ITPG meeting minutes, 6/17/02
Present: Arlene Allen, Larry Carver, Glenn Davis,
William Doering, Doug Drury, Matt Dunham, Deborah Dawicki, George Gregg, Tom
Lawton, Shea Lovan, Elise Meyer, Alan Moses, Linda Moskovitz, Joan Murdoch,
Larry Murdock, Stan Nicholson, Fuzzy Rogers, Jamie Sonsini, Paul Valenzuela,
Craig Welsh
Last Friday the call for Network Wiring Projects was sent out to D-list with the deadline for project submission of July 31st. This memo should have reached all department heads and MSOs. When asked whether off-campus projects could be submitted, the reply was that all projects will be considered, but cost and logistics may preclude them from being funded. Sanity check: have we missed anyone? The only group that was mentioned that needed a sponsor was the natural reserves, e.g., Sedgewick ranch. The Network Wiring Project process is continuing regardless of the uncertainty of funding. Last year it was helpful during the prioritization process to divide the projects up into smaller pieces, e.g., getting an external connection to a building might be more critical than doing the inside wiring in the same building. Please consider whether your project can or should be divided up this way.
GARTNER:
Gartner was told that both the cost and terms of their renewal offer were unacceptable. They countered with a reduced subscription cost of $21K/year, but kept the same terms, i.e., two full access seats, one semi-full access seat, and monthly CD-ROM service. (Additional full access seats can be purchased for $7K each.) The arrangement worked out so that the campus can continue this service is that OIT will pay $14K/year and set up analyst inquiries for the campus through their one seat, plus serving the CD-ROM data, and Student Affairs will pay $7K/year for the second full-access seat. The new subscription runs for 3 years. A quick survey round the table indicated that the campus made at least 10 analyst inquiries during FY 01/02.
June 10, 2002 was the deadline for the campus response to UCOP on several initiatives.
UCSB committed to
participate in the system-wide HRIS Initiative. There are three components to this initiative:
1)
A Data Warehouse at Systemwide,
2)
PPS modifications with a web front, and
3)
Campuses that want to buy their own systems.
Component 3) has approval
issues, and if this component is selected, latecomers must accept what has
already been contracted.
UCSB declined to commit to
the system-wide Portal Content Management Initiative. A final product has not yet been decided by the RFP process. UCOP proposed to fund either the software
license cost only, or the software license cost plus three years of
maintenance. In return, participating
campuses must implement a system within 12 months, and pay hardware costs,
assign staff, hire consultants, etc.
After consulting with various organizations and not finding a champion,
UCSB could not commit.
UCSB responded to UCOP with
our minimum ISP usage commitment. Our
ISP usage continues to grow, although the cost per unit continues to
decrease. (NB: Our costs for FY 01/02
were $260/unit and the cost for FY 02/03 will be $200/unit. A unit is the Mb/s at the 95th
percentile over 5 minute increments.)
We committed to increased ISP utilization and we may need to start
considering use limits such as exist for ResNet.
UCSB committed to paying
$140,000 over the next ten years for our participation in CalREN-2 and
ONI. The commitment by all of the
campuses will help UCOP secure financing for campus last mile construction
costs, estimated to require an $18M loan.
Due to lack of time, a
question about the various Wide Area Networking costs couldn’t be answered
completely, so a full response is provided below:
CENIC operates and maintains
the state education and research network CalREN-2. Our ISP connections to the commercial Internet are through
CalREN-2. CalREN-2 also provides our
connection to the national education and research network Abilene
(Internet2). CENIC charges UCOP a fixed
annual cost for connecting all the UCs to CalREN-2. The cost for our CalREN-2 connection is $140,000. Beginning FY 02/03 this $140,000 fee will
pay for our connection to the ONI, with a smaller percentage going to CENIC for
operating the backbone, and a larger amount being used to service the $18M Last
Mile construction loan. CENIC provides
a separate arrangement for the ISP connection, where our cost is currently
based on our actual usage or our minimum commitment whichever is higher. We committed to a minimum of 381 units with an estimated cost of
$76,200, which will be reduced by a fixed amount by Resnet for their first 10
Mb/s usage and an additional amount for their usage over 10 Mb/s. (Prior to November 2001, our ISP cost was a
factor of not only our own usage, but also the usage of the other campuses, so
our cost could increase even if our usage decreased.) Our cost to connect to Abilene (Internet2) includes a $20,000 fee
to UCOP for the actual connection and $26,250 for membership to Internet2.
DECAF:
A question regarding the
status of DECAF was raised. The new
focus of the group will be on data coordination. Doug Drury is discussing the issues with Eric Brody and Deborah
Scott. A new charge will be presented
to ITPG when ready.
IT PROPOSALS:
We have now completed the
final step for this year’s IT proposal process. On June 10, 2002, Mark forwarded a memo with his recommendations
to the EVC. He incorporated feedback
from both the ITB and ITPG. Since the
WAN proposal included annual operating expenses, we needed to make alternate
arrangements to make sure that we could pay those costs for FY 02/03, so we
incorporated those expenses into the Communications Service budget
package. Due to a backlog in funded
projects, the IBW request likewise will not be included in this fiscal year’s
recommendation. As a result, we are
requesting a relatively small amount for the FY 02/03, i.e., $80K in one-time
funds for the authorization software, and $140K in permanent funds for the
Directory, Library open access labs, and software depot funding. A copy of the memo is available at http://www.physics.ucsb.edu/~itpg/Proposal-Request-2001.doc.
UCCSC:
This conference is scheduled
for July 28 – 30 at Berkeley. In the
past, each campus presented a campus report.
This year they are doing a “Poster Session”, with each campus expected
to display three posters on campus initiatives and/or projects. Elise is looking for content; please forward
any suggestions to her. Some ideas
included the IBW process, IT proposal process, NGB, a Virtual Mentoring Program
via teleconferencing as part of the Governor’s Mentoring Program, a joint
doctoral program with other campuses, and web based coursework.
FACULTY TASK FORCE:
Although the taskforce has
yet to be formed or to meet, a survey has been sent to all Ladder Track
faculty, and there has been strong feedback that Lecturers also would like to
be included. The survey is expanding,
but the means to reach the Lecturers is uncertain. It was suggested that getting feedback from students who have
actually used the existing web-based systems would be useful. It was also suggested that the GGSE could
provide some useful feedback too. All
such feedback efforts should be coordinated through the faculty task force.
DIRECTORY:
Arlene reported that
IS&C and IC are almost done interfacing Umail to the Directory. If a student tries to register or update via
the LDAP web application they will be redirected to an Umail site. There will be a single ID for students and
real time updates. It is not possible
to authenticate via Umail yet.
There have been some
infrastructure problems with the Sun replication
code. Three servers had been
running in tandem, but in the migration to 5.1, the early issues were fixed and
the master conversion was complete before a 7-day time bomb went off. Replication from the master to the two
replication servers was redirected back to the master, which corrupted the master
data. Currently the database is running
5.1 from the master only, and will have to run in this manner until Sun can
provide a solution.
Updating of the Directory
content for publishing in the hardcopy campus directory got off to a late
start. Communications Services sent out
a letter to Phones-L on June 7th, and Reilly Pollard has received a lot of
feedback. Directory help registered 175
inquiries. Glenn Davis will be making a
presentation to ABOG this Thursday.
Arlene discussed the
security of the LDAP data. There are 3
servers and one development machine, all using WIN2K. There is little to no access to the database, with 4 superusers
and encrypted passwords.
ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE:
Kevin Schmidt is working a
consortium to purchase a campus-wide license for antivirus software from
Sophos. The cost is estimated to be
$30K. Prior purchases will be counted
toward the total. A note will be
forthcoming with the results.
NEXT MEETINGS:
The next meetings are
scheduled for:
Thursday, July 25th,
10:00am – noon
Thursday, August 15th,
10:00 – 11:30
Thursday, September 12th,
10:00 – 11:30
The meeting location is yet
to be determined.