop environments for users. ITS is currently researching the capabilities of VMware View. VMware View is capable of a seamless environment complete with OS and application streaming. This two aspects are particularly necessary because they are cost cutting measures by reducing the amount of disk space needed as well as reliability and scalability measures. Isolating the OS and the application layer makes faster patch/deployment and users can share the same disk space that these pieces occupy.
SMTP
ITS is life cycling the SMTP infrastructure for mail delivery. There has been a significant amount of work done to support this effort, however, ITS has had to focus on higher priority assignments recently. We are re-focusing efforts to complete this endeavor. This is a three part process. The first part is the delivery of mail and has been completed. The second is the receipt of mail and is currently making progress. The third is the transaction procedures to maintain the SMTP configuration through automated tools.
Backup
ITS has been consistently exercising continuous improvement in this service area. Currently we have tested a dedicated backup network configuration, and the results improved performance significantly. ITS has dediced to implement this full scale throughout our backup environments. ITS internal servers have been using this mechanism for a few months, and now we are putting in a isolated backup network to support co-located servers as well. ITS is confident that servers backing up over this network will experience much stabler and more reliable connection to the service.