ITPG meeting minutes, 5/23/02
Present: Mark Aldenderfer, Arlene Allen, Larry
Carver, Glenn Davis, William Doering, Doug Drury, Matt Dunham, Bill Koseluk,
Deborah Dawicki, Tom Lawton, Tom Marazita, Elise Meyer, Linda Moskovitz, Joan
Murdoch, Stan Nicholson, Michael Oliva, Fuzzy Rogers, Glenn Schiferl, Chris
Sneathen, Jamie Sonsini, Paul Weaklien, Craig Welsh
Arlene reported that work is progressing on the new web user interface. She and Matt Dunham are also working with the Registrar’s office, determining the nature of what data takes precedence and how it should be released. A massive set of “truth tables” is being created, consisting of UMAIL and the LDAP directory, which together it is hoped will end up with a publishable set of information. It is hoped that Arlene’s and Matt's web pages will point to each other. The UCOP Authorization RFQ is still circulating in rough draft form, and although there is no tentative due date, early June is hoped for.
FACULTY SURVEY:
The faculty survey went out last week; the Chancellor is to send an email note encouraging faculty to complete it. Some responses have already been received.
Glenn Davis reported on the
quarterly Joint Operations Group (JOG) meeting whose attendees represented all
campuses and labs. The RFP for a portal
content management system has been sent out, responses have been returned, and
4 finalists have been chosen. Meetings
have been scheduled in Oakland most of next week (seats are available if anyone
is interested in attending), and recommendations are expected by the end of the
first week in June. Questions arose
regarding OP funding for portal/content management systems. It also appeared to the ITPG that starting
with the portal rather than the authorization package is backwards. Reports regarding ongoing discussions will
be coming soon. David Walker has moved to OP/IT and is reconvening the
directory group to try and get it going.
PKI (Public Key
Infrastructure) is happening on some campuses such as UCLA, UCSD, and UC
Irvine. Presentations are being
prepared for systemwide.
Doug reported that UCOP is
very interested in E-Procurement. Each
campus has performed an analysis but there is no justification on the benefits
of such a program except for UCLA, which already has a system in place. UCLA, UCSF, UCSD, and UCSC are getting
together and verifying the results of the analysis. The possibility of partnering with UCLA in order to combine
resources is technically feasible, and San Diego and Santa Cruz are actively
pursuing this avenue. Donna Carpenter
(UCSB Accounting) may be interested as well.
Sociologically, an agreement needs to be reached on issues such as
processes, licenses, etc.
There are two suggestions
related to HRIS implementation: either enhance PPS, or replace it. Both have
huge costs (approx. $86M) UCOP needs better access to data in order to
effectively deal with labor union issues.
The current proposal is to enhance PPS to provide more detail, access to
history, define action codes, establish a front-end web page, and expose the
data to a UC-wide data warehouse.
BUDGET:
The good news is that core
funding and capital funding is protected.
The bad news is that there are targeted cuts in the areas of
infrastructure and outreach. Cuts to
permanent Internet2 funding are anticipated to be in the neighborhood of
7-30%. Both permanent and one-time
Internet2 funds are used to support the WAN, IBW and NGB initiatives. OIT has responded to UCOP’s request
regarding current commitments. No
response has been received to date.
GARTNER RENEWAL:
For the last two years, OIT
funded a 7-seat Gartner subscription for $19,500/year. Both the terms and the cost have changed for
the next 3-year subscription period.
The new terms include 2 full-access seats, access to 95% of Gartner’s
materials (no longer limited to educational data), and a CD-ROM service that we
could post on our internal network and make available to all faculty, staff and
students. And the new cost is
$27,000/year. We have also been offered
an additional semi-full access seat as a “good customer” discount. Given the budget situation and the fact that
there is competition in the market, UCOP advises that we refuse to renew under
this offer and negotiate for a better deal.
The question was raised as to the feasibility of “passing the hat” if we
cannot obtain better pricing, keeping in mind that current subscription funding
is from Internet II allocations. It was
pointed out that we could not “piggyback” with another campus. It was decided that we should research the
best cost, consider the funds available, check out the competition, and then
make a final decision.
PATRIOT ACT:
Under the Patriot act,
system administrators can independently request police investigations of
computer records. A committee, which
includes Mark, has been formed at UCSB to deal with Patriot Act requests. A memo will be forthcoming identifying
point people as contacts. In dealing
with situations, when in doubt, consider the ECP, go up the chain of command,
and “do the right thing”. Questions
should be forwarded to the OIT.
KaZaA:
KaZaA has greatly affected
the ISP usage (and costs) at other campuses.
At Irvine the increase was due to KaZaA running on 5 compromised
systems. At Berkeley the increase was
due to a negligible use on each machine, which aggregated to a large amount of
traffic by the campus as a whole.
Berkeley began to identify systems running KaZaA and went to the
departments to have them investigate and stop the usage. These tactics brought up ECP questions, with
the issue of whether or not the port number should be considered as part of the
content or transaction data.
A new version of KaZaA
involves entering into an agreement to make a user’s hard drive and bandwidth
available to KaZaA. The effect for
campus users is that they are trading resources (bandwidth) that they don’t
own. Although KaZaA has filed
bankruptcy, they have unloaded their technical infrastructure and are still
alive and well. Be cautious regarding
your rights to access data and content.
Currently UCSB departments should be advised to notify users not to use
KaZaA, if traffic is detected on their systems.
ONI:
The latest development is
that seismic work on the Los Carneros Bridge could interfere with the planned
“last mile” route. The route may be
changed to go out of the HRC to Castilian, and out to the railroad tracks from
there. Due to not receiving the funding
for our last mile construction project by April 1st, we don’t expect
to meet the December 1st Pac Bell contract expiration deadline. If new routes are not available, we will
need to lease Gigabit service to an ONI hubsite location. Currently the closest ONI hubsites are in LA
and SLO, but there may be an option to recreate the Santa Barbara hubsite at 17
E. Cota, possibly piggybacking with SBCC and the Santa Barbara schools. (The shorter the distance we have to lease
service, the lower the cost.) As
another alternative, UCOP is budgeting to keep the SONET rings going beyond
December 1st at double the cost.
However they will push hard to at least get campuses off at least one
ring. We should expect a memo
regarding a $140K commitment to help UCOP get financing for $18M in last mile
construction. Campuses should be
prepared to acquire border equipment capable of handling 10 GB traffic over the
next 4-5 years. UCOP distributed a memo
at CPG that included the justification for ONI that we will have insufficient bandwith
in 2 years, and that ONI will allow greater bandwidth at current prices. We are working with a Civil engineering
company on plans and permits to allow us to move forward quickly when the
project is funded.
NETWORKING EQUIPMENT
AGREEMENTS:
UCOP approached Cisco and
demanded their best pricing, and were granted a 40% discount on equipment, but
over the last month or two, ENI (co-op through IBM) has been granting 45%
discounts to their customers. Cisco
will match this 45% discount effective retroactively approximately 60
days. You should include the 45%
discount and request that UCSB purchasing contact Jane Schoenfeld on your
orders. Negotiations continue with
Foundry.
Kevin Schmidt reported that
they try to avoid pre-assigned names, but suggests first.last@ucsb.edu as a
format. Users can select their
addresses, but once selected, cannot change them. He also highlighted the following points:
1)
It would be helpful to
have a page of technical support contacts
2)
The accounts are
end-user accounts only, not functional accounts, i.e., no soc.chair@ucsb.edu
3)
Addresses will not be
held for individuals who leave and then return at a later date.
4)
The system cannot block
or be selective in regards to spam, but it may be able to tag it in the
X-headers, leaving further processing to the end user.
5)
Some filtering for
viruses is available, but more licenses are needed. Currently intended
recipients are not notified when viruses are detected, but the system does send
a message back to the sender. There is
no guarantee that this feature will be continued, and it is suggested that some
form of desktop antivirus software be used consistently.
6)
The default is to
re-write addresses on in-bound messages.
If you use hub.ucsb.edu for out-bound messages, you can request
re-writing for out-bound messages.
7)
The system does not
provide any POP or IMAP access.