By Arica Chhay, Jeff D’Ambrogia, Richard Gregory
Enterprise Challenges
Collaboration Services
Scientific Computing Services
Telecommunications Services
What’s Coming Next
Berkeley Lab is one of three national laboratories governed by both the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the Regents of the University of California (UC). Since 1931, effective operational management and strategic partnerships has developed the Lab into a world-class institution. The Information Technology (IT) Division carries on the Lab legacy of stewardship and collaboration not only through our everyday work but also by dedicated effort to procure significant savings for essential services, infrastructure, and technology. IT leaders are committed to reducing operations and computing costs so more Lab dollars are saved for science.
After joining Berkeley Lab in 1991, Richard Gregory grew into his current role as the group lead for the Telephone Services Center (TSC) and is one of IT’s go-to representatives when it comes to working with suppliers to assess our services. Alongside the appropriate finance procurement channels and contacts, Richard provides subject matter expertise for the acquisition of some of our most popular technologies in use at the Lab today, ranging from productivity to cloud services to telecommunications infrastructure.
“Our goal is to be a good steward of the funds allotted to us and to balance retention and growth with the latest IT services. We look for ways to bring better pricing for the Lab while keeping our business partners profitable.”
– Richard Gregory, Telephone Services Center (TSC) Lead, Berkeley Lab
Enterprise Challenges
The needs of a workforce shift along with scientific and socioeconomic developments. Some products become deeply embedded within an organization if many users depend on them. When a product is broadly adopted, it’s common to see companies raise pricing to offset the additional load on their resources. Lab operations services include a fair market rate analysis as part of the financial procurement practices with the aim being to align with official policy and maintain healthy and beneficial partnerships with suppliers.
One of the first hurdles to assess is whether an academic or government pricing option exists, and which plan fits the Lab’s needs and product user base best. Richard notes this process is oftentimes the lengthiest period of the discussion, requiring collaboration with a wide network of associates from several teams and an educational component to explain the DOE and UC management agreement.
Working with suppliers along with multiple institutions can present an array of challenges, such as differing policies, timelines, and priorities. It helps to identify managers who help keep the project on track. “Smaller issues tend to fall by the wayside when it comes to saving money,” Richard observed, whose next step is speaking to interested parties within the Lab and across affiliated organizations to determine the potential for volume pricing on an even greater scale. The Lab’s operations management makes it possible to take a collaborative approach with conducting business and to efficiently pool our resources.
IT works with Lab staff to assess internal enterprise needs and with the Procurement and Property department to obtain optimal pricing on supplier contracts.
Collaboration Services
ServiceNow provides the underlying software for the IT Help Desk ticket system and was one of the first companies Richard worked with to achieve savings breakthroughs, significantly reducing our fees from approximately $150 to $33 per Lab user. Richard led nearly 24 months of discussion including several UC and national laboratory representatives, with the current service agreement. Richard even worked with a sister Lab, Argonne, to have a national ServiceNow user group established so that labs could share development to further reduce operating costs. Our work to reduce Lab user fees is opening the door for further savings throughout the DOE complex.
At this stage, you’re likely familiar with Zoom, the audiovisual conferencing software for virtual meetings and events. Since COVID-19, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in reliance on virtual technology and audio visual (AV) services, changing how we work and interact with our colleagues at the Lab today. Where other labs are expecting price increases for Zoom and AV services, with estimates ranging from 10-25% and nearing or exceeding $100/year per user, IT has managed to maintain a competitive cost of $8/year per user coupled with a quick 3.5 month turnaround period to finalize discussions.
The Lab adopted Google Workspace for email and calendar services in 2010, Google’s rich suite of multi-platform business-grade tools are what we use to conduct day-to-day business so it’s important to ensure the integrity and sustainability of fundamental collaboration and productivity services. Agreements are continuously renewed to accommodate new factors and concerns. The most recent agreement was completed in about 8 months and outlines the volume pricing model for the next 5 years. In comparison to the previous pricing of $9 per user per month, the new model starts at $2 per user/month for the first 3 years then moves to $4 per user/month for years 4-5.
Scientific Computing Services
Taking a look at the 2022 Annual Lab Plan (Berkeley Lab login required), ScienceIT is prepared for increased data capacity needs due to the growing demand from research programs for midrange HPC and other scientific computing services. IT recently saved the Lab a minimum of 25% on related costs by supporting standardization of DOE requirements for on-premise storage solutions.
For resource heavy projects, researchers continue to find that cloud computing can be a highly scalable and effective solution without the need to purchase and manage your own server equipment.
ScienceIT maintains master payer contracts with both Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) to facilitate cloud use at Berkeley Lab.
Thanks to IT advocacy, about 100 cloud computing users will be enjoying more savings on cloud services. After a 14 month period of discussion, the AWS acquisitions team completed a DOE-wide agreement that will save the Lab nearly 25% in AWS costs over the next 5 years. Though AWS represents the majority of current activity, Google is catching up with Berkeley Lab being the largest consumer of GCP services across all the DOE laboratories. Usage of GCP continues to grow year over year at the Lab and IT has secured a new GCP service agreement that will add in savings of 25%-35% over the next 3 years. Additionally, the agreements with both AWS and GCP have data egress waivers in place that will provide up to 100% discounts on data egress fees, which is normally pain point for users who need to retrieve their data in the cloud.
Telecommunications Services
Robust telecommunications services is a critical priority for IT given the Lab’s distributed hybrid workforce.
Telephone Services has worked hard to bring interconnectivity to the traditional office phone by offering modern soft phone capabilities and new VoIP desk models. Avaya, the provider of most Lab office desk phones, delayed our initial timeline by nearly 18 months and as a result, ended up waiving a whopping $600k in project costs.
In another story of incredible savings for IT services, Richard and his team completed a multiyear project early in 2022 to improve Verizon cellular infrastructure and expand coverage across the Lab. Richard worked with Verizon and attained a complete waiver for the costs of our own tower at an estimated $1.3 million dollars. In exchange, real estate costs for the location of the tower are proportionately reduced for Verizon so it’s a winning situation for all parties.
Efforts to stabilize network coverage for other service providers are ongoing. AT&T microcellular antennas have been installed to improve cell signals when making calls inside many Lab buildings. For staff transiting between locations or using their device outdoors, the Networking group (LBLnet) is also working on adding more wireless antennas to improve exterior wi-fi connections.
What’s Coming Next
Moving forward, we want to keep providing access to the latest technology from brands you trust and rely on. Through this effort, we also reinforce Berkeley Lab’s goal to meet federal procurement obligations with small business suppliers.
Alignment with modernization efforts is a high priority as we celebrate over 90 years of Berkeley Lab. IT is making improvements to internal and external telecommunications in further support of our increasingly mobile workforce. We’re currently assessing the potential to expand infrastructure for additional cell service providers with minimized impact to our budget.
The IT Division is always looking at the best ways to help staff produce great science. In implementing cost-reduction efforts throughout the IT business strategy, we support the Lab’s scientific mission and guiding stewardship principles by preventing unnecessary spending so more funds can go into world-class research and discovery.
Questions or comments?
The IT Help Desk provides technical computer support to Berkeley Lab and can help answer questions related to IT Division services.
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