Teamwork between the UGA administration and Enterprise Information Technology Systems has earned the 2008 SHARE Award for Excellence in Technology. UGA received the award for enhancing customer service while reducing costs associated with applications hosted on the university’s IBM mainframe.
“This is a great honor for our team,” said Chris Fleming, an IT associate director with EITS. “Communication was a key factor in making this such a success. Everyone was on the same page and working toward the same goals. This is truly a team award.”
Shannon Marable, an IT manager for EITS, said that UGA was able to upgrade the current mainframe to a faster computer while saving software costs by paying for actual use of software on a monthly basis (sub-capacity pricing).
“In researching for the next-generation mainframe, we discovered that running a 64-bit operation system on an IBM zSeries mainframe would enable us to take advantage of the sub-capacity pricing metric for select IBM software,” she said. “Given the tight budget times, the potential for cost savings was very attractive. We discussed the potential cost savings with UGA administrators, and they agreed to fund the initiative. Upgrading to the 64-bit machine, along with sub-capacity pricing, led to both a substantial increase in performance and a dramatic decrease in monthly costs.”
