About
This request form is subject to approval, but it provides a launching point to begin the discussion for Service hosting and helps Enterprise Infrastructure assess the type of service need you have as well as determine if our current capacity and accomodate your growth.
About our Servers
Servers hosted by UIT for applications will be located in either a Tier IV Datacenter (Tufts Summer Street, Boston MA) or Tier I Datacenter (TAB Data Center, Somerville MA)
Servers by default meet the following minimum standards and depending upon negotiation with UIT may have additional functionality identified:
- Datacenter location and Location Independence for the service is determined by our Service Classification below.
- Our expertise and troubleshooting is gratis as part of the service, but depending on your storage and server requirements some costs may be associated with hosting your service. Before a server is built the extent of the cost model will be discussed with you and approved via IDR.
- Our servers are virtual hosts and are either RedHat Linux 6.2 or Windows Server 2008 R2 64b Enterprise
- Servers are digitally or physically backed up unless specified not to be by our customer
- Servers are monitored at a base level for: Ping, HTTP (if Applicable), Database Availability (if Applicable), Available disk space
- Additional, more complex monitoring is possible
- Servers are patched on a biannual basis and may require downtime from the hosting provider.
- Standard maintenance windows are below as well as Uptime targets.
Service Uptime
UIT Strives to maintain high service availability for all of our services. In order to ensure we are targetting the correct uptime models, we will classify your service based on the following criteria:
- Your expectations set with your customers
- The ability of the application/service to target high-availability
- Impact of your service to the overall university community.
The following is a matrix we use once a service has been classified
Service Class |
Expected Behavior |
Type of Service |
|---|---|---|
Class 1 |
Services are expected to run primarily from our Tier IV Datacenters but be able to automatically run from our Tier I Datacenters in order to maintain high availability |
Mission Critical Services for the University that directly impact the core business on a 24/7 level. |
Class 2 |
Services are expected to run primarily from our Tier IV Datacenters but will not automatically transition from this location to a Tier I location in the event of a service interruption. It may be possible to regain service to Class 2 applications should the Tier IV datacenter be unavailable but only after Class 1 applications are successfully running |
Mission Important, this service may be accessed on a 24/7 basis but does not critically impact the core mission of Tufts |
Class 3 |
Services are expected to run primarily from our Tier I Datacenters and will not be easily able to transition to a Tier IV datacenter in the event of a service interruption. |
Business Important, this service may be important during the expected "business hours" of the university but does not directly or indirectly impact the core missions here at Tufts. E.G print servers |
Class 4 |
Services are expected to only be available at a limited basis, or not critical if unavailable outside of university "business hours." |
Business services such as test or development services that are not directly public-facing |
Maintenance
Planned vs Unplanned
Planned maintenance is discussed, tested, and scheduled prior to 48 hours before the occuring maintenance.
Schedule for Planned Maintenance Windows
MORNING |
USED FOR |
DATES |
|---|---|---|
6am-8am |
No Impact, or No major Rollback required |
Monday through Friday |
6am-10am |
Potential for larget impact, requires elongated window, or poor rollback options |
SUNDAY |
EVENING |
USED FOR |
DATES |
12am-2am |
Outside of business hours, helpful to have work on Friday |
THURSDAY |
8pm - 10pm |
Low Impact, or No major rollback required |
Monday - Friday |
BUSINESS HOURS |
USED FOR |
DATES |
8am - 6pm |
Non-Customer visible servers or service changes only |
Monday - Friday |
Accessing your server
We will provide remote desktop access and local administrative access on the server for approved administrators. Remote desktop access will require connection to the Tufts VPN.
Communication
When creating servers for you, we will collect a primary service owner and e-mail contact for your team. If this communication entry should change, please update us of this. For any planned maintenance or changes to our services we will communicate via this email address.
In the event of an unplanned interruption to your service, EI will communicate through one of the following communication vectors:
- Always
- Service Owner escalation if identified as required in the SLA, or for Class I or II services by default.
- Monitoring Escalation Emails provided during monitoring configuration
- Tufts Infoboard (infoboard.uit.tufts.edu) if a service or services are being impacted
- Tufts Service Announcements Discussion List (tied to Infoboard Postings)
- Sometimes
- Tufts Service Advisory Team Discussion List (SAT@elist.tufts.edu)
- Tufts Front-line Service Personnel Discussion List (FSP@elist.tufts.edu)
Costs
Servers as described above are provisioned at a $5,000 per four year cost basis, per server. For a service with a single production and single test virtual machine, the cost is calculated as two servers, or $10,000 per four year cost basis. This cost is to be billed by Inter-Departmental-Requisition once the server is handed over to the customer.
There are a few things that can modify the cost of the server:
- Servers that require a SQL Server Database must also include the price of the license for the database which is dependent upon the number of processor cores in the virtual machine
- Servers which fall into the "other" category for RAM and Processor requirements may incur additional cost, to be discussed with the responsible server provisioning group.
- Servers which have large storage requirements that exceed 100gb of enterprise storage may incur additional cost, to be discussed with the Enterprise System and Services department.
Request a Server.
Direct Link: Fill out the survey for a new Virtual Server
Once a request is received, the server group will identify a two day period to review and approve the request. A member of the system team will contact the original requestor to approve the server quote, and then begin progress to build the server.
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