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Virtual Machine Gateway (UT-VMG)

Virtual Machine Gateway (UT-VMG)

UT Virtual Machine Gateway (UT-VMG) provides cost-effective, reliable, self-provisioned Virtual Machines (VM) based on the VMware vSphere Virtual Infrastructure suite and VMware Aria Automation product. UT-VMG is intended to serve departments, colleges, and research units at The University of Texas at Austin with the benefits of server virtualization, including improved server reliability and availability, easier web-based VM administration, lower total operational cost, and smaller carbon footprint through more efficient utilization of physical servers.

 

Customers can request an individual Virtual Machine in the “classic” environment or request a provisioning group as "self-service" instead if there is any chance they will need more than one VM.

Features

Request a Provisioning Group in the UT-VMG environment to start self-provisioning VMs for your department, college, or unit. 

UT-VMG IS RECOMMENDED FOR: Web Hosting Servers, Application Servers, and Test and Development Servers

UT-VMG IS NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: High-Performance Computing, High-Performance Database, and Servers that require OS-level clustering

 

Features

  • Lower capital costs for Customers by reducing need for IT infrastructure purchases.
  • Enterprise scale virtual service infrastructure with proactive maintenance of all necessary infrastructure components including physical servers, networking, storage, VMware management software.
  • UT-VMG is housed in secure University Data Centers to take full advantage of redundant power, cooling, and state of the art facility support.
  • Redundant Ethernet connections to network in full compliance with University Data Center dual networking failover (LACP) guidelines.
  • Reduced downtime for physical infrastructure maintenance.
  • Customers retain system administration of their UT-VMG VMs.
  • UT-V saves significant power - approximately 6570 kWh per year per virtualized server

 

Add-on Features:

  • Additional storage is available in 1GB increments at extra cost.
  • UT-VMG backup and restore interface gives users the ability to manage VM and file-level restores. UT-VMG File and VM Restore.
  • VM self-service and self-management for VM owners.
  • Request Virtual Machine Self Service Access

    Request a Provisioning Group in the UT-VMG environment for access to start self-provisioning VMs for your department, college, or unit.
    To provision a VM in the self-service gateway log in here: https://utvmg.austin.utexas.edu
    By submitting this order, you agree to the terms and conditions defined in the UTV SLA on the previous page.

     

    UT-VMG IS RECOMMENDED FOR: Web Hosting Servers, Application Servers, and Test and Development Servers

    UT-VMG IS NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: High-Performance Computing, High-Performance Database, and Servers that require OS-level clustering

    Available to:Faculty and Staff
    Features

    Lower capital costs for Customers by reducing need for IT infrastructure purchases.

    Enterprise scale virtual service infrastructure, including:

    Proactive maintenance of all necessary infrastructure components including physical servers, networking, storage, VMware management software.

    UT-VMG is housed in secure University Data Centers to take full advantage of redundant power, cooling, and state of the art facility support.

    Redundant Ethernet connections to network in full compliance with University Data Center dual networking failover (LACP) guidelines.

    Reduced downtime for physical infrastructure maintenance.

    Customers retain system administration of their UT-VMG VMs.

    Add-on Features:

    Additional storage is available in 1GB increments at extra cost.

    UT-VMG backup and restore interface gives users the ability to manage VM and file-level restores. UT-VMG File and VM Restore.

    VM self-service and self-management for VM owners.

    UT-V saves significant power - approximately 6570 kWh per year per virtualized server

    Cost

    Customers can use the UT-VMG Cost Estimator to calculate the expected rate for your VM.

    2024-2025 Year Pricing

    Memory

    SPECIFICATIONS: 1GB. See Notes on Provisioning

    COST/YEAR: $67.00

    1 vCPU per virtual machine.

    SPECIFICATIONS: Additional vCPUs available. See Notes on Provisioning

    COST/YEAR: $0

    High Performance Storage (Tier 1)

    SPECIFICATIONS: 1GB. 

    COST/YEAR: $1.20/GB

    Mid-Tier Performance Storage (Tier 2)

    SPECIFICATIONS: 1GB.

    COST/YEAR: $0.60/GB;

    Backup Storage

    SPECIFICATIONS: 1GB Increments. See Notes on Provisioning

    COST/YEAR: $0.40/GB

    Projects and Consultation

    COST/HOUR: $76.00

     

    CUSTOMER CONFIGURATION EXAMPLES COST/YEAR

    Option 1

    Windows VM with 8GB vRAM $536.00

    100GB High Performance Storage (Tier 1) $120.00

    250GB Mid-Tier Performance Storage (Tier 2) $150.00

    350GB (Tier 1 + Tier 2) Backups: $140

    TOTAL COST/YEAR $946.00

    Option 2

    Windows VM with 16GB vRAM $1,072.00

    50GB High Performance Storage (Tier 1) $60.00

    1,000GB Mid-Tier Performance Storage (Tier 2) $1,200.00

    1,050GB (Tier 1 + Tier 2) Backups: $420.00

    TOTAL COST/YEAR $2,752.00

    Option 3

    Linux VM with 4GB vRAM $268.00

    75GB High Performance Storage (Tier 1) $90.00

    No Backups: $0.00

    TOTAL COST/YEAR $358.00

    Service Level Objectives

    Key Metrics

    • Availability: 99.75%
    • Routine work request acknowledgment response time: 2 business days
    • Review and response of Active requests: 7 business days

    Overview

    This document defines the Service Level Agreement (SLA) for the UT Virtual Machine Gateway (UT-VMG) service as well as the rights and responsibilities of any University unit (Customer) that obtains this service from ITS.

    Service description

    UT-VMG provides cost-effective, reliable, self-provisioned virtual machines (VM) based on the VMware vSphere Virtual Infrastructure suite and Aria Automation products. UT-VMG is intended to serve departments, colleges, and research units at The University of Texas at Austin with the benefits of server virtualization, including improved server reliability and availability, easier web-based VM administration, lower total operational cost, and smaller carbon footprint through more efficient utilization of physical servers. VMs purchased through UT-VMG are provisioned based on gigabytes of virtual memory, tier 1 storage, tier 2 storage, and backup storage. Virtual CPUs (vCPU) are no cost, however excessive vCPUs can adversely impact performance if they are unutilized, so approvals are required for more than 2 CPU. Administrative access to VMs is controlled via Provisioning Groups in Austin Active Directory. Provisioning Group membership is defined by customers and can be based on departments, research groups or any other division that makes sense for the customer. An initial consultation with ITS is required to define a Provisioning Group.

    SLA Uptime Calculation

    For each incident that causes an impact to VMs, the duration of the event in minutes is multiplied by the number of VMs affected to arrive at the impact in “VM minutes”. At the end of the fiscal year, the total number of available VM minutes is defined as the average number of VMs in the fiscal year multiplied by the number of minutes in the year. The uptime percentage is the total available VM minutes minus the impacted VM minutes divided by the total available VM minutes.

    Billing and Accounting

    UT-VMG VM charges are accrued daily and billed monthly via the ITS Business Office. Until 9/1/2015 VMs in the UT-V classic environment will be billed for the fiscal year in advance (prorated as necessary). ITS Billing processes the charges against the IDT account number on file for the VM within 70 days. Changes to IDT account numbers must be requested via a Footprints ticket which can be submitted via the UT Service Desk.

    Termination of Service

    Customers can cancel services by deleting their VMs via the provisioning interface. Removing an entire provisioning group must be requested via a Footprints ticket which can be submitted via the UT Service Desk. Deleted VMs will be preserved per the backup retention defined in the Data Protection section below. Removal of VMs in the UT-V classic environment must be requested via the UT Service Desk.

    Standard Maintenance of Service

    Availability of UT-VMG is subject to any published ITS Networking and Data Center maintenance events. In addition, there are five types of maintenance events specific to UT-VMG: - Full maintenance events require downtime for all components of UT-VMG. If required, two Full maintenance events occur upon the completion of Finals, once in both the Fall and Spring semesters. These Full maintenance events take place on Sundays from 12 noon – 6pm, and can be extended should maintenance not complete within this window. - Partial maintenance events require downtime for some components of UT-VMG that affect running virtual machines. If required, four Partial maintenance events occur in a year; one each in February, June, August, and October. Each Partial maintenance event will take place on a Sunday from 12 noon – 6pm. - Provisioning and management layer maintenance will be performed on a weekly basis. This type of maintenance will not affect running VMs but may inhibit the the ability to provision new VMs or manage VMs through the provisioning interface (vRealize Automation and vCenter Server). Provisioning and management layer servers are rebooted weekly, some on Tuesday mornings from 12 midnight to 2am, some on Sundays mornings 12 midnight to 6am. - Non-impactful maintenance is performed regularly, with no anticipated outage to the service. This will be scheduled according to the existing ITS service maintenance guidelines. - Emergency maintenance events are scheduled as required due to necessary security patches or unexpected failure of service components. They can require a Partial or Full outage of UT-VMG. They will be scheduled and communicated according to the existing ITS service maintenance guidelines. All scheduled maintenance events will be published on the ITS maintenance events calendar. Customer technical contacts will be notified via email 5 business days prior to any Full or Partial maintenance events.

    Data Protection

    UT-VMG follows the data protection plan defined in the UT-VMG Policies Page.

    Data Security

    Customers of UT-VMG are subject to periodic usage review and necessary scans from the Information Security Office to ensure that usage meets the Information Resources Use and Security Policy.

    Intended Use

    UT-VMG is intended to provide infrastructure for virtual machine (VM) service to faculty, staff, and researchers in departments, colleges, and research units. UT-VMG is a shared environment. Therefore all use of UT-VMG is subject to a suitability review by the UT-VMG administrators. Usage that demonstrates a negative impact on the overall performance or availability of service for other UT-VMG customers is subject to quality of service controls, including temporary suspension, to restore UT-VMG service availability.

    Allowed Computing Environments

    UT-VMG allows VM Operating Systems as defined in the VMware Guest OS Compatability Guide. As of April 6, 2015, UT-VMG is compatible with all supported OS versions associated with vSphere 5.5 Update 1A.

    Technical support

    Support for the UT-VMG infrastructure, including maintenance for server hardware and virtual infrastructure software, is provided by the UT-VMG administrators. Support requests related to the UT-VMG infrastructure can be directed to the UT-VMG administrators via the UT Service Desk. Support for the VM operating system instance and applications within each virtual machine will be provided by either the VM owner/purchaser, or optionally by a departmental TSC. VM snapshots can be created and managed via the self provisioning interface. However, to enforce VMware best practices, snapshots older than 14 days are automatically deleted. Customers should delete snapshots as soon as possible. Temporary exceptions can be requested via the UT Service Desk.

    Customer Responsibilities

    • Customers must be aware of and adhere to the University's Campus IT Policies.
    • Customers must be aware of and adhere to the policies defined in the UT-VMG Policies document.
    • Customers must go through an orientation to define common use cases specific to the customer and create appropriate Provisioning Groups.
    • Customers must maintain accurate records of financial account information and VM Owner contact information. Contact information includes a owner contact, technical contact(s) and billing contact(s) for each VM.
    • If a proper account number is not provided within 1 month the UT-VMG team may archive the VM.
    • Customers are responsible for all usage and activity that occurs within their VM.
  • Request a Virtual Machine

    Request a Virtual Machine in the UT-V Classic environment for your department, college, or unit. Note: Customers should request self-service above so they can request their VMs without opening tickets. This is a legacy option.

    UT-VMG IS RECOMMENDED FOR: Web Hosting Servers, Application Servers, and Test and Development Servers

    UT-VMG IS NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: High-Performance Computing, High-Performance Database, and Servers that require OS-level clustering

    Customers can use the UT-VMG Cost Estimator to calculate the expected rate for your VM.

     

    Available to:Faculty and Staff
    Features

    Lower capital costs for Customers by reducing need for IT infrastructure purchases.

    Enterprise scale virtual service infrastructure, including:

    Proactive maintenance of all necessary infrastructure components including physical servers, networking, storage, VMware management software.

    UT-VMG is housed in secure University Data Centers to take full advantage of redundant power, cooling, and state of the art facility support.

    Redundant Ethernet connections to network in full compliance with University Data Center dual networking failover (LACP) guidelines.

    Reduced downtime for physical infrastructure maintenance.

    Customers retain system administration of their UT-VMG VMs.

    Add-on Features:

    Additional storage is available in 1GB increments at extra cost.

    UT-VMG backup and restore interface gives users the ability to manage VM and file-level restores. UT-VMG File and VM Restore.

    VM self-service and self-management for VM owners.

    UT-V saves significant power - approximately 6570 kWh per year per virtualized server

    Cost

    Customers can use the UT-VMG Cost Estimator to calculate the expected rate for your VM.

    2024-2025 Year Pricing

    Memory

    SPECIFICATIONS: 1GB. See Notes on Provisioning

    COST/YEAR: $67.00

    1 vCPU per virtual machine.

    SPECIFICATIONS: Additional vCPUs available. See Notes on Provisioning

    COST/YEAR: $0

    High Performance Storage (Tier 1)

    SPECIFICATIONS: 1GB. 

    COST/YEAR: $1.20/GB

    Mid-Tier Performance Storage (Tier 2)

    SPECIFICATIONS: 1GB.

    COST/YEAR: $0.60/GB;

    Backup Storage

    SPECIFICATIONS: 1GB Increments. See Notes on Provisioning

    COST/YEAR: $0.40/GB

    Projects and Consultation

    COST/HOUR: $76.00

     

    CUSTOMER CONFIGURATION EXAMPLES COST/YEAR

    Option 1

    Windows VM with 8GB vRAM $536.00

    100GB High Performance Storage (Tier 1) $120.00

    250GB Mid-Tier Performance Storage (Tier 2) $150.00

    350GB (Tier 1 + Tier 2) Backups: $140

    TOTAL COST/YEAR $946.00

    Option 2

    Windows VM with 16GB vRAM $1,072.00

    50GB High Performance Storage (Tier 1) $60.00

    1,000GB Mid-Tier Performance Storage (Tier 2) $1,200.00

    1,050GB (Tier 1 + Tier 2) Backups: $420.00

    TOTAL COST/YEAR $2,752.00

    Option 3

    Linux VM with 4GB vRAM $268.00

    75GB High Performance Storage (Tier 1) $90.00

    No Backups: $0.00

    TOTAL COST/YEAR $358.00

    Service Level Objectives

    Key Metrics

    • Availability: 99.75%
    • Routine work request acknowledgment response time: 2 business days
    • Review and response of Active requests: 7 business days

    Overview

    This document defines the Service Level Agreement (SLA) for the UT Virtual Machine Gateway (UT-VMG) service as well as the rights and responsibilities of any University unit (Customer) that obtains this service from ITS.

    Service description

    UT-VMG provides cost-effective, reliable, self-provisioned virtual machines (VM) based on the VMware vSphere Virtual Infrastructure suite and vRealize Automation (vRA) products. UT-VMG is intended to serve departments, colleges, and research units at The University of Texas at Austin with the benefits of server virtualization, including improved server reliability and availability, easier web-based VM administration, lower total operational cost, and smaller carbon footprint through more efficient utilization of physical servers. VMs purchased through UT-VMG are provisioned based on gigabytes of virtual memory, tier 1 storage, tier 2 storage, and backup storage. Virtual CPUs (vCPU) are no cost, however excessive vCPUs can adversely impact performance if they are unutilized so approvals are required for more than 2 CPU. Administrative access to VMs is controlled via Provisioning Groups in Austin Active Directory. Provisioning Group membership is defined by customers and can be based on departments, research groups or any other division that makes sense for the customer. An initial consultation with ITS is required to define a Provisioning Group.

    SLA Uptime Calculation

    For each incident that causes an impact to VMs, the duration of the event in minutes is multiplied by the number of VMs affected to arrive at the impact in “VM minutes”. At the end of the fiscal year, the total number of available VM minutes is defined as the average number of VMs in the fiscal year multiplied by the number of minutes in the year. The uptime percentage is the total available VM minutes minus the impacted VM minutes divided by the total available VM minutes.

    Billing and Accounting

    UT-VMG VM charges are accrued daily and billed monthly via the ITS Business Office. Until 9/1/2015 VMs in the UT-V classic environment will be billed for the fiscal year in advance (prorated as necessary). ITS Billing processes the charges against the IDT account number on file for the VM within 70 days. Changes to IDT account numbers must be requested via a Footprints ticket which can be submitted via the UT Service Desk.

    Termination of Service

    Customers can cancel services by deleting their VMs via the provisioning interface. Removing an entire provisioning group must be requested via a Footprints ticket which can be submitted via the UT Service Desk. Deleted VMs will be preserved per the backup retention defined in the Data Protection section below. Removal of VMs in the UT-V classic environment must be requested via the UT Service Desk.

    Standard Maintenance of Service

    Availability of UT-VMG is subject to any published ITS Networking and Data Center maintenance events. In addition, there are five types of maintenance events specific to UT-VMG: - Full maintenance events require downtime for all components of UT-VMG. If required, two Full maintenance events occur upon the completion of Finals, once in both the Fall and Spring semesters. These Full maintenance events take place on Sundays from 12 noon – 6pm, and can be extended should maintenance not complete within this window. - Partial maintenance events require downtime for some components of UT-VMG that affect running virtual machines. If required, four Partial maintenance events occur in a year; one each in February, June, August, and October. Each Partial maintenance event will take place on a Sunday from 12 noon – 6pm. - Provisioning and management layer maintenance will be performed on a weekly basis. This type of maintenance will not affect running VMs but may inhibit the the ability to provision new VMs or manage VMs through the provisioning interface (vRealize Automation and vCenter Server). Provisioning and management layer servers are rebooted weekly, some on Tuesday mornings from 12 midnight to 2am, some on Sundays mornings 12 midnight to 6am. - Non-impactful maintenance is performed regularly, with no anticipated outage to the service. This will be scheduled according to the existing ITS service maintenance guidelines. - Emergency maintenance events are scheduled as required due to necessary security patches or unexpected failure of service components. They can require a Partial or Full outage of UT-VMG. They will be scheduled and communicated according to the existing ITS service maintenance guidelines. All scheduled maintenance events will be published on the ITS maintenance events calendar. Customer technical contacts will be notified via email 5 business days prior to any Full or Partial maintenance events.

    Data Protection

    UT-VMG follows the data protection plan defined in the UT-VMG Policies Page.

    Data Security

    Customers of UT-VMG are subject to periodic usage review and necessary scans from the Information Security Office to ensure that usage meets the Information Resources Use and Security Policy.

    Intended Use

    UT-VMG is intended to provide infrastructure for virtual machine (VM) service to faculty, staff, and researchers in departments, colleges, and research units. UT-VMG is a shared environment. Therefore all use of UT-VMG is subject to a suitability review by the UT-VMG administrators. Usage that demonstrates a negative impact on the overall performance or availability of service for other UT-VMG customers is subject to quality of service controls, including temporary suspension, to restore UT-VMG service availability.

    Allowed Computing Environments

    UT-VMG allows VM Operating Systems as defined in the VMware Guest OS Compatability Guide. As of April 6, 2015, UT-VMG is compatible with all supported OS versions associated with vSphere 5.5 Update 1A.

    Technical support

    Support for the UT-VMG infrastructure, including maintenance for server hardware and virtual infrastructure software, is provided by the UT-VMG administrators. Support requests related to the UT-VMG infrastructure can be directed to the UT-VMG administrators via the UT Service Desk. Support for the VM operating system instance and applications within each virtual machine will be provided by either the VM owner/purchaser, or optionally by a departmental TSC. VM snapshots can be created and managed via the self provisioning interface. However, to enforce VMware best practices, snapshots older than 14 days are automatically deleted. Customers should delete snapshots as soon as possible. Temporary exceptions can be requested via the UT Service Desk.

    Customer Responsibilities

    • Customers must be aware of and adhere to the University's Campus IT Policies.
    • Customers must be aware of and adhere to the policies defined in the UT-VMG Policies document.
    • Customers must go through an orientation to define common use cases specific to the customer and create appropriate Provisioning Groups.
    • Customers must maintain accurate records of financial account information and VM Owner contact information. Contact information includes a owner contact, technical contact(s) and billing contact(s) for each VM.
    • If a proper account number is not provided within 1 month the UT-VMG team may archive the VM.
    • Customers are responsible for all usage and activity that occurs within their VM.