Overview

Background

The Perspective system supports recording, reporting (including auto emails to Fire and Safety) and despatching Security personnel in support of Health & Safety (H&S) incidents in Estates (including Bush and Little France), e.g. students stolen bike  or fire in a building.  The system is supported by Resolver, a Canadian based company (company main site, is at this link) .  The annual maintenance contract includes ten concurrent user licences. 67 security staff are registered to use the system.  During out of normal working hours there are on average ten staff that could be available to use the system.  During working hours this is increased to eighteen.  Resolver software support will end 31/07/2022 unless Estates upgrade to latest software and move to Microsoft Edge browser.  The Windows Server 2012R2 standard was installed in Feb 2013 and it is aslo recommended to move to replacement Windows VM Server 2019. 

The provider Resolver supports Perspectice delivered on a dedicated Server and SAAS solution.  Estates Security have confirmed that the Resolver SasS solution does not meet their required Data Protection requirements.  For this reason an on-premises solution has been chosen for this upgrade. 

The current version also has some reliability issues. Issues have been logged with the Estates Help Desk on  workflow and email failures due to database connection issues which required a re-boot to  fix.  It is the right time to take on this upgrade. 

After speaking with Resolver it was confirmed that a software upgrade is required to  maintain support. This includes server upgrades and software upgrade.

Scope

Commission five Servers that will be procured via the University Virtual Hosting Service by IS to support the database and application:

• Two new windows 2019 application servers (one TEST and one LIVE)
• Three new SQL servers (one TEST and two LIVE for resilience) 

Recommended spec. have been identified by IS (Alister Webb) taken from a mix of what is already in use plus Resolvers recommendation, https://resolver.app.box.com/v/PSVSystemRequirements59.

We would need vendor support for:

• Build of new system on a new Windows Server 2019 VM
• Software upgrades to the latest version 5.9,
• Access to instructions and support if required to move database to the new server and enable functionality
• Testing and signing off resilience solution including failover and failback 
• Deliver training on new system (train the Senior User)

Estates Senior User will support:

• Validation and sign off of function and data in Test to support move to live.
• Train users.
• Validate user terminal meets third party recommended specification (confirmed Alistair Campbell 21st April 2022)
• Validation and sign off of function and data in live to support decommission existing servers and close project.

Out of scope

• Adding additional users to the Perspective contract.  ACE and Fire & Safety have indicated an interest in this application.  Plans to extend access to these users will be revisited post go live.
• A Windows 2019 application server for application tier resilience has not been requested by Estates Security as this is not part of the current offering,  Further  dicussions will be had between ISG and Estates Security to review this offering.

Objectives and Deliverables

Purchase of servers will be delivered in line with UoE, Estates, ISG requirements

Project will be managed and delivered in line with ISG standards, processes and tools

The overall objective is to move to the latest software version to maintain third party support.

Benefits

• Improved system performance and reliability, that meets Estates expectations.
• Removes the risk of  system downtime.
• Continuous support from third party, Resolver. 
• Use of Perspective report functionality.  

Success Criteria

• New software version delivered to live.
• Estates users fully trained.
• Estates making use of additional Reporting functionality.  
• Project delivers within 21/22 Financial Year budget.
• Perspective servers and software decommissioned.
• Users continued access to legacy data.

Project Milestones