Wow, what a first couple of weeks! I don’t think I’ve had that many conversations across so many different topics in such a short space of time in my career before. A true pleasure and incredibly exciting, while at the same time being terrifying!
Over the coming months, ETS - Enterprise Technology Services - will be introduced to you. Elanco relied almost completely on Lilly to provide its foundational infrastructure from networking through end devices. Going forward, ETS will fill that void and my aim is to be transparent while we do that and bring you along on the journey!
At the initial Town Hall we shared our organization chart with you. We will look to grow ETS to approximately 30 people in our “steady state” mode. We currently have 4 people hired, all currently based in the UK. I will introduce our team members and their roles throughout this series of Blogs. I will also make sure that job opportunities are well broadcast and communicated transparently.
This week’s focus is on sharing our priorities and highlighting some of the opportunities for you to learn about what we have worked on thus far, what decisions have been made and interestingly, how many bullets have been ordered for the office Nerf guns.
ETS Priorities
We have many things we need to consider over the coming two years and the scope of the department is vast - so much so, that we haven’t quite finished mapping it yet (to be shared in a future Blog post). However, there are some key dependencies that have driven our current priorities and are fundamental to all Elanco infrastructure to run our future.
Network – It’s not a sexy topic in most people’s eyes, but very necessary and there are actually some really cool things you can do with the network to improve our end-user experience. We have already made a decision to deploy SD-WAN, or Software Defined Wide Area Networking. There are a few advantages over more traditional connections such as MPLS, one being cost, but also the ability for true quality of service over our own connections and what we believe will be a measurable increase in performance for things like voice and video collaboration.
Co-Location Data Center – We won’t run our own data centers as there are companies out there that do this really, really well! Instead we will essentially ‘rent’ space in a data center to house all our applications as we move them across from Lilly-hosted locations. This design also allows for us to create ‘performance hubs’ through our data center provider, using their 200 locations to improve speed of access to our applications for Elanco employees.
Identity – Your login is pretty much taken for granted - you want to log into your machine and all the applications, services, collaboration and connectivity should just work! And you’re right, but the work in the background to make this seamless and a good experience is extensive and fairly complex. Everything we do will depend on having an ‘identity’ in Elanco and this is critical to get right and start early.
Cloud – We’ve all heard about the cloud. It’s actually been a ‘thing’ for over 15 years. Beliefs that the cloud is insecure or inherently risky are as out-dated as pre-Pythagorean Greeks believing the earth was flat. We will do everything in the Cloud in the future where we can scale quickly and have the flexibility to consume new technology and capabilities as soon as they are released.
ETS Transition Plan – We have released a transition plan and while nothing is 100% guaranteed at this time, will give you a good overall idea about when things should be happening in the ETS world and at what time!
How to find out more
I will be providing an update of what we are up to and more about ETS in a series of blog posts over the coming months. In the meantime, please look out for Matt Bull’s Video and Lunch and Learn sessions. Matt is our new CTO and very much a part of designing our new future here at Elanco.
Oh, and we have 100 bullets ordered for the office Nerf guns. It’s the ‘advantage’ of having students around.
Mike Henry
IT Director, Enterprise Technology Services