DePaul University Infrastructure Overview


This document outlines an overview of infrastructure at DePaul, for the purpose of providing information in various needed contexts, such as research documentation, gaining knowledge prior to engaging with Information Services for technology deployments, or for passing to vendors requesting data on what we possess.

General Datacenter Info

Number of Datacenters: 2

  • Non-Production (”CST”): Chicago, IL 
  • Production (”DFT”): Elk Grove Village, IL (co-located by Deft) 
 

 Hardware: 

  • Network/Firewall: Juniper (majority)  
  • Servers: Dell (majority), Supermicro

Virtualization 

Backup 

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Backup Footprint:

  • Approx. 1 PB in restore points
  • 500 TB source to backup (on-prem only) 


Recovery Point: Up to 90 days from date of backup

Hardware:

  • Virtualized Windows/Oracle Linux servers
  • HPE StoreOnce 5500 

 Monitoring/Logging

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Number of Monitored Servers: Approx. 800+ 

Logging per Day: 170 – 200GB 

Hardware: Virtualized Oracle Linux 

Types of Monitoring/Logging (not all-inclusive):

  • Up/down status
  • Critical services/applications 
  • System logs (security/application/events) 
  • Selected applications (ex. Wireless, Microsoft Exchange, PeopleSoft)
 
 
Cloud 
 

Major Areas:

  • Azure Enterprise (suite of services)
  • Azure Resource Manager (resource creation/access) 

Service Catalog Usage examples: 

  • AzureAD 
  • Azure Lab Services 
  • Azure Virtual Desktop 
  • Office 365 

Miscellaneous Info 

  • Approx. 25,000 students, faculty, and staff 
  • Mostly centralized IT 
  • Multi-campus: North Chicago Lincoln Park Campus (LPC), Downtown Chicago Loop Campus (Loop) 
  • Limited footprint in cloud with Microsoft Azure 
  • Customer base consists of both Academic/Research and Business Operations personnel 
  • Standard authentication and security access enforcement to resources through Microsoft Active Directory 
  • Regular maintenance through mechanisms such as monthly patching and regular usage auditing