Working smarter together through modernization & federation

A message from Lois Brooks, vice provost for information technology and chief information officer:

Technology continues to reshape how we learn, teach, conduct research and operate as a university. As UW–‍Madison’s technology needs grow more complex, our IT community faces both a challenge and an opportunity: How can we work together most effectively to serve the university’s mission?

At UW–‍Madison, our distributed IT workforce is a source of strength and innovation. The expertise embedded within schools, colleges and divisions brings specialized knowledge essential to meeting the unique needs of diverse academic and research communities across the university.

As we look to the future, the challenge before us is how to continue tapping into the advantages of distributed expertise while reducing the university’s risk as technology becomes more interconnected, security threats become more sophisticated and resources become more constrained. With data breaches in higher education costing institutions an average of $3.5 million per incident, according to IBM research, we can’t afford to approach cybersecurity in isolation. Over time, the university has created redundant technology environments. These systems increase expenses and require staff time across the university to manage. As the university works to reduce administrative costs, we in the IT community can identify efficiencies without compromising service quality.

Research on IT deployment models shows that simply cobbling together centralized and decentralized functions is ineffective in the modern higher education IT landscape. We need a more nuanced approach.

That’s where federation comes in. A federated model isn’t centralization by another name—it’s about creating structured partnerships that respect local expertise while building shared capabilities that benefit everyone.

Federation in practice

What might a more federated IT model look like at UW–‍Madison? The Active Directory Migrations Program provides a compelling example already in progress.

This initiative brings the university’s distributed directory environments into the Campus Active Directory environment while preserving features that support local research and education needs. Participating department IT administrators can ensure program needs are met by allowing them to assign group policies, manage security groups, and deploy software specific to their needs.

Meanwhile, the university benefits from reduced security risks through a smaller attack surface, consistent security policies, and enhanced monitoring capabilities. The project has saved the university about $112,000 per month so far by migrating 30 department servers, and has the potential to save another $139,000 monthly. Savings like that can make a big difference in times like these.

As we look to UW’s future, this kind of federated approach offers several key advantages:

Shared infrastructure with local control: Common platforms and services that meet security and compliance requirements, but with the flexibility for each unit to customize how they’re used to meet specific needs.
Scalability and domain expertise: As organizations grow more complex, the federated model scales effectively by distributing workload across multiple teams while leveraging the expertise of subject matter experts within each business unit. This means better support for our diverse teaching, learning and research activities.
Coordinated security with local flexibility: A unified approach to cybersecurity that protects our entire digital ecosystem while respecting the unique requirements of different units.
Layered service models: Many IT services, especially those directly supporting research, education and the academic environment, can be “horizontally layered”—with locally managed service components built on institutional service components to form complete solutions.
Innovation at the edges: When local units can focus less on maintaining basic infrastructure and more on creating specialized solutions, innovation flourishes.

A people-first approach

I know I say this a lot, but it bears repeating: as we look to the university’s IT future, the most important factor is our people. The strength of our IT community comes from our collaborative, mission-driven culture and our commitment to leading from where we are—making the workplace better for colleagues, launching new projects and providing excellent services.

Our approach to federation must prioritize people by:

Continuing to provide development and leadership opportunities across all IT roles
Creating clear pathways for communication and collaboration between units
Recognizing and valuing both specialized and enterprise-wide expertise
Ensuring that those closest to the work have a voice in decisions

By working together more effectively, we extend the reach and impact of our technology. We create more resilient systems that support groundbreaking research, enhance student success, protect sensitive data and make our operations more efficient—all of which allows the university to carry out the Wisconsin Idea’s invitation to serve the state and beyond.

Together, we can build a future where our distributed IT workforce and central IT services complement and strengthen each other, creating something greater than the sum of its parts.

— Lois

This is part of our Envision the Future blog series examining key technology trends and opportunities in higher education. Join us each month as we explore different facets of UW–‍Madison’s IT future.

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Federation in practice

A people-first approach

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