CIT to Begin Charging for SILK and Shadow Direct CPU

Effective October 2006, CIT will begin charging for the CPU time used by Secure Internet-LinKed (SILK) Web technology and Shadow Direct. SILK is a mainframe Web server hosting various applications such as Web RACF and Web Sponsor. Shadow Direct provides users with direct, SQL access to mainframe data and applications, such as the Data Warehouse.

Why is CIT charging for this service now?

When SILK and Shadow Direct services were first offered by the Data Center, we instituted only relatively minimal charges. As the years went by and users found that SILK offered an easy way to make information available to customers, they took applications that were initially implemented as Wylbur CPs and converted them to SILK. The software began consuming more and more of the CPU cycles available on our processors.

Because we have had to devote more CPU cycles to the SILK/Shadow Direct system, it became necessary to expand our capacity. Increasingly, our software is being priced according to the CPU capacity of the particular partition, so our software costs have been going up. As the NIH Data Center operates on a strict cost-recovery basis, it has become necessary for us to begin charging for the CPU used by this software.

How charges will be calculated

Charges for SILK/Shadow Direct will be calculated per user, per day. To give customers time to adjust to this change, we will initially rebate 100% of the SILK/Shadow Direct CPU charges. This will allow customers significant opportunity to monitor their SILK/Shadow Direct usage and to plan accordingly.

Starting in October 2006, invoices will include the SILK/Shadow Direct charges as part of the Interactive charges. There will be a new line on the invoice showing the amount of the temporary rebate. Starting October 2007, the rebate will no longer apply and the invoice will reflect the full charge for SILK/Shadow Direct CPU usage.

The rates for SILK/Shadow Direct will be as follows:

Have questions?

If you have any questions, please contact the NIH Help Desk at 301-496-4357, 866-319-4357 (toll free), or 301-496-8294 (TTY), or via email at ithelpdesk@nih.gov.