Cloud Computing Consulting

Overview

The Infrastructure Technology & Support (ITS) team offers cloud consulting services to provide researchers with cloud technology solutions based on their use cases, requirements, and budget. Researchers are with professionally managed, standardized, and secure services using cloud administration best practices, so researchers can focus on their science rather than service administration.

Columbia has agreements with cloud providers, including Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud Platform (GCP).This agreement provides a number of benefits, including the ability to pay for cloud services with Columbia chartstrings, in compliance with University procurement policy. CUIT manages the creation of new AWS accounts and may be requested here: CUIT Amazon Web Services. Due to the complexities of navigating the cloud and local resources, we encourage you to reach out to us to schedule an initial consultation by emailing us at rc@zi.columbia.edu.

Benefits of the Cloud

Cloud infrastructure offers a number of benefits, including:

• Instant access to unlimited resources, increasing research productivity, and accelerating time-to-science.
• Access to more features and services, and the newest, most powerful computers and equipment.
• No waiting for infrastructure to arrive or be installed. Instant upgrades of equipment, eliminating software and equipment migration time.
• Robust, resilient infrastructure, with improved backup, disaster recovery and failover options.
• On-demand, pay-as-you-go services mean you only pay for what you use and don't need to make a large upfront investment to get started.

Service Description

• Guidance and overview of features, use cases, and costs of cloud and local services
• Professionally managed cloud service setup and configuration and ongoing maintenance
• Cloud service workflow design and configuration
• Software and operating system installation and maintenance
• Creation and initial configuration of images, including containerization support
• Security updates and monitoring
• User and data management
• Storage, backup, and archive management and cost comparisons
• Budget estimates and planning, assistance with resource management and reducing costs, setting up budget alerts, and right-sizing resources
• Liaising with AWS technical support team for customized solution assistance

Rate

Initial consultations are provided at no cost. After approval of the project's scope of work researchers are charged $150 per hour for hands-on cloud service administration and engineering support. Billing for accrued charges will occur each month via your chart string.

Process

The process for planning and executing a cloud administration project is listed below. Depending on your requirements, our team will point you to self-service options or provide full hands-on assistance in providing you with technology solutions.

• Request a consultation

• Request a free cloud consultation to discuss your requirements, timeline, budget, and expectations by emailing rc@zi.columbia.edu and include a brief description of your project requirements and timeframe. 

• Meetings with Lab to determine Scope, Requirements, Budget, and Timeline

• Consultations with ITS 
• The ITS team will meet with you to collect requirements, discuss options, and develop budget estimates and a scope of Scope of Work, which includes deliverables, resources, points of contact, responsibilities, timeline, reporting, and costs.
• Recommendation of cloud and/or local resources to meet needs
• We will provide an estimate of the hours it will take to perform the deliverables in the Scope of Work. 
• AWS Technical Consultations
• Meet with Amazon Web Services technical team as needed 

• Project approval signoff

• All work and time commitments will be approved by both parties ahead of time. 

• Staff resource assignment and scheduling

• Cloud computing support is subject to staff availability. The service engagement schedule must be agreed on ahead of time to ensure staff resources can be allocated when needed.

• Initiation of project

• Account Creation, Funding, Configuration, User Training

• Create and configure AWS account and add users
• Create budgets and budget alerts
• User training

• Scope Implementation and Configuration 

• Develop, test, and iterate workflow and environment
• Testing and Evaluation
• Regular check-ins, as needed, with ITS team
• Regular check-ins with AWS technical team, as needed

• Completion of Project, Results, Lessons Learned

• Assessment of Success Criteria
• Lessons Learned, Recommendations
• Incorporate learnings into processes, documentation, templates, and training

Request a Consultation

To request a consultation to discuss your cloud computing requirements, please contact us at rc@zi.columbia.edu and include a brief description of your project requirements and timeframe.