Southampton to lead national project to develop IT as a Utility      

As part of a major £1.5 million investment by the Research Councils UK (RCUK) Digital Economy Programme, a consortium of UK universities, led by the University of Southampton, is to establish a research network focusing on the challenge of IT as a Utility (ITaaU).

IT as a Utility is about the provision of information and technology in a transparent and highly usable manner and broadband access applications are increasingly used on both a personal level – social networking, email accounts and commercial level to support business practices and manage databases.

The three-year ITaaU Network+ project will work towards simple, usable and safe IT provision from smart services, surroundings and information stores. It will also examine the perceived barriers that inhibit new users of these services.

The consortium is led by Professor Jeremy Frey from the University of Southampton, with co-investigators Professor Mark Sandler (Queen Mary, University of London), Professor Gerard Parr (University of Ulster), Dr Michael Surridge (University of Southampton) and Dr Richard Mortier (University of Nottingham).

Professor Jeremy Frey comments: “IT as a Utility is closely related to Grid and Cloud Computing with its emphasis on making IT resources effortlessly and almost invisibly available the end user. Cloud models for access to applications and infrastructure are now well established, and are changing the way users interact with applications, especially where the application is accessible from multiple devices and users.

“Users access not just utility storage but rich and complex utility content, including live sensor data, user participation and ‘just in time’ personalised media. This will be managed and exploited by a wide range of interacting applications and autonomous agents interacting with consumer-usable end-points that aren't always computers or mobile phones.”