Overview
Executive Summary
The MS Windows based web hosting service is in need of rationalisation. The following issues have been identified with the service:
· Existing physical servers are ageing, full, and difficult to failover and restore.
· The servers are running on out-dated versions of MS Windows Server.
· The servers are also difficult to maintain and support.
· Hosts are difficult to provision, especially where SQL Server databases are required.
It is very difficult to audit, manage, maintain and support the large number of web hosts that are running on these servers
This project shall provide a single, virtualised, up-to-date, Windows web-hosting environment, to replace the existing two servers. The new environment should make use of control-panel software to provision and maintain virtual hosts.
The project includes auditing and migrating content from the existing servers, kb-iis-1 and ucs-sequel, as well as the decommissioning of those environments.
Business Objectives and Project Deliverables
No | Description | New or Changed (Y/N) |
O1 | To provide a resilient, up-to-date and supportable Windows hosting environment | N |
D1 | A control paneled Windows web-hosting environment, with up-to-date server software | N |
D2 | The virtualisation of the Windows hosting infrastructure | N |
| D3 | The upgrade of the associated SQL Server service | N |
O2 | To consolidate the existing Windows hosting environments | N |
D4 | The deployment and configuration of an interface hosting management solution [e.g.control panel software] | N |
| O3 | To ensure ample capacity on the service for the next 3 to 5 years, with the ability to extend as far as possible | N |
| D5 | An audit and migration (as necessary) of 200-300+ current hosts and data, plus separate application databases | N |
| D6 | An audit and migration of applications and databases (as necessary) hosted on ucs-sequel, its hosted web server webdb.ucs, and dev server webdbdev.ucs | N |
| D7 | The possible audit and migration of c.40 MVM-owned hosts and data, plus separate application databases. | N |
| D8 | The analysis of best solution that will allow for exponential growth in number of hosted sites and databases | N |
| O4 | Eliminate risk of hardware failure and software vulnerability on legacy servers and OS versions | N |
| D9 | The implementation of replication backup software | N |
Success Criteria
The success of this project will be determined by the satisfactory completion of the main deliverables listed in the scope. These can be summarised by the acquisition and deployment of the new servers, with all the appropriate software and enhanced management tools and backup capabilities. The success of the project should also include the successful migration of the relevant sites and dtabases to the new infrastructures, as well as the current servers being taken out of service. These criteria are empirical and should be straightforward to determine.
Scope
The scope of this project encompasses specifying and ordering replacement servers; establishing which versions of server software are required, and acquiring and deploying these. The early work will also include the purchase and installation of control panel software.The project will then cover the development and documentation of a set of processes to upgrade and migrate existing databases and sites from their current network location to the new servers. The scope also includes the preparation of system documentation; load testing; and DR testing. Once the environment is built and a methodology established for migrating sites, applications and databases, then the migrations will be conducted as appropriate. It is planned that our business partners who maintain sites on the hosting service will conduct the migrations themselves, following the procedures established earlier in the project, and by making use of the control panel software, supported by Service Management staff.This project will not migrate the Committee Intranets currently hosted on the Windows hosting service. These are expected to be handled under a separate project. Once these are migrated to a new location, this project will execute the decommissioning of the current Windows servers, and this is expected to be the final piece of work in the current scope.
Category
Discretionary (D)