Ways to save money on IT at Universities

This blog post is about information technology and how we can actually interact with it quite differently than we do. What are the opportunities? And better, do you know how much money we can save? OMG!

Ok, IT is about outsourcing. What parts can you outsource? What about that fancy new email storage that was recently installed at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars (esp. if we count labor)? Oh yes, Google will happily provide that service for free. Ummm, do you know that includes the calendar, email, web pages, and google talk? That means free voice over internet protocol (VOIP). Holy cow do you know how much money that is? Basically you can outsource a big part of the telephone bill. Oh sure, we can keep some handsets around for the old schoolers until they retire (and for 911 service), but really huge savings here.

Second, don’t touch the fibre and copper infrastructure, instead get all your public-facing data off-campus to cut down on inbound server traffic. Use Amazon’s S3 for that, because that is what they do best, and cheaper, more securely, and faster than any University could. Next, add WiMAX or some other advanced wireless service, whenever cables need to be pulled. Better, invite vendors to do so on campus, and to sell network service (and support) to the departments and colleges.

What astounds me, outside of very special uses, how off-the-shelf and simple consumer-oriented services, such as my own hosted website at Site5, which costs me only $99/year, provides a Linux shell, 5TB of bandwidth, 55gb of storage, 55 domain pointers, free setup, at $5/mo (24 months prepaid = $120 for two years). WTF? How many departmental servers, or any servers beyond specialized databases, financial and registration systems, etc., does the university have? Ok, how much energy do you save by unplugging them? Space? Employee time? Management headaches?

Next, stop charging the University for IT service like it is an infrastructure tax. Rather make it completely use-based and provide a menu of options and prices. The main thing is to get into the business of not “knowing best” but rather providing information to enable consumers to make wise choices. The fact of the matter is that the technology is changing so fast, and small and nimble telecom and IT support companies provide better service at dramatically less cost. Note: FERPA is NOT keeping us from doing this folks!

Next, upgrade all CRT monitors to LCD immediately. Payback on these is about 3 years in terms of energy savings. Wow, a free monitor over three years, nice investment! Also, it turns out that LCDs do not cause the fatique that CRTs do, meaning perkier and more productive workers. Better for workers’ health, better for the environment, hmmm, sounds like the union should be demanding this…

Ok, I’m getting tired on this rant, but there is a part II coming, and that is where we start to save students money. Until then…

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November 9, 2006 • Posted in: Education, Policy

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