Infrastructure, Cloud Architecture and Assurance
The Infrastructure, Cloud Architecture, and Assurance division helps to maintain the technology that supports our daily operations. This division contains five functional areas which are Facilities and Data Center Services, Linux and Networks, Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning, Enterprise Systems Assurance, and Cloud Architecture.
Facilities and Data Center Services
The Facilities and Data Center Services group manages AITS computing spaces. The University data centers are a valuable resource and represent a sizable investment. Technology Services and Technology Solutions have taken ownership and assumed many of the day to day responsibilities for operating the data centers. Together with these partners, AITS continues to plan for, oversee, and monitor our investment in these facilities that our IT services and the University’s constituencies critically depend on.
Group responsibilities include strategy, managing risks, and ordering and taking acquisition of equipment. AITS continues to participate in developing designs for disaster recovery and proper operations. We also support networking within the data center in partnership with Tech Services who provide connectivity to the campuses and connectivity to the Internet. AITS also assists with hardware maintenance and physical equipment deployments, particularly at the production data center. For additional information, contact aitsfanddcs@uillinois.edu.
Linux and Networks
The Linux and Networks group manages AITS servers, switches, and related infrastructure. One of the group’s responsibilities is to specify and order Intel server hardware, which we do in collaboration with the AITS Windows server team. We manage hundreds of Linux virtual machine instances. Our DNS system hosts names and web addresses.The AITS firewall requires frequent management to maintain our security model. The firewall contains tens of thousands of access entries.
We maintain hundreds of web certificates for client to server encryption. Our server load balancers support hundreds of locally redundant services, while the global server load balancer goes a step beyond and provides high availability across Urbana and Chicago for critical services. Highly available services can failover automatically during planned or unplanned data center outages. The group provides thousands of network connections for AITS servers. For additional information, contact tech@uillinois.edu.
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning
The Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning group possesses critical skills needed to plan for extended service disruptions. The group’s primary responsibility is to manage BCP and DR. That work includes the definition of our DR program, governance, table top exercises, and DR-focused incident response. The group also focuses on defining and implementing a technical failover solution and directs associated maintenance activities. As well, working together with the system office, the group is managing Business Continuity Planning. This group also belongs to the Big Ten Academic Alliance’s DR and BCP committee. For additional information, contact Alice Jones at alijones@uillinois.edu.
Enterprise Systems Assurance
Enterprise Systems Assurance (ESA) guides AITS to adopt information security practices. Technology Services Security has taken a lead role for System Office security, with additional assistance from Technology Solutions at UIC. Together, ESA and campus Security ensure that controls and procedures are implemented to protect the University's information systems assets from intentional or inadvertent modification, disclosure, or destruction.
One of the group’s key responsibilities is the external IT Audit conducted by the State of Illinois. Ongoing each year, the IT portion of the annual financial audit is a top priority for the University System and for AITS. Another responsibility is assisting to manage enterprise access. As the number of enterprise systems has grown, so too has the complexity of requesting and reviewing access. Making process improvements to the Unit Security Contact system is an ongoing priority.
The team also supports the university system’s IAM and multi-factor authentication services and provides level 3 support for user IAM issues and support for the IAM external affiliate system. ESA also evaluates third party vendors so that appropriate security safeguards are in place for our service providers. We also conduct Qualys vulnerability scans of all systems on a monthly basis and work with service owners and with AITS Development and QA teams to address any security vulnerabilities identified by the scans. ESA also provides risk assessments and security consulting for AITS systems and services. For additional information, contact aitsesa@uillinois.edu.
Cloud Architecture
The Cloud Architecture group is a cross functional team that is establishing protocols to identify where cloud solutions fit within our system environments. The group guides cloud initiatives to ensure that cloud deployments align with the organization’s architectural standards. As well, the group works to track, trend, and report on monthly cloud expenses for our cloud service providers.
The group also manages our Software as a Service process to provide clarity for how cloud services are discovered and onboarded to ensure that service safety and availability standards are being considered. Finally, this team ensures that AITS Cloud Services are listed in the AITS Enterprise Architecture Stack. For additional information, contact uiadmins@uillinois.edu.