Committee meeting - February 6, 2020

Carol Lu 
Secretary to the Committee 
February 6, 2020 
 
Present: Paul Miskovsky, Trevor Bain, Bill Baer, Steve Bourque, Jason Testart, Robyn Landers, Lori Paniak, Andrew McAlorum, Pratik Patel, Erick Engelke 
 
Guests: Matt Verlis 
 
Regrets: Andrea Chappell, Don Duff-McCracken, Daryl Dore, Greg Smith, Dave Kibble, Adam Savage 
 
Agenda 

  1. Presentation: Wireless Refresh Project - (Matt Verlis) [15 min.] 
  2. Chair’s remarks [5 min.] 
  3. Approval of the minutes of the meetings of Thursday January 9, 2020 [5 min.] 
  4. Other Business [10 min.] 
  5. Roundtable discussion – all [20 min.] 
  6. Next CTSC Meeting 
  7. [Will be held Thursday February 20 at 1:30 p.m., in EC2 1021.] 

  

Presentation: Wireless Refresh Project (Matt Verlis) 

  • Matt Verlis attended the meeting to give a presentation about the Wireless Refresh Project. 

Comments and discussion 

  • May use contractors in order to make the process more efficient 
  • Will wireless devices be able to connect to wireless devices (e.g. students connecting wirelessly to a projector) be possible as a result of this project?  
    • This is a value add being investigated as part of the project 
    • Would be possible but students would have to be given permissions to connect to the projector 
    • Inter-Client Communication can be isolated and requested for instructors 
  • An API to track wireless devices would be helpful  
    • Would require approval from the Privacy Office 
    • Can CTSC put together a request in order to get access to tracking devices?  
  • Will Wi-Fi 6 be more precise for location tracking than what we have now?  
    • Depends on Wi-Fi triangulation and the device that's being tagged 
    • Most APs come with Bluetooth 
  • How will the new solution deal with rogue access points?  
    • Can departments get access to the tools Network Services uses?  
      • Yes, will require signing an NDA 
    • Heatmaps only show the approximate area of rogues but not a specific location 
  • The new solution will have improved Orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) and Multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO) 
  • Access Points will support Wireless AC, Wireless G and VLANs 
  • It was suggested to include a request for complimentary product upgrades in the RFP if products are faulty

 
Chair's Remarks (Steven Bourque) 

  • No remarks. 

 
Approval of the minutes of the previous meeting 

  • The previous meeting’s minutes were accepted as distributed. 

 
Other business 

Legal name change project (Robyn) 

  • Math has old systems and databases with legal names on them, do these have to be removed in order to meet the new legal name access requirements?  

Comments and discussion 

  • No need to retroactively go back to edit old systems/database 
     

Scinage and Visibull (Robyn) 

  • Math has switched from using to Visibull to using Scinage for digital signage 
  • Visibull is looking to become the official digital signage vendor for the University  

Comments and discussion 

  • WUSA is using Visibull and enjoys the service 
  • Scinage is looking to be public domain in the future 
  • Could CTSC come up with a licensing model for Scinage?  
  • If Scinage becomes public domain, it would be preferable if the 'University of Waterloo brand' and recognition were associated with it 
     

Public and Private Blocks (Paul) 

  • In asking for a private block, two private blocks were offered in exchange for moving a public block in Biology  

Comments and discussion

  • Do public blocks have a decent amount of availability?  
    • Yes but larger public blocks are harder to find 
  • TIS will re-evaulate request - they believed it was for a larger public block

IPv6 update request (Erick) 

  • IPv6 is available and working as expected; dual stacked 
  • Nexus machines have IPv6 turned off 
    • Currently testing and hoping to turn it on in the future 

Roundtable  

Waterloo Undergraduate Student Association (Pratik)  

  • Update on WatCard replacements as a result of name change?  
    • Andrew to follow-up  

Science (Paul) 

  • Are there any departments doing a distance ed joint program?  

Comments and discussion 

  • Engineering has a Management Science technology course online 
  • UOttawa is using WebEx to facilitate a distance ed program 
  • Consulting with Koorus Bookan  is recommended 
  • Koorus has recommended Cisco WebEx products for the best audio and video quality  

  

Client Services, IST (Andrew) 

  • The Office 365 email investigation report was shared with CTSC prior to the last meeting 
  • UCIST has endorsed the recommendations presented in the O365 email investigation report 
  • More communications regarding the project to come  

Comments and discussion 

  • CTSC also endorses the recommendations presented in the O365 email investigation report