I am delighted to be delivering an end user case study entitled "Transforming IT at the 600 Year Old University of St Andrews" at the 2013 Gartner Data Centre Summit in London on November 26th this year.
In this session I will look at our journey over the last three years and how our data centre has played a key part in underpinning the transformation. I will also look at how both server and network virtualisation has improved the resilience, efficiency and availability of core systems and services.
Full details of the event can be found here http://www.gartner.com/technology/summits/emea/data-center/
Sunday, 6 October 2013
Tuesday, 1 October 2013
Saturday, 28 September 2013
Please support Action for Children - sponsor me!
Did you know that each year in
the UK:
§ 100,000 young people are
homeless
§ 1 in 3 young people will
attempt to take their own life
§ 1 in 7 young people will be
sexually abused
On Friday night (4th October) I’m taking part in Byte Night to raise much needed funds for Action for Children - a charity who supports and speaks out for the UK’s most vulnerable and neglected children and young people. Action for Children helps to prevent youth homelessness through early intervention by ensuring that young people across the UK are given the support they need before it's too late.
On 4th October I’ll
be ‘sleeping rough’ to raise awareness and funds for this great
cause.
Byte Night is the IT industry's annual sleep out in support of Action for Children. Each year hundreds of individuals and teams (including a team from ITS) from across the technology and business community spend a night exposed to the elements in a bid to raise sponsorship and awareness of Action for Children's work to help prevent youth homelessness.
So, the purpose of my blog is to ask you to sponsor me - PLEASE! Overall, the events across the country hope to raise £1m.
To sponsor me, please go to our fundraising page:
http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/team/StAndrewsITS
To find out more about Byte Night and the work of Action for Children, please go to:
http://www.bytenight.org.uk/
Many thanks in advance for your
support
Thursday, 5 September 2013
Virtualisation and Consolidation
One of the larger projects my team and I are involved in at present is one to consolidate the University's IT estate. Like any large organisation the dependency on IT has never been greater and around the clock availability of key systems is now an expectation (but not always a reality - see my blog post re. Outages!). With many buildings and a wide range of servers our aim is to consolidate as much as possible and reduce the distribution of servers and storage serving users across the campus.
Being a University we will always have an elements of distributed equipment however where it makes economic sense to do so we will aim to provide the service centrally. Good examples of this are systems such as email, authentication, storage, network services, telephony, etc.
Not only are we reducing energy consumption but we are also reducing our carbon output. I was recently interviewed by Graeme Burton of Computing and the article was published in this weeks Computing and can be found at http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/feature/2291483/driving-down-costs-and-carbon-emissions-at-the-university-of-st-andrews
Being a University we will always have an elements of distributed equipment however where it makes economic sense to do so we will aim to provide the service centrally. Good examples of this are systems such as email, authentication, storage, network services, telephony, etc.
Not only are we reducing energy consumption but we are also reducing our carbon output. I was recently interviewed by Graeme Burton of Computing and the article was published in this weeks Computing and can be found at http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/feature/2291483/driving-down-costs-and-carbon-emissions-at-the-university-of-st-andrews
Sunday, 25 August 2013
V3 Hot Seat
Earlier this month I was asked to take part in the V3 Hot Seat. V3 are well known in the industry for their reviews of the latest products and keeping us up-to-date with the latest tech news.
Some of the questions weren't the typical ones I get asked as a CIO! Such as, my favourite film and my favourite place to escape. Nevertheless, it was great to be asked and I really enjoyed taking part.
http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/interview/2289759/v3-hot-seat-steve-watt-cio-at-university-of-stAndrews
I've just read V3's article (posted today) about Microsoft's CEO, Steve Ballmer, who has announced he's going to retire within the year. What a guy he is!
http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/2290835/top-10-steve-ballmer-antics-as-microsoft-ceo-prepares-to-retire
Some of the questions weren't the typical ones I get asked as a CIO! Such as, my favourite film and my favourite place to escape. Nevertheless, it was great to be asked and I really enjoyed taking part.
http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/interview/2289759/v3-hot-seat-steve-watt-cio-at-university-of-stAndrews
I've just read V3's article (posted today) about Microsoft's CEO, Steve Ballmer, who has announced he's going to retire within the year. What a guy he is!
http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/2290835/top-10-steve-ballmer-antics-as-microsoft-ceo-prepares-to-retire
Monday, 19 August 2013
Scotland’s Digital Future: Delivery of Public Services Roadshows
I was delighted to be involved in one of the roadshows earlier this year.
http://blogs.scotland.gov.uk/digital/2013/03/22/47/
http://blogs.scotland.gov.uk/digital/2013/03/22/47/
Thursday, 1 August 2013
In with the IT Crowd - Press Release
By the University of St Andrews Press Office:
The University of St
Andrews IT department has won two awards.
Steve Watt, Chief Information Officer at the
University, was voted ICT Leader of the Year at the 2013 Holyrood Connect ICT
Awards. Appointed in 2010, he has begun a transformation project aimed at
revitalising the St Andrews IT Services department and improving services for
users.
Mr Watt fought off strong competition from
shortlisted candidates from Edinburgh City Libraries, Edinburgh Napier
University and the Crown Office.
At the same ceremony in Glasgow, the St Andrews
department also won the Green Award – for “effective use of ICT to deliver
environmental benefits.”
Again the team faced strong competition - in the
form of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) and the Scottish
Government - to take the accolade.
The team also narrowly missed out on the night,
in the competitive category of Project Delivery Award which went to South
Lanarkshire Council.
Steve Watt said: “I was absolutely thrilled to
receive this award. Since taking up my post as CIO at the University
three years ago, we’ve been on an incredible journey and this award further
acknowledges that our strategy is focussed in the right direction. IT
provision in universities and the public sector is changing dramatically – and
we need to embrace ‘Scotland’s Digital Future’ – supporting the transition to a
world-leading digital economy. At St Andrews we’re engaging with other
educational institutions and public sector bodies to work together and we’re
actively looking for opportunities to share knowledge and
services.”
The University of St Andrews, which is
celebrating its 600th anniversary this year, is committed to reducing its
carbon footprint. IT power management has a significant part to play in
this. Around 30% of the electricity consumed by the University is used to
power ICT equipment, with a large proportion powered 24 hours-a-day.
The University redeveloped an existing building on
a brownfield site into a state of the art data centre, which saves the
institution at least £65K per year on its electricity bills.
These latest successes add to a number of awards
won by IT Services recently. Earlier this year the department received an
Honourable Mention for Facility Design Implementation in the Green Enterprise
IT Awards 2013 and the department also became the first university in Europe to
achieve Two Star Service Desk Institute accreditation.
Last year the department was a finalist in the UK
IT Industry Awards.
Notes
to Editors
For
image please contact the press office.
Issued by the Press Office, University of St Andrews
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)