ISC Cloud First Update
May 2017

In this update, we focus on lift and shift activities, Slack, new web content, and cloud-related sessions at the Penn IT Staff Convention.

Lift and Shift

The Architecture, Infrastructure, & Migration team plans to move approximately 350 instances of existing test and development server workloads to VMware vCloud Air by June 30, 2017. This includes both internal ISC servers and client servers used by Schools and Centers.

New Slack Channel for Cloud Topics

A new Slack channel (#cloud-sig) is available to IT staff to discuss cloud technologies. This channel is located within the UPenn-IT Slack Team, so you must be a member of this team before joining the cloud channel. If you would like to join the UPenn-IT Slack Team, please contact cloud-first@isc.upenn.edu.

New Web Content

We are excited to unveil the following new content: 

• Cloud Development Architecture Roadmap – Details ISC’s cloud-native application development architecture on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Includes the tools and frameworks used in each of the five layers of the application stack, along with general roadmapping on future and past direction as the ISC Cloud First team continues to make iterative improvements.
• Cloud Computing at Penn (Almanac) – One Step Ahead article on campus cloud vendors and security and privacy considerations.

Cloud at Penn IT Staff Convention

This year’s Penn IT Staff Convention will be held on Thursday, May 25, 2017 and will feature the following cloud-related sessions:

• Hackathon – Will explore Python, Django, and PostgreSQL cloud technologies. The first hour will include help setting up a development environment for Django and running through a few Python tutorials. The group will then explore the powerful simplicity of the Django Object-Relational Mapping (ORM) with PostgreSQL by creating working examples of interesting scenarios. Everyone is welcome to participate by writing code, documenting findings, asking questions, or just following along.
• Leveraging AWS for Infrastructure Excellence – Panelists will discuss services they use from Amazon Web Services (AWS), including benefits, challenges, and recommendations for success. Panelists will share how they have enabled web hosting, backups, disaster recovery, deployment of cloud-native applications, and deployment automation with AWS. The audience will have the opportunity to ask questions and share experiences to create a lively dialog about the future of cloud computing at Penn.

To view the full schedule and to register for the convention, visit the Penn IT Staff Convention website.

Recent Progress

The Application Design & Tools team continues work toward a general release of the VDI ordering portal to the cloud. The team has also begun working with Development and Alumni Relations to create the cloud-native version of the Online Giving application.

The Integration team is currently building use cases for various integration scenarios and evaluating potential tools. The team has completed training on the ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) tool from Talend and is working with the vendor to build the configuration for the production version of the tool.

The Architecture, Infrastructure, & Migration team is working to move approximately 350 instances of existing test and development server workloads to VMware vCloud Air by June 30, 2017.

We will keep you posted on latest developments as we move forward.

Visit the Cloud First Website

For the latest developments on the Cloud First program, including links to team pages, presentations, and updates, please visit the Cloud First website.

The Cloud First team values your feedback. Please direct questions, comments, or suggestions to cloud‑first@isc.upenn.edu.

We look forward to sharing more progress with you soon!

The ISC Cloud First Team