The IT Service Group of the Department of Computer Science (isginf) is the main responsible for the IT infrastructure of the department. It consists of ten highly qualified members who are in charge of managing the various aspects of the IT infrastructure from purchasing and repairing hardware to developing, deploying, and operating various central services through the administration of several hundreds of workstations.

One of the main strategic goals of isginf is to provide high quality IT services to the whole department to allow the users (i.e., D-INFK professors, PhD and undergraduate students, and staff) to concentrate on their main tasks (i.e., research, teaching/learning, and administration). The success of isginf in pursuing this goal has not only been attested by a recent survey, but it is also confirmed by the continuously increasing number of D-INFK members making use of the services provided.

To avoid duplication, isginf outsources (still providing first-level support to its users) some basic services to the IT Services of ETH Zurich. Furthermore, this enables isginf to devote its resources and capabilities to develop bleeding edge solutions in particular areas. For this reason, isginf is considered to be one of the most innovative and solid IT Service Groups at the ETH Zurich and, as a consequence, it get mandates from the IT Services of ETH Zurich and other departments to work on specific projects and solutions.

To achieve high-availability, security, and scalability, isginf develops its concepts and solutions focusing on good practices, standardization, integration, reproducibility, automation, and proactive problem management. The attention to these aspects led isginf to work on new ideas and strategies how to deploy IT services. One example is iiBricks, the ongoing program to leverage isginf experience and portfolio to provide a new level of IT services within ETH Zurich. By encapsulating services and applications into well-structured and packaged building blocks ("bricks"), isginf does not only elevate the quality of service for its customers but also allows other institutions within ETH Zurich to take advantage of its work.

The main challenges for the future are to constantly improve the service quality, to proactively respond to the future needs of the users, and to further optimize the internal processes. isginf will confront those challenges continuously expanding and updating the personal skills, and also introducing additional elements of the ITIL Framework.