TSO operates several data centers to house College of Computing servers, storage and telecommunications systems.  The equipment in these data centers provide services that support the College's core programs and include:

• Common Critical Services (e.g. DNS, DHCP, network routers, e-mail, etc.)
• Academic Servers - support CoC class resources
• Research Servers - support CoC research centers, groups, projects.
• Administrative Servers - support CoC administrative business (e.g. HR, financial, etc.)

There are 4 major data centers in CoC that house this equipment and they include vital environmental controls (air conditioning and fire suppression), power distribution and battery backup, as well as physical security access controls:

CoC Data Centers

Service Monitoring

TSO monitors all data center equipment including servers, storage, network, environmental, power systems, physical security, information security and more.  Automatic monitoring systems notify TSO of critical system outages so that corrective measures can be taken immediately.

System Notices

TSO keeps CoC faculty, staff and students informed of system outages and maintenance through a consistent notification procedure that is available through the web, RSS subscription and e-mail list subscription.  Higher visibility system maintenance and outage events are broadcasted to all CoC faculty, staff and students.  Refer to our System Notices page for more information.

Backups

TSO performs backups of data center equipment to protect the College in two important ways: 1) distaster recovery and 2) accidental data removal/corruption.  Tape robotic libraries are utilized in our data backup service.  Periodically, dated sets of backup tapes are located off-site in a bonded storage facility for disaster recovery purposes.  Refer to our Backups & Restores page for more information.

Business Continuity

The College relies on the information systems in the data centers to run its business operations.  If a system becomes unavailable, business operations may be impaired or stopped completey.  It is necessary to provide a reliable infrastructure for information technology (IT) operations in order to minimize any chance of disruption.  TSO helps meet these goals through redundant servers for common cricial services and in some cases off-site servers

Equipment Life Cycle Management

Equipment age and supportability of equipment is an important factor that contributes to maintaining a reliable infrastructure for College business operations.  In order to meet reliability and supportability goals, TSO follows equipment life cycle procedures to ensure that older technology is gracefully retired and newer technology is deployed.

Data Center Equipment Life Cycle Management