Software Depot

Sponsor:  Software Licensing Subcommittee of ITPG and Instructional Computing

Summary

The Software Depot service provides the campus with a one-stop shop for software available at educational and/or volume discounts. Since its inception two years ago it has been run by Instructional Computing (IC) with roughly 50% FTE of donated staffing. In these two years of operation, Software Depot has saved departments across campus more than $150k over traditional vendor pricing.

Due to a number of reasons, IC can no longer support this service with internal funding and donated FTE. These reasons include an increasing demand for discounted software, a growing burden in both the number and complexity of managing campus and UC-wide licenses, and the recognition of legal obligations required for the coordination of large-scale purchases. As a result, the original 50% FTE donated to the service has grown to over a full FTE in demand.

The ITPG Software Licensing Subcommittee has come up with a number of recommendations for the formation of a sustainable Office of Software Licensing. These recommendations have been broken up into two phases of development, to be funded either as a whole or separately.

In the initial phase of development, ongoing funding is requested to provide a dedicated mid-level CNT to the service. Initially these funds would be used to hire a contract programmer to enhance Software Depot’s online shopping and order management system. Currently, order management is handled in multiple database systems (FileMaker, Excel, web/SQL). By extending the existing web/SQL order management system to consolidate the functions of other databases, the service can be run more efficiently. After the modifications to the order management system have been completed, these funds would be used to hire a CNT position as manager of the service. IC has announced that many of the resource-consuming components of the service will have to be discontinued if funding is not available for these “Phase One” enhancements.

For the second phase of development, ongoing funding is requested to provide for the expansion of the service into a true Office of Software Licensing. This expansion of has been separated into groups of required and desired services as envisioned by the Software Licensing Subcommittee. These services are tabulated as follows:

Desired Services	Staffing	Time	Status
Coordination of departmental licensing efforts.	AA		N
Coordination of joint ventures with the bookstore.	AA		N
Provision of technical analysis, research, evaluations and recommendations for proposed software licenses.	CNT		N
Provision of a campus-wide license server.	CNT		N
Enhanced record keeping to provide more access and information to departmental administrators.	CNT		N
Core funding for true campus-wide software purchases.	CNT		N

How This Project Supports the Academic Mission

Well over 100 academic and administrative departments across campus use the Software Depot service. In addition to the savings provided, a central service streamlines departmental operations in many ways. Software Depot’s online ordering system provides a single point for software ordering without requiring that the department have any interaction with the off-campus reseller. Primarily, the Software Depot both simplifies the process of software acquisition while providing significant savings.

As software licensing agreements have increased in complexity, such as with the new campus agreement with Microsoft, the ability of individual departments to coordinate and maintain a knowledge base of these agreements and ensure compliance has been outstripped. Additionally, auditing standards require that departments maintain licensing records for all installed software. The Software Depot simplifies this aspect of departmental operations by providing ongoing records for all purchases made through the service.

The Phase One allocation is designed to keep the basic service as it exists today afloat, which results in a savings of both departmental finances and man-hours. Phase Two furthers these efforts in generating savings and efficiency by providing for the most-requested needs of departmental technical staff.

Funding Source

A funding source for the proposed development and expansion of the service is unknown.

Costs

Phase One: $50k annually, initially to cover contract programming costs and ongoing for support of a single FTE as service manager. Ongoing funds would need to escalate appropriately to cover merit, equity, and range adjustments.

Phase Two: $40k annually to cover additional AA-level FTE, also escalating to cover merit, equity, and range adjustments; $5k annually to fund a contingency budget. An additional $10k annually may be needed to cover departmental overhead, depending on where the service is eventually located.

Matching Opportunities

The hardware and staff time required to design, develop, and run the existing Software Depot order management system has been provided by IC. This support will continue through the first phase of development. After the hiring of the career CNT in phase one the new FTE would continue the service.

Staff Support Required

Phase One: One FTE as described above.

Phase Two: One additional FTE as described above.

Existing Resources to Be Used

The planned extension of the order management system will be based on existing code developed by IC and initially run on hardware purchased and maintained by IC. The new CNT will be housed and trained at IC until phase two funding is received, at which point an appropriate location will be decided by the advisory committee.

Project Timeline

The Software Depot service is currently in production. It is expected that the design, development, and testing of the extended order management system planned for in Phase One would take approximately one year.

Coordination of Phase Two would begin following Phase One. Estimating a timeline for this expansion is difficult without a decision of where an expanded Office of Software Licensing would be housed.

Life Cycle of Result

Some incarnation of the Software Depot service will be provided for the forseeable future, regardless of the funding of this proposal. However, without extra-departmental funding, major components of the service will be phased out beginning January 2002.

¹Status

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