Follow the Money:�Paying for the Cloud

Jonathan White�Cloud & Infrastructure Strategist�University of Central Florida�

Cloud Forum 2019

Ben Rota�Associate Director, Technology Development�Harvard University�

Helen Hockx Yu�Enterprise Data Architect�University of Notre Dame�

Noah Abrahamson�Director, Technology Consulting Group�Stanford University�

Martin Sager�Computer Services Manager�University of Michigan�

TBM: Communicating the true TCO for IT to your customers by establishing a common language and taxonomy

Transform Portfolio�Examples: ERP Virtualization, UCF IT

Grow Portfolio�Example: UCF Downtown Campus

Organization

• HUIT is a central, cost-recovery business unit within a distributed University

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Paying for Cloud costs

• Direct contracts with the three major IaaS providers
• Bill is paid centrally
• Custom, in-house billing software parses the bill and re-charges to local billing codes

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Paying for people costs

• Engineers providing instance management paid for by weighted instance count (larger instance sizes result in higher charge)
• Dedicated, embedded engineers paid for by normalized FTE rate
• Cloud networking, consulting, and security paid for by an awkward combination of a headcount-based charge and a per-VPC charge

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Paying for Cloud migration program

• Funded entirely on reserves, with the expectation of recouping costs
• Debt was eventually partially funded by central funds

Noah Abrahamson�Stanford University

DIRECTOR, TECHNOLOGY CONSULTING GROUP

�all cost recovery

• “Fully Managed” vs “Augmented Support” vs “No Managed” experiences�Fully Managed gets you a full account; one account per billing code

Dozens, hundreds of discrete accounts that roll into an invoice�Rebilled in arrears�

• Augmented Support gets you guardrails, consultation, audits�Useful for PHI and local IT support�
• No managed support gets you infrastructure and KB articles��

• Fully Managed Experience�$177 or $143/hour�+ statement of work�+ MRC that “seems fair” � recover work where appropriate��
• Augmented Support�2 hours of T&M for setup, consult�½ hour of T&M monthly recurring�2.5% of the cloud spend��
• Stanford Research Computing Center�partially subsidized, cost recovery�“buy shares” of computing infra�statement of work to recover��
• Scalr partnership for self-service portal, terraform-based with a light skim by reselling RIs �

ITS - University of Michigan

• Provide Security guard rails
• Providing cloud training with vendors
• Grant assistance
• Centralized billing - usage recharged out to units
• Requests for assistance support starting to reach team capacity limits

Follow the Money:�Paying for the Cloud

Jonathan White�Cloud & Infrastructure Strategist�University of Central Florida�

Cloud Forum 2019

Ben Rota�Associate Director, Technology Development�Harvard University�

Helen Hockx Yu�Enterprise Data Architect�University of Notre Dame�

Noah Abrahamson�Director, Technology Consulting Group�Stanford University�

Martin Sager�Computer Services Manager�University of Michigan�