Curtis Ireland
Queen's University
I have been with Queen's University ITS for over nine years. Currently, I am the Senior Systems Analyst, leading a team of four. We are responsible for the physical compute and storage resources within the central campus IT.
Server and storage infrastructure is an ever evolving organism. Every device has a lifecycle, every technology has a trend. Every time the lifecycle of equipment comes due, it is up to us to look at technological trends to... [ view full abstract ]
Server and storage infrastructure is an ever evolving organism. Every device has a lifecycle, every technology has a trend. Every time the lifecycle of equipment comes due, it is up to us to look at technological trends to decide what the next generation of our infrastructure will look like.
Five years ago, Queen's University applied a major infrastructure renewal. We not only replacing our core compute and storage devices, but also how services were hosted for our customers - University departments and Faculties, as well as other work groups within ITS.
The lifecycle of this equipment is starting to come due. What originally started as a project to increase our storage capacity, became a full analysis of our server and storage infrastructure. A renewal of this magnitude raises a lot of questions.
Do we look at new technologies such as hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI), or do we keep with the technologies we are using now?
What are the cost implications between the choices?
Can we grow (or shrink) with our environment as the compute requirements change and move?
How can we accurately judge these new technologies?
The journey of this project and solving these questions can be long, but provides a lot of interesting results.
Technologies and Trends: Ensuring system interoperability, scalability, and extensibility
