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Annex A
Services Provided by UKMS
UK Mirror Service
Service Level Definitions
1st August 2002 - 31st July 2003
CONTENTS
Definitions
Reporting Format
All performance reports shall be delivered to the MU in machine
readable form in a format defined in the document "Format for
performance reports to the MU"
Maintenance Time
All the continuously available services shall normally be
scheduled to be available 365 days a year (or 366 days in a Leap
Year) and 24 hours per day. If, under exceptional circumstances,
planned maintenance requires a service closure, times shall be
published at least two weeks in advance to all client
institutions.
As far as possible, maintenance times will be performed on a
single-site basis (allowing the remaining site to offer a full
service at reduced capacity) and shall fall during the "at risk"
period from 0700 to 0900 hours on Tuesdays. In all cases planned
maintenance will not be taken between the hours of 0900 and 1800
hours during weekdays, and all other known or predicted peak
periods shall be avoided. Service availability shall be
calculated on the basis of scheduled availability (i.e. the time
when the service was actually available to users divided by the
time when it was scheduled to be available). Planned maintenance
of any service component averaged over a twelve-month period is
not expected to exceed the total available 'at risk' hours.
Staffed periods
The service will be staffed from 09.00 to 17.00 hours on
weekdays, excluding the following public holidays:
| New Year's Day | Last Monday in August |
| Good Friday | Christmas Day |
| Easter Monday | Boxing Day |
and all other days over the Christmas and New Year period when the Universities of Lancaster or Kent are officially closed.
A1 Mirror Services
A1.1 Basic Mirror Service
Specification
The UK Mirror Service will provide freely available data,
including software, databases, audio material, static and moving
picture images and Web page based information obtained mostly
from sources external to the JANET network.
The UK Mirror Service will provide facilities for accessing, searching and downloading of this data via the JANET network, primarily for the purpose of increasing user awareness of and providing easy access to non chargeable material, reducing the need for random user searches of the internet, and reducing usage of the heavily subscribed international communications links.
It is an objective of the UK Mirror Service to provide
interworking with the JANET WWW Cache Service to enable user ftp
requests directed at mirror sources to be redirected at the
Mirror Service.
Service Levels
The data will be distributed across the two sites at Lancaster
and Kent, with some duplication to provide service resilience and
load sharing. Normally all of the file store will be duplicated.
In the event that the available file store is exceeded, then
duplication will be reduced to cover the most heavily downloaded
mirrors as measured on a historical basis.
The system configuration at each site comprises a Sun E450, with disk capacity of 840 Gbytes, a Sun Ultra 30, with disc capacity of 200 Gbytes, and a number of Intel Pentium IIs acting as caching front-end machines.
This service will be continuously available, subject to the 'at risk' period on Tuesdays from 0700 to 0900 hours.
Each item within the mirror file store will be tagged with the
date and time when it was last compared with the origin site.
Comparison with the origin site will be carried out nightly,
every working day.
Performance Indicators
a) Availability
- for the whole service 99.7%
- per non-duplicated mirror 99%
- per duplicated mirror 99.5%
where a mirror is the collection of files obtained from one supplier source
b) Mean Time between Failure
- for the whole service greater than 2000 hours
- per non-duplicated mirror greater than 1000 hours
- per duplicated mirror greater than 1500 hours
c) data updates identified and applied to the mirror filestore within 30 hours
d) Response time to users
- start to load (defined as the time period between receipt of data request by the service front end machine and the return of the first byte to the network switch linking the server to the JANET gateway) will be less than 1 second
- delivery of data to the switch linking the server to the JANET network will be at the rate of not less than 16.7k bytes per second per request, where the maximum number of concurrent requests does not exceed 500 and 50 at Lancaster and Kent respectively.
Reporting
Actual performance for a) and
b) above
Exception reports for c) above
Sample reports for d) above
Number of files fetched and volume of data fetched by users for
the whole service shown by nominated time periods for each
day
Number of files served and volume of data served, by
institution by month
Number of files and volume of data imported from the origin host
by mirror by month
Number of files served and volume of data served by mirror by
month
Annual report of the total number of files, mirrors and volume
of data held
Annual report of the number of files and volume of data held per
mirror
A1.2 Collection Development
Specification
Working within the JISC collections policy, and the collections
policy to be agreed with the UK Mirror Service Steering Group,
the UK Mirror Service will identify potential new mirror sites,
establish agreements for the acquisition of new collections/items
and, where appropriate, the subsequent update of content, and
incorporate these items into the Mirror filestore.
The Mirror Service will work with the Resource Discovery Network (RDN) to identify collections that should be mirrored, and to ensure that links to these mirrored sites are included in the on-line services being developed and maintained by the RDN hubs.
The Collections index will be compatible with the Distributed
National Electronic Resource (DNER) and based on appropriate
international standards.
Performance Indicators
a) Fully incorporated into the basic service new
collections by the announced/ published target date
b) justified cost benefit analysis for new
collections
c) added value as perceived by users
Reporting
Actual performance for a) above
List of new mirrors (name and description)
List of new agreements achieved, being negotiated
Annual report to the Content Working Group of the JISC Committee on Electronic Information providing a cost benefit analysis of new mirrors.
Annual report on the user perceived value, currency and scope of the collections offered
A1.3 Indexing and Referencing
Specification
The UK Mirror Service will maintain a Collections index with
appropriate links to enable users to selectively access content
for browsing and downloading purposes. User access will be
provided via Web based indexes organised appropriately, e.g. for
software, by subject and by platform.
Performance Indicators
a) accuracy
b) ease of use and quality as perceived by
users
Reporting
Sample reports for a) above
Number of accesses to Collections index
Annual report on the user perceived accuracy, ease of use and quality of the indexes.
A1.4 Links to Other Mirrors
Specification
The UK Mirror Service will seek links with other mirror sites
with an appropriate quality of service and of benefit to the HE
community and will incorporate entries in the collections index
to provide reference for user access.
It is the intention in the future to evaluate the feasibility of the UK Mirror Service administering a small fund to encourage the integration of volunteer mirror sites within the HE community with an appropriate quality of service.
Performance Indicators
a) Added value of links to new sites as
perceived by users
b) Completion of funded integrations within
agreed cost and timescale
Reporting
List of mirror sites newly linked and indexed categorised by HE
and non HE site
Annual list of linked mirror sites
If, in the future, the UK Mirror Service has a small fund to
administer:
List of volunteer mirror sites allocated funding, the funding
amount and funding purpose.
Annual report of the administration and financial outturn of the
small fund, with a summary of each funded integration
project.
A1.5 Link to the JANET WWW Cache Service
Specification
It is the intention in the future that the UK Mirror Service will
link to the JANET WWW Cache Service and receive and handle
requests received for mirror data (primarily ftp
requests)
Performance Indicators
Reporting
A1.6 Technical Development
Specification
A programme of continuing development will be undertaken to
provide value added services primarily concerned with more
extensive searching techniques across mirrors, handling new
collection types, creating 'intelligent' links to other relevant
network services
This programme will be agreed annually with the National
Mirror Service Steering Group
Performance Indicators
a) Developments completed successfully within
agreed costs and timescale.
Reporting
List of new/updated developments implemented
Copies of the reports on progress on technical developments, to
be included in the quarterly report immediately following the
Steering Group meeting.
Annual report on the Development Programme
A1.7 Liaison with other Network Services
Specification
The UK Mirror Service will liaise closely with
- JANET WWW Cache Service to ensure cache requests are directed
to mirrors when appropriate to maximise savings
- RDN and other subject based internet gateways and CTI (Computer
in Teaching Initiative) Centres to identify potential new
mirrors
- UKERNA to identify possible bandwidth needs and to bid for
additional funds to increase these
Performance Indicators
Advancement of plans to develop the link with the JANET WWW Cache
Service, development of the mirror collection, adequate
accessibility to the UK Mirror Service.
Reporting
Annual report on the value of liaison perceived by the UK Mirror
Service.
A2 Infrastructure Services
A2.1 User Support
Specification
The UK Mirror Service will provide a single point of telephone,
email and fax contact to deal with user enquiries.
Service Levels
The telephone helpline will be staffed during normal office hours
and by answerphone at other times.
Performance Indicators
a) Users able to log enquiries at any time
b) Initial responses to
- telephone enquiries within 4 working hours
- email or fax within 1 working day
Reporting
Number of enquiries, broken down by telephone, email and fax and
by category.
Number of enquiries outstanding after 1 week, after 1 month.
A2.2 Documentation
Specification
The UK Mirror Service will provide appropriate on-line user
documentation to provide on line help facilities for the use of
the Mirror Services.
Performance Indicators
Comprehensive documentation accurate and up to date
Reporting
Annual list of online documentation
A2.3 Publicity
Specification
The UK Mirror Service will widely publicise its services in
accordance with the JISC PR Strategy
Performance Indicators
a) Evidence of publicity events held, attendance
at relevant user group meetings, workshops and conferences
b) regular newsletter
Reporting
Copies of all newsletters released
Annual list of publicity events held, with number of
attendees
Annual list of events attended and papers published
A2.4 Operations and Technical Support and Network Connectivity
A2.4.1 Operations and Technical Support
Specification
The UK Mirror Service will be responsible for the day to day
running of hardware and communication equipment. The Service will
raise fault reports with the relevant supplier for any faults and
will escalate problems as appropriate. The Service will be
responsible for taking regular filestore backups.
The UK Mirror Service will be responsible for maintaining
operating system, and mirror data handling and filestore
administration software.
Service Levels
The UK Mirror Service will be continuously available and run in
'unattended' mode during unstaffed periods.
The UK Mirror Service hardware and communications equipment is based at Lancaster and at Kent. The systems based at each location are as follows:
At each site:
1 Sun Enterprise 450 with 3 processors and 1 Gbyte memory
RAID arrays attached to the Enterprise 450s: 2 of 144 Gbytes, 2
of 288 Gb and 1
of 432 Gb
1 Sun Ultra 30 with 384 Mbytes memory and 200 Gbytes of standard
filestore.
Intel P3 systems, 800 MHz, each with at least 128 Mbytes memory
and 32 Gbytes
filestore, acting as caching front-ends: at least 6 distributed
across both
sites.
Performance Indicators
Service machines and communications facilities will be available
99% of scheduled service uptime
Reporting
Number of breaks in service per machine. Machine downtime per
break
Number of periods and length of time per period per machine for
scheduled downtime
A2.4.2 Network Connectivity
Specification
At each site the UK Mirror Service equipment is interconnected
via a dedicated LAN comprising 100 Mbps Ethernet segment. At each
site, the switch controlling the dedicated LAN is directly
connected to the site's JANET gateway. Each site's LAN
specification is capable of supporting over 500 users each
transferring data at up to
1 Mbyte per minute; however, the connection from each site to
JANET constrains activity below this level
Performance Indicators
The LANs will be available 99% of scheduled service uptime
The LANs will have sufficient capacity to maintain quoted local
response times
Reporting
Number of breaks in service per site. Length of time per
break.
Sample reports on LAN performance.
