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The funding model for maintenance has the following fundamental elements:
Taken together these elements provide great flexibility and accountability, with a cost of some complexity.
A Network Node:
By "network node" we mean a network port (or "wall
jack") in an office that is plugged into active network electronics in the
utility closet. The campus apportions the cost of maintaining the campus network
across all the network nodes, to arrive at a monthly cost/node.
For example, an office might have 6 wall jacks with 6 wires back to the closet, but if only two of the wires are connected to electronics, that counts as only two nodes.
Important detail: In buildings with modern network electronics, a switch can be plugged into the port, two or more computers can be plugged into the switch, and this is still only one node under this model. (Wires from the switch must stay in one room, however.
Lines of Business:
Working with consultants hired by the campus administration, we analyzed everything that Communication & Network Services does in support of the campus network. We divided these activities into distinct "Lines of Business".
A Line of Business (LoB) was defined as any activity we do that we (or the campus) could outsource. We then analyzed how much money it costs at UC Berkeley to provide these LoBs. We used all this information in several ways, including:
The consultants compared our costs with those at similar (and dissimilar) institutions, comparing similar activities rather than just aggregate numbers.
Utility and Market Costs
We divided each LoB into a "Utility"
portion and a "Market" portion. Some LoBs are entirely Utility or Market, and
some are apportioned to both by percentage.
The general idea is the Central Campus will fund the Utility part of network maintenance and the departments will fund Market portions.
(In practice, the Central Campus administration funds only the Utility costs of nodes used by activities that are eligible for the subsidy. See next section.)
Subsidy Eligible Activities vs Non-subsidized Activities
Centrally
funded activities are eligible for subsidized network node costs. Non-centrally
funded activities are not.
So, for example, network nodes used by an academic department for teaching or research or departmental administration are all eligible for subsidy. Network nodes used by students living in the Residence Halls are not (Housing and Dining Services is an Auxiliary Services unit and this type of unit pays the full cost of services it purchases.)
In practice, IST determines eligibility for subsidy by looking at the Chart of Account string that a department associates with a node. For details, see how we parse the chartstrings
The Node Bank
The campus administration decided that it did not
make sense to impose a large new cost on every campus unit without some kind of
subsidy for what was already in place. The choices were (1) to impose a new
charge and at the same time give campus units base-building funds to pay the new
charge or, (2) to subsidize the network at a fixed size and require campus units
to pay for marginal growth.
The administration (Chancellor Berdahl and his Cabinet) chose the second option, with the twist that central funding is available only for activities that are eligible for a subsidy. A further twist is that central funding will not cover growth in cost for any line of business-departments will have to cover inflationary costs or the cost of providing a higher level of service than provided for under the model.
Nodes that are fully subsidized are in what is called the "Node Bank". Each eligible department has a fixed number of nodes in its Node Bank account, based upon the number of nodes they had in July of 2001. These nodes can be moved around, they are not tied to a physical location.
For example, assume Dept X has 100 nodes in the bank. If X moves into a new location it can disconnect 100 nodes in the old location and install up to 100 nodes in the new location and will not incur new monthly charges (Dept X will have to find money to pay for the one-time cost of installation.)
If Dept X adds 10 nodes it will have to pay the monthly "Market" portion of the cost of 10 nodes. If X then disconnects 5 nodes the monthly cost is reduced by 5. So nodes in the Node Bank are a departmental resource, and can be managed just as departments manage the office space they have.
Also, Dept X could disconnect 50 nodes and still have 100 in the bank. They would have a balance of 50 that they could install without incurring a new monthly obligation.
Special Agreements
Some departments do not rely on IST for all of
their network maintenance. For these departments IST works out Special
Agreements. In general, the cost to a department ends up being based on the
specific Lines of Business that IST supplies to that department.
In some cases a department claims some special circumstances that cause them to plead for a lower rate or a subsidy of some sort. IST does not have the authority to approve rates that do not follow directly from the funding model, so these departments must appeal to the campus administration for relief. (IST does not object to a department doing this. In fact, IST will help a department word a request if such help is desired.)
In all cases, Special Agreements are posted to the web for all to see.
While there are many Lines of Business, it turns out that there are really only five different combinations of the LoBs, so we really have only 5 different types of special agreements.
It further turns out that when the Chancellor decides to help a department, the mechanism is to subsidize that department's costs (rather than give the department a lower rate). This keeps the implementation of the model relatively clean and straightforward, and helps keep us from inadvertently violating Federal policies with respect to Contracts and Grants.
August 13, 2002