Digital Platforms

Over 120 of the University’s critical systems, such as Agresso, SITS, WOLF, and many research, learning and teaching systems all run on a collection of servers we call the Storage Environment. The Storage Environment is essential for current business operations and as a foundation for the delivery of the Digital Campus Transformation Programme.

This project saw a new platform, ‘The Digital Platform’ replace the old Storage Environment that provides computing, storage and backup with a more powerful, scalable, and robust solution that will provide these services to the University for the next five years.

Migrations have been completed.

  • 70 servers have successfully been migrated to the new Digital Platform.
  • Following successful testing of the replacement environment, 16 servers were successfully migrated week commencing 11th April 2016.

  • More migrations are continuing over the next five weeks from 18th April 2016.

  • Some servers will be migrated in June 2016 so that any impact on the student community will be minimised.

  • In order that the migration is as simple as possible, each service will be unavailable during the migration, and restored as soon as the migration is complete.

  • The necessary equipment was successfully delivered to Wolverhampton as scheduled, on Friday 12th February 2016.

  • The commissioning work is taking longer than originally anticipated, resulting in a further delay to the start of migrations.

  • The Project Team is liaising with the service owners to reschedule the migrations.

  • We will keep you informed once a revised plan has been agreed, and regularly update the Digital Platforms webpage.

Due to a delay, the migration timetable has been revised.

  • Our suppliers have notified us of a delay in the delivery of the Digital Platforms equipment, as a result it has been necessary to revise the migration timetable.
  • We have preserved as many of the original migration dates as we can. Please accept our apologies for this change.
  • As previously stated, the new (Storage Area Network) SAN will be commissioned in early February 2016 and all 74 existing servers will migrate across from the old SAN to the new platform.

  • New developments have identified that each server migration will involve two short interruptions totalling around 10 minutes per server.

  • As a precaution, we are advising that these services be regarded as “available intermittently” for the whole day during migration.

  • Final testing of the new Digital Platform hardware and software is planned for the week commencing 1st February 2016.

  • If there are any changes to the server migration process or timetable as a result of this testing, updated information will be provided.

  • Measures are in place to ensure that in the event of a problem occurring with the new Digital Platform, the pre-migration version of the service can be restored quickly.

  • In February 2016 the new Storage Area Network (SAN) will be commissioned. During this time, the existing suite of 74 servers will migrate to the new platform.

  • Meetings with the various information service owners regarding migration strategies and scheduling have now taken place.

  • The Project Team are currently finalising the migration timetable, which will be published in December.

  • A Project Board meeting has taken place.

  • A project manager has been appointed to deliver the Digital Platforms Project.

  • The Digital Storage Project has been renamed Digital Platforms.

  • Two Project Board meetings have taken place.

  • The next Project Board meeting is scheduled for Friday 16th October 2015.

  • Meetings have been organised and discussions are on-going with the Service Owners about migration strategies and scheduling.

  • A project manager has been recruited and will be appointed in late June/early July to deliver the Digital Storage project.

  • A supplier’s day will be held on 30th June where a number of potential providers for storage solutions will present their products, and engage in dialogue with University staff and consultants.