(De)Centralized

“The primary motivation for the decentralized model is to give the individual departments better or more customized service through having a stronger relationship with the SAs and more control over the work that they do. The primary motivation for centralizing system administration is to control costs through tracking costs centrally and then reducing them by eliminating redundancy and taking advantage of economies of scale”

– The Practice of System and Network Administration, Thomas A. Limoncelli and Christine Hogan.

Bingo. But can there be a third hybrid model?

I currently represent the decentralized model and I must agree with these two fine authors that the benefit of my close working relationship with the individual department/group is that the service provided is highly customized and focused. The central IT department(s) are understandably focused on large-scale issues (“Infrastructure”, “Communications”, “Collaboration”, “Applications”) and as such do not always represent the most ideal channel for delivery of IT services to the various research groups and departments on campus, often with more nuanced, specialized and micro-level issues.

One of my developing long-term goals is to (warning: business jargon) “bridge the gap” between the focused local support that I currently represent and the value proposition(s) of centralized IT services. I’m not yet entirely certain of how to accomplish this but I am certain that there is a way to improve the delivery of IT services to researchers across all our campuses and I want to be involved.

Does such an approach warrant the definition of a third hybrid model or is this so-called bridging of the gap already encapsulated in the model of centralized vs. decentralized?

Some of the challenges I face specifically as a “standalone” decentralized sysadmin on campus are:

• Dealing with all IT needs from desktop support to infrastructure development to data security
• Developing and maintaining vendor contacts and relationships
• No immediate peers in our environment to bounce specific ideas around with
• Weak purchasing power and negotiation leverage
• Duplication of effort
• Career progression is potentially limited
• All too easy to develop a “King of the Castle” attitude
• Complacency

Some of the concerns I hear about when introducing researchers to the idea of centralized IT support:

• General lack of trust/faith in the centralized IT department
• Perceived lack of personal attention and focus (turn around times, site knowledge, etc.)
• Perceived lack of “control” over their environment (and data!) under the centralized model
• Charge-back models for IT services are viewed as grant-unfriendly
• Physical hardware ownership appears to remain important for many researchers

Of course, this is but a snapshot of the challenges I face and the concerns I’ve been hearing but they do serve as decent examples. It must also be noted that I am seeing great progress is many of these areas already because there are very bright people here already working on these challenges. My interest in this field is absolutely not unique.

For the immediate future, I’m focusing on improving my collaborations and communication with centralized IT services by helping them out where I can and leaning on them more often for our localized problems. My hope is that by constantly forging a closer working relationship will increasingly expose me (and in turn, our group) to the benefits of the centralized IT model while providing the central IT group with greater insight into our environment and how we work.

The next steps are still a mystery to me but I’m keeping my eyes open for new opportunities to bring better IT to research.

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