STFC ICT Infrastructure: Dec Information provided: General

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1 STFC ICT Infrastructure: Dec 2017 Information provided: General Number of Sites. STFC has five main science research sites - STFC provides this information on its website at: Number of Employees - In excess of 2000 Number of IT Staff 59 within the STFC Digital Solutions (Research ICT Department) Annual IT Budget - 4m includes refresh, excludes capital projects for new capability Data centres = two sites Number of Servers Digital Solutions: 432 PPD: 3500 Number of Windows Servers Digital Solutions: 346 SCD/PPD: n/a Number of UNIX/Linux Servers Digital Solutions: 86 SCD/PPD: 3500 What operating system do you use? Digital Solutions: Server: >75% Windows. <25% Linux (various distributions) SCD/PPD: RH (ENTERPRISE), Scientific Linux, CENTOS Percentage Virtualised Digital Solutions 70% SCD/PPD: 31% Virtualisation platform Windows platforms = Hyper-V Linux platforms: VMware/Hyper-V Server Vendor

2 Digital Solutions: >75% Dell SCD/PPD: mix of DELL/XMA/HP/SGI/ ClusterVision Server Refresh Date - Digital Solutions: Rolling across platforms supported SCD/PPD: as required and refresh generally supported by grant funding Date Server Support contract ends & value of contract - Digital Solutions: Servers bought with manufacturer s extended warranty either 3 or 5 years. SCD/PPD: The bulk of the nodes are configured as HPC clusters under warranty for supported lifetime of the asset Volume of Data in TB - Digital Solutions: 540 SCD/PPD: 53,000 Storage Vendor(s) Digital Solutions: DELL, Veritas, NettApp SCD/PPD: STFC considers this information to be commercially sensitive. I refer you to the section on Information not provided below. Storage Refresh Date Digital Solutions: Rolling -- hardware bought at different times SCD/PPD: Depends on HPC cluster service asset lifetime (see explanation for contract end dates above) Date Storage support contract ends & value of contract - Digital Solutions: Rolling -- hardware bought with support included SCD/PPD: STFC considers this information to be commercially sensitive. I refer you to the section on Information not provided below. Approach taken to Backup data (hardware) is Disk Network backup software in use -Netbackup Backup platform refresh date: No fixed refresh cycle, dependent on science project requirements and on budget cycles. Date backup support contract ends & value of contract - There are a number of contracts, not all annual figures agreed to the end of current financial reporting year. Total approximately 140K Network equipment used within the Datacentres: Various niche products and vendors are used, specifically tailored to the needs of data intensive science. Names and details are not disclosed for security reasons and I refer you to the section Information not provided.

3 Refresh date: No fixed overall refresh cycle, dependent on science project requirements and on budget cycles. Date support contract ends & value of contract There are various contracts that end at different times within the financial year (due to varied nature of equipment being supported and their dates of purchase). Values will vary; total for Digital Solutions overall Network maintenance budgeted < 300K. Does STFC utilise WAN optimisation? Not significantly Desktop Desktop vendor - >80% Dell Number of Desktops (Digital Solutions): 991 Is the STFC environment VDI? No Desktop Refresh date Rolling. Target of every 5 years. Date support contract ends & value of contract n/a rolling Applications Database vendors MS SQL, Oracle, MySQL provider Hosted MS Exchange, MS Office 365 (incl Exchange) & Fus Number of mail boxes varies according to use of STFC Facilities approx (as ) ERP Platform Oracle CRM Provider - MS Dynamics Database Archival - n/a Archival Netbackup File Archival Netbackup IT Strategy and Organisation charts Overall IT strategy for STFC Digital Solutions is being updated for 2018, will be posted to STFC website during 2018 STFC has published a Science Computing Strategy document; this is available from the STFC website at: o

4 IT department with contact names and telephone numbers: The overall structure of Digital Solutions is available on STFC website, however we do not release sensitive personal data for staff, please use the listed contact points for STFC. The Head of STFC s ICT function is John Ginever. The structure of STFC and appropriate public contact points are available from the STFC website at: The link to the STFC CICT organogram is at: Information Not provided: STFC does not generally disclose the names and contact details of individual staff as these are considered personal data under the UK Data Protection Act 1998 and exempt from disclosure under exemption 40 (2) (b) of the Freedom of Information Act Information not provided: Storage vendors and storage support contracts. STFC considers that: a. Information relating to networking connections should not be disclosed into the public domain for security reasons. Exemption 31 (a) applies. Public Interest test for Exemption Law enforcement. (1) Information which is not exempt information by virtue of section 30 is exempt information if its disclosure under this Act would, or would be likely to, prejudice - (a) the prevention or detection of crime, Public Interest test: STFC is a publically funded Non-Departmental Public Body (NDPB) and is therefore committed to transparency in its activities to which enables scrutiny and understanding of how it spends public money. However, as STFC conducts its activities within an electronic

5 environment, disclosure of the details of its systems into the public domain could lead to malicious attack which would be likely to disable or compromise the running of STFC systems, jeopardising its activities on behalf of the UK public and incurring substantial costs to restore normal operation. Decision: STFC considers that the risk of compromise of its systems outweighs the benefits of transparency in this case and that it has a duty to ensure efficient and reliable operation in order to provide services to partners and users. We have therefore concluded that the public interest is best served by non disclosure in this case in order that STFC avoids the risk of being unable to operate efficiently to support UK Scientific Research. b. Information relating to storage venders and storage support contracts should not be disclosed into the public domain as it is commercially sensitive. We are applying exemption 43 commercial in confidence to this information. We also consider that exemption 31: Law enforcement could apply. Public Interest test for Exemption 43 Commercial in confidence: 43. Commercial interests. (1)Information is exempt information if it constitutes a trade secret. (2)Information is exempt information if its disclosure under this Act would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of any person (including the public authority holding it). (3)The duty to confirm or deny does not arise if, or to the extent that, compliance with section 1(1)(a) would, or would be likely to, prejudice the interests mentioned in subsection (2). Exemption 43(2) Disclosure must be considered on a case by case basis, starting with the assumption that all information requested will be disclosed. Arguments in favour of disclosure: STFC is a publically funded Non-Departmental Public Body (NDPB) and is therefore committed to transparency in its activities. This enables public scrutiny which can lead to greater efficiency and economies of scale within government organisations. Arguments against disclosure:

6 Information about storage vendors and storage contracts could lead to malicious attacks which would be likely to compromise the efficient working of STFC data centres. As STFC works in partnership with other organisations, the time lost in the event of down-time, and the cost of reinstating its services, impacts on its ability to provide its services efficiently, thus impacting the commercial interests of both STFC and its partners. Decision: STFC is declining to provide information held which relates to Storage vendors and storage support contracts.