Committee Meeting - November 26, 2015

Darren Bondy
Secretary to the Committee
December 8, 2015

Present: 

Bruce Campbell (Chair), Darren Bondy (Secretary), Trevor Bain, Steven Bourque, Andrea Chappell, Marko Dumancic, Erick Engelke, Dave Gawley, Bob Hicks, Dawn Keenan, David Kibble, Robyn Landers, Paul Miskovsky, Carl Nagel, Jason Testart

Regrets:

Sati Singh

Agenda

  1. IST Webstore demonstration (Will Lewis) [20 min.]
  2. Chair’s remarks [10 min.]
  3. Approval of the minutes of the meeting of November 12, 2015 [5 min.]
  4. Campus Network Services Committee (CNSC) activity/future – discussion (Steven Bourque) [20 min.]
  5. Skype for business – timing for faculties (Bruce Campbell) [10 min.]
  6. Other Business [10 min.]
  7. Roundtable discussion – all [20 min.]
  1. Next CTSC Meeting

[Will be held Thursday, December 10, 2015, at 1:30 p.m., in EC2 111.]

IST Webstore demonstration

Will Lewis provided a demonstration of the IST Webstore.

Comments & discussion

  • Currently, it asks you to accept the terms without even being presented an opportunity to read the terms and conditions; a link should be included so they can review if they wish too.
  • Why are there hard expiry dates? Should the license not be valid for a year after purchasing it?
    • At the time of purchase there will be a certain amount of time left on the license which has already been paid for upfront by IST.
    • Have you considered doing a prorated fee for the license if it is purchased closer to the expiry date?
      • Bruce Campbell and Bob Hicks will look into this.
  • If there is other software that you would like added to the webstore please contact Will Lewis or Sandra Laughlin.
  • The software is assigned to a machine name after purchase.
  • The presence of the webstore has reduced the load on the service desks.

Chair’s Remarks

  • None.

Approval of the minutes of the previous meeting

The minutes from the meeting on October 29, 2015, were accepted with the following changes:

  • Revisions were made to the content under agenda item #4 regarding the net restrictions tool for lab locking software.
    • To clarify, this is a potential option to use instead of the current tool but it will not replace the current tool; it is not available for Mac labs.

CNSC – future/activity

  • There appears to be a decrease in activity for the committee over the last little while; very few agenda items recently.
  • Raised the topic of potentially reducing meetings to once a term at a CNSC meeting; received very little feedback.
  • Proposing to keep the committee together via the mailing list for information/recommendations going forward.
  • Can always call for a meeting if necessary as long as the mailing list remains active.
  • CTSC members agree that this is a good approach to take going forward.

Skype for Business – timing for faculties

  • IST will be rolling out Skype for Business to academic support groups on campus starting in December; will not be offering enterprise voice (ability to make external/non-skype calls) at this time.
  • We will need to discuss when we should roll out to the faculties; early 2016 is a good projected start time.
  • Will have more information about rolling out once we roll out to the support groups.
  • There is no cost involved for faculties/support groups at this time.
  • It may be a good idea to roll out to your technical support group first to get comfortable with it before giving it to everyone; it should be a fairly low maintenance product.
  • Multiple members have expressed interested in rolling out their respective faculties as soon as possible.
  • Updates will be provided following the initial roll out in early December.

Roundtable Reporting

Technology Integrated Services (Steven Bourque

  • Thank you everyone for the feedback on the RFP for undergraduate email in the cloud; some adjustments have been made, will send out the revised RFP to the group again.

Engineering (Erick Engelke)

  • Will be testing the lab locking software tomorrow; will be releasing to CTSC in the next little while.

Arts (Dawn Keenan)

  • Replaced our SunV20 backup controller with a Dell machine running Ubuntu.
  • Have begun initial discssions with CSCF to share some of the load for support of the Games institute.

Library (Carl Nagel)

  • The Library is interested in learning more about the digital signage software that Mirko in Science is developing; will touch base with Paul Miskovsky re: setting up demo for Library.
  • Library has purchased our second phase Nutanix box; would like to host a bootcamp for Nutanix, will send an email to CTSC members regarding invites to bootcamp to garner interest.

IT Security (Jason Testart)

  • IDAM RFP will be posted tomorrow; will be up until January.
    • The plan is to have a decision by the Spring; it will have budget implications.  

Next meeting

The next meeting will be held on December 10, 2015 at 1:30pm, in EC2 111.