ISC Cloud First Update
May 2018
In this update, we focus on FY 2019 goals, recent progress, and upcoming cloud-related events.
FY 2019 Goals
July marks the completion of the Cloud First program’s second year of activities. Following are the program’s target goals for fiscal year 2019:
- Replicate selected Grouper components (Access Management System) to the cloud to allow for greater campus resiliency
- Working with clients, move 100TB of storage to the cloud that is currently primary storage on campus
- Investigate and deploy cloud-based alternatives for file transfer
Recent Progress
Application Design
- Piloted an AWS-based performance test of the Online Giving application using existing cloud stack development technologies. This successful test positions ISC to perform load testing without expensive and proprietary licenses and skills.
- Currently gathering requirements for the following cloud-based gap applications for the Human Capital Management (HCM) application:
- Allocations applications app – Enables administrators to upload payroll cost allocation entries via spreadsheets into Workday. Limited to those entries that are too complex to enter directly into Workday with the user interface provided.
- Re-allocations app – Enables administrators to re-allocate errant payroll cost entries to the correct account. Provides detailed account validation to ensure compliance with federal regulation. Will be the system of record for re-allocation information.
Architecture, Infrastructure & Migration
- Worked with VMWare to set up the management and operational connectivity to VMWare on AWS and created test instances as part of VMWare’s pilot.
- Successfully implemented a test Kerberos server to augment the current campus IAM solution in the cloud.
Integration
- Successfully moved the majority of the on-premises portion of the Talend ETL tool to the cloud.
- Box/Grouper integration completed and will be moved to Production in May. This integration will allow Box access using Grouper groups, which will keep access in sync and take better advantage of Grouper's abilities to refresh groups through periodic query.
- Continued progress on Apptio/Planview direct integration (SaaS to SaaS). This integration will allow time changes to flow directly to the billing system. (ISC only)
Upcoming Cloud-Related Events
Following are upcoming meetings or events that will feature cloud-related presentations:
- Jenkins Orchestration in AWS Cloud and Beyond session at the IT Staff Convention (5/15) – A high-level overview of how ISC is using Jenkins to provision Dockerized applications and all of the required resources to support them in the AWS cloud. The panel will also discuss current Jenkins integrations into Assignments, GitLab, and Datadog as well as future integration plans and ideas.
- Cloud-SIG (5/16) – Mike Sanker from ISC Information Security will discuss various aspects of information security and cloud computing. Mike has developed security principles for the cloud and conducted well-architected reviews for AWS. For more information about Cloud-SIG, including links to subscribe to the listserv, join the Slack channel, or contact the leads, see the Cloud-SIG page on the website.
- Wagtail Space USA (6/14-6/15) – Dev-SIG is hosting the first U.S. Wagtail conference and sprint. Wagtail is a popular content management system for the Django web framework in use at ISC, Wharton, and for major websites around the world. Core contributors to Wagtail will be traveling to Philadelphia, and this is an opportunity to work side by side with them.
- Developer SIG (7/16) – Nic Romanazzi from ISC will share ISC's simple approach to performance testing our cloud-native apps using EC2 and the Locust.io and PyViz Python libraries. For more information about Dev-SIG, including links to subscribe to the listserv, join the Slack channel, or contact the leads, see the Dev-SIG page on the website.
Visit the Cloud First Website
For more on ISC's Cloud First strategy, including links to updates, presentations, and resources, please visit the
Cloud First website.
We look forward to sharing more progress with you soon!
The ISC Leadership Team
