Document title: IT Costs for Research Data Management Last updated: January 2013

Project Information

Project Acronym KAPTUR

Project Title KAPTUR

Start Date 3rd October 2011 End Date 29th March 2013

Lead Institution University for the Creative Arts

Project Director Leigh Garrett, VADS Director

Project Manager & contact details

Marie-Therese Gramstadt, VADS Projects Officer mtg@vads.ac.uk

Partner Institutions The Glasgow School of Art; Goldsmiths, University of London; University of the Arts London

Project Web URL http://www.vads.ac.uk/KAPTUR/

Programme Name JISC Managing Research Data 2011-13

Programme Manager Simon Hodson

Document History

Version Date Comments

1 9th August 2012 First draft of report completed by CS and MTG

1.1 17th August 2012 IT Costs model [Excel spreadsheet] produced by CS

1.2 15th January 2013 Following testing of the IT Costs model [Excel spreadsheet] by the

four project partners, in conjunction with their IT departments, and following discussion at the KAPTUR Steering Group meeting on 8

th

January 2013, a public version of both the report and model [Excel spreadsheet] has been produced.

Document Name

Document Title IT Costs for Research Data Management

Author(s) & project role Carlos Silva, KAPTUR Technical Manager

Marie-Therese Gramstadt, KAPTUR Project Manager

Date 15/01/2013 Filename KAPTUR-IT-Costs-public.pdf

URL http://www.slideshare.net/kaptur_mrd/KAPTUR-IT-Costs-public

Access Project and JISC internal General dissemination

Document title: IT Costs for Research Data Management Last updated: January 2013

Contents A. Costing principles ............................................................................................................. 2

1. Aim ................................................................................................................................ 2

a. Purpose ..................................................................................................................... 2

b. Risk ........................................................................................................................... 2

2. Service to be costed ...................................................................................................... 3

a. Identify characteristics ............................................................................................... 3

b. Identify inter-dependencies and decide how these will be dealt with in the costing model ............................................................................................................................ 3

B. Establishing the costs ....................................................................................................... 4

1. Costs to be excluded ..................................................................................................... 4

2. Analysis......................................................................................................................... 4

C. The IT Costs Model (Excel spreadsheet) .......................................................................... 5

A. Costing principles

1. Aim

a. Purpose To present a method and findings which can be used as part of the decision-making process to establish technical infrastructure for visual arts research data at each partner institution. This document follows the principles laid out in the JISC Toolkit for Costing IT Services1. This method (point 33 as part of the KAPTUR project workpackages2) has been tested with institutional hosting, based on the example of the University for the Creative Arts, and with the cloud-based Amazon Web Services3 platform, which is also used by Figshare. The original model included four worksheets, one for each of the KAPTUR partner institutions. Each institution was invited to use or adapt the method and findings to establish an indication of costs and inform their Business and Sustainability plans (point 34 KAPTUR workpackages). The public version of this worksheet includes the original formulae calculated by the KAPTUR Technical Manager but no sensitive information from the KAPTUR project partners.

b. Risk As KAPTUR is a pilot project there is always the risk inherent with testing new and innovative approaches and methods, however this is negated by the collaborative opportunity to learn and inform the project work across the expertise of four institutional partners.

1 http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/flexibleservicedelivery/toolkit_for_costing_ITservices.pdf

2 http://www.vads.ac.uk/KAPTUR/outputs/KAPTUR_workpackages.pdf

3 http://aws.amazon.com/

Document title: IT Costs for Research Data Management Last updated: January 2013

2. Service to be costed

a. Identify characteristics Based on the findings of the Technical Analysis report4, two systems have been costed: Type 1 - an externally hosted cloud-based system (Amazon Web Services); and Type 2 - an internally hosted Open Source system (an institutionally hosted service). Characteristic Type 1 - externally hosted cloud-

based system Type 2 - internally hosted Open Source system

Provider Amazon Web Services (AWS) is an amazon.com company

IT Department

Users research staff and PhD students; some external collaborators may have access rights

research staff and PhD students; some external collaborators may have access rights

Discretionary nature

mandated to all externally funded researchers and institutional research projects; optional for self-funded research

mandated to all externally funded researchers and institutional research projects; optional for self-funded research

Storage requirements

the analysis is over a ten year period in order to compare with an internally hosted Open Source system

the analysis is over a ten year period; a figure can be entered for estimated storage requirements in year 1 and year 10

5

Nature of service support and training to be provided through IT department or through dedicated research data professional; AWS to be in charge of hardware repair or replacement to server including storage costs

support and training to be provided through IT department or through dedicated research data professional; IT to be in charge of hardware repair or replacement to server including storage costs

Status of service (established) proposed (emerging) proposed Location Amazon Web Services server in the

European Union server space to be allocated and managed by IT

Hardware Managed by AWS externally to the institutions.

standard physical server set-up: modular array; hard disk drives; RAM memory; vendor care pack; storage library; connectors; library tapes (for backup purposes).

Software This is incorporated into the hosting charges.

This has been added under the heading 'licensing' such as the cost for Window Server licences. This is a figure to be added by each institution according to their set-up.

Staff Managed by AWS externally to the institutions.

This report will consider staff costs associated with supporting the system, but not with areas of work such as development or advocacy.

b. Identify inter-dependencies and decide how these will be dealt with in the costing model Both systems are dependent on connections with a publication system (EPrints). This will be investigated and developed as part of the KAPTUR Technical workpackages; however this means that there may be some queries that are currently unknown which arise later in the

4 http://www.vads.ac.uk/KAPTUR/outputs/KAPTUR_technical_analysis.pdf

5 The spreadsheet provides a blank field highlighted in blue for the amount of storage required, this enables

analysis based on a range of figures depending what value is entered in the cell, for example 0.5 Terabytes = 512 Gigabytes; 0.001 Tb = 1.024 Gb.

Document title: IT Costs for Research Data Management Last updated: January 2013

project. For the purposes of testing the model in September 2012 it was assumed that both Figshare (AWS) and DataStage could be connected with EPrints for the purpose of publishing research data. It was also noted that cost levels may change if new demands are placed on an existing service such as EPrints, and benefits may arise from integrating the research data management work within existing systems and staff roles; these are decisions to be made by each institution and are outside the scope of this study.

B. Establishing the costs

1. Costs to be excluded

Administration/management costs and estates costs have been considered as part of staff and non-staff costs which are specifically incurred in order to provide and support the technical system, but not to promote it or use it; for example work undertaken by Research Data Managers has not been included. Development costs have also not been included; operational costs only are relevant for this study. The KAPTUR Technical Manager tested the IT costs model with the example of University for the Creative Arts using information collected during September 2012, this has been removed from the public version of the model.

2. Analysis

For the cloud-based system, prices and price-plans may vary so it is necessary to use current pricing with Net present values in order to compare the current cost with the value of the same amount of money in the future. For the institutionally hosted system it is necessary to consider historical cost depreciation and/or replacement cost depreciation of equipment, future inflation, warranty renewal, and reduced performance over time. Figures have been calculated from Komorowski's Hard Drive Cost Per Gigabyte6 and his formula has been used to extend this up to 2022; it is

acknowledged that this is an estimate only.

Specific staff and non-staff costs have been identified through discussion with the IT Department of the relevant institutions. Annual inflation has been estimated using the Bank of England's figures. By calculating the annual cost over a period of ten years it is possible to have a clearer idea of which solution will fit best and whether it is worth transferring from one system to the other. This assessment needs to be reviewed on a regular basis as cloud offerings and prices change continuously; this is a risk associated with cloud-based hosting. The following point was raised at the KAPTUR Steering Group meeting on 8 th January 2013: it should be noted that even if cloud-based hosting, or external hosting, is chosen there can still be additional staffing costs to the institution - this needs to be taken into consideration as otherwise there can appear to be a large discrepancy between the costs for external and internal hosting - with the external hosting model appearing to be much more financially viable.

6 http://www.mkomo.com/cost-per-gigabyte

Document title: IT Costs for Research Data Management Last updated: January 2013

C. The IT Costs Model (Excel spreadsheet) This is available for download from: http://www.vads.ac.uk/kaptur/outputs/KAPTUR_IT_Costs_Template_public.xlsx