Western Carolina University Awards External Assessment – IT Dept Services RFP to OculusIT

Washburn University is a public university in Topeka, Kansas that offers undergraduate and graduate programs, as well as professional programs in law and business. Washburn has 550 faculty members, who teach more than 6,100 undergraduate students and nearly 800 graduate students.

Internally, ’they’re organized into five schools, the College of Arts & Sciences, the School of Applied Studies, the Business School, the School of Nursing, the School of Law, and the Washburn Institute of Technology (Washburn Tech.).

Western Carolina University’s Department of Information Technology rolled out an RFP in June 2019 and was looking for a company to provide external assessment for the department, including:

• Assess the services of the Data Center Services (DCS) Department in the Division of Information Technology (IT) organization
• Data Center Services Environment Assessment
• Security Risk Assessment
• Identify Improvement Strategies

Post rigorous evaluation via an RFP process, the University awarded OculusIT, due to OculusIT’s extensive experience with higher education institutions performing assessments in the domains of compliance, data protection, cybersecurity, data loss prevention, and security monitoring/breach notification implementations, augmenting their team capabilities to manage other strategic student engagement projects better.

OculusIT conducted an external data center and security risk assessment for the University within 5-6 weeks. Scope of services include:

• Assess the services of the Data Center Services (DCS) Department, including:
  • Data Center Servers and Storage
  • IT Internal Data Center Services Support
• Data Center Services Environment Assessment
  • Existing current environment documentation review
  • Assessment of the current staffing model, allocation, and management structure and conduct interviews.
  • IT Infrastructure Review including:
    • Security
    • Network Operating System Standards
      Server Deployment, Acquisition, and Maintenance Strategies
    • Storage
    • Server Backup/Recovery Capability
    • Server Architecture – current and planned
  • DCS processes review including:
    • Project Management Processes
    • Planning Processes and Tools
    • Communications Processes
    • Tracking and Reporting Processes (milestones, financial, outcomes achievement)
    • Risk Management
  • DCS Operation Support Processes review including:
    • Monitoring, Notifications, and Reporting
    • Technology Deployment and Support (Break/Fix)
    • Business Continuity / Disaster Recovery Planning
    • Technology Growth and Refresh Planning
    • Staff Skills Planning
  • One Workshop with the University representative to review, clarify, and refine the findings
  • Deliver a High-level assessment document of the current DCS department
• Security Risk Assessment
• Identify Improvement Strategies
• High-Level Assessment Report
• Overall Recommendations and Identify Improvement Strategies
  • IT Service Delivery Processes
  • IT Operations and Maintenance
  • IT Roles and Responsibilities
  • IT Organization Structure and Staffing

OculusIT™ is a global, managed IT and cloud services company that, together with its technology partners, serves more than 600 colleges and universities. Headquartered in Chicago, OculusIT™ has a delivery network and operations across North America and globally. 

For further information, please visit www.oculusit.com