Virtualized Hosting

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1. Description of Service

The Information Technology Division (ITD) provides reliable and secure centrally managed Virtualized Shared VM Hosting Services for Commonwealth IT Services. This service does not include the operating system; customers must choose a Windows OS or Linux OS for fully managed virtual hosting services. This service offers fully managed services for the system administration of virtual hardware platforms for Windows and Linux operating systems. Customers pay the initial (hardware) infrastructure costs for ITD to procure the necessary equipment to host a customer's IT solution. These costs are included in the BAR (Business Application Request form) and identified as "one time" costs and agreed to by both the customer and ITD.

The Virtualized Shared VM Hosting Service provides an easy and relatively low cost solution for hosting applications using VMware on virtual infrastructure and includes fully managed services for the system administration of VMware.

This service includes the following:

• One virtual CPU with 4GB of memory (defined as a "slice")
• VMware monitoring, system administration and support
• Operating system monitoring, system administration and support
• Data Center Network Connectivity
• MAGNet Security Protection
• VMware Infrastructure Administration
• Facilities cost (power, cooling, rack space)

In comparison, to Dedicated Hardware Platform costs, the VMware rate should be compared to the combination of the cost for a physical server and network connectivity and security protection. Each VMware server has the ability to host multiple guest operating systems.

There is a one-time set up fee per slice (SL1V0) for customer shared VMware solutions; this fee will recover the costs for a customer's portion of the existing VMware infrastructure. This cost is similar to the "one time" costs customers now pay to procure hardware and software for customer dedicated distributed hosting. This cost is included in the BAR (Business Application Request form) and identified as "set up" fees and agreed to by both the customer and ITD.

Virtualized Hosting Service Availability

Currently ITD has standardized on VMware vSphere ESX to support ITD's virtualization infrastructure and VMware managed service. Leveraging this technology enables ITD to take advantage of several high availability and automated failover capabilities that are intrinsic to the current x86 server virtualization standards.
 

• Server Performance Target:
  Automated orchestration guarantees that as server CPU and Memory utilization increases, transparent non-service impacting transition to appropriate VMware vSphere ESX servers may take place to ensure maximum performance. This will align and comply with application requirements as defined during initial server provisioning. 
• Server Failover:
  In the event that a physical server fails, (also commonly referred to as an ESX host hardware failure), the automated high availability feature is invoked. All servers are repositioned to other ESX hosts within the virtualization cluster. All workloads are supported without impacting performance, and the alignment and compliance of application requirements are maintained as when the server was initially provisioned.

Please note: Server Failover (VMware HA) capabilities do not support application level load balancing at this time. This functionality is a solution targeted for Q3 FY12.

This service also includes:

Facilities Management

• Physical security, cooling, environment and redundant power

Systems Engineering

• Set-up of hardware and software in accordance with ITD Infrastructure Planning Group standards and best practices and Commonwealth of Massachusetts IT Technology and Security Policies
• Evaluate and/or recommend hardware and software enhancements
• Upgrades of Service Components

Systems Maintenance

• Administration and maintenance of hardware to ensure that each hosted operating system server is reliable, is performing adequately, and is providing overall service availability
• Utilization of vendor hardware for maintaining hardware at recommended patch and release levels following standard change management procedures
• Maintain current inventory/asset information and support history for each managed host that can be made available to customers
• Standard capacity and performance analysis reporting capabilities for customers to review utilization, performance and trending information for CPU, system processes (as defined by customer), memory, and storage
• Systems engineer's participation as needed in ongoing customer service delivery reviews (coordinated by ITD Service Account Managers).

Systems Support & Monitoring

• 24 x 7 proactive monitoring, identification, and resolution of technical issues for hosted servers
• Ongoing security intrusion testing and monitoring
• Responsive support to incidents based on severity levels
• Responsive support to unscheduled service outages in a timely manner
• Provision of diagnostic information to assist with customer application support needs
• Repair or replacement failing hardware components
• Access to technical Change Control information

ITD Refresh Policy:

This service is a shared infrastructure and therefore ITD is responsible for all hardware upgrades/refreshes. Additionally, maintenance costs that are incurred for supporting end of life customer specific hosted infrastructure or upgrading software that is not covered by subscription may be direct charged to customers.

This service does not include coverage for Disaster Recovery. This can be procured separately.

Support services include:

• A Service Account Manager to answer any questions or concerns regarding ITD Services.
• Services offered through our Operations Office; including Change Management and customer access to incident management via email, phone (CommonHelp)
• The online COMiT service management portal
  
  

2. Service Targets/Hours of Availability

*Incidents, requests, or changes that are outside the scope of the defined service description or normal service hours will be direct charged to the customer.

Note: System availability for a customer solution is dependent on the architecture design.

3. Service Reporting

The following reporting information is provided to customers as part of this service:
 

4. Service Requests

*For new service requests only. To manage existing requests, please log into COMiT.
Requests related to projects are initiated through the Request Project Services process.

5. Customer Responsibilities

The customer will use hardware capacity planning and management tools, recommend corrective action when needed, develop growth forecasts and develop capacity plans based on ensuring service level attainment.

For your convenience, you may view a detailed list of customer responsibilities  .

6. Chargeback Rate Information

For more information on Chargeback, including an overview of the program as well as current and previous fiscal year rates, please visit our Chargeback Services webpage.

Cost Framework: Virtualized Hosting

Direct Costs:

Indirect Costs:

Allocated Costs:

Adjustments:

Rates pertaining to this service offering include:

Download the cost framework for Virtualized Hosting   
Download a complete listing of all chargeback rates 

Updated December 10, 2012
Published August 14, 2009
Created March 23, 2009: Information provided by the Hosting Services Team