Melissa Conrad
Secretary to the Committee
January 22, 2013
Present:
Dave Wallace (Chair), Melissa Conrad (Secretary), Bill Baer, Pascal Calarco, Bruce Campbell, Andrea Chappell, Marko Dumancic, Erick Engelke, Bob Hicks, Bill Ince, Dawn Keenan, Dave Kibble, Robyn Landers, Paul Miskovsky, Terry Stewart, Jason Testart, Martin Timmerman
Matthew Verlis
Regrets:
None
Agenda
- Wifi project (1:30-1:50pm; Matthew Verlis)
- Chair’s remarks (1:50pm-2:00pm)
- Approval of the minutes of the meeting of December 13, 2012 (2:00pm-2:05pm)
- Distributed management tools for email (2:05-2:15pm; Martin Timmerman)
- Changes to userids: Simplifying the process (2:15-2:30pm; Bob Hicks)
- IT Strategy, Enterprise Architecture, and Organize for Success update (2:30-2:45pm; Andrea Chappell, Dave Wallace, Bob Hicks)
- Updates (2:45-2:55pm; Various)
- Email (Martin Timmerman)
- Active Directory (Martin Timmerman)
- Green IT (Marko Dumancic)
- IT Security (Jason Testart)
- Campus Firewall Project (Bruce Campbell)
- Other business (2:55-3:00pm)
- Next Computing Technology and Services Committee (CTSC) meeting
[Will be held Thursday, January 24, 2013, at 1:30 p.m., in the Mathematics & Computer building (MC) 2018A.]
Wifi project update (Matthew Verlis)
Matthew Verlis discussed the Wifi upgrade project with group. Verlis’ report included:
- Scope of project – main points
- What’s not in the scope – main points
- Highlighted risks
- Predictive models
- Design process
- Pre-plan visit to note wall materials/doors
- Review of wireless tickets in the building
- Review of known classroom information
- Query faculty IT for classrooms/common rooms/wireless problem areas
- Plan it in AirMagnet (put in all walls and doors, place access points as required)
- Site visit with cabling to verify that access point locations are reachable
- Final design prepared
- Predictive modeling and surveyed results in Hagey Hall
Prior to the meeting, the draft charter was shared with the group. The focus of this project is to improve wireless access for student areas on campus. The design will take into account the client density in lecture halls and study areas and ensure that there is wireless capacity for students to use.
The general office area coverage for faculty and staff members will also be improved and upgraded to 802.11n; however, no specific offices will be marked as mandatory for wireless coverage. The focus for offices is to have acceptable coverage for most office users but not perfect coverage for all users in order to keep the budget reasonable. Coverage gaps in any particular office can be addressed after the project completion.
Chair's remarks
Organize for Success. Expanded consultations with faculties (requested by University Committee on Information Systems & Technology (UCIST)) are underway. These consultations will be complete by the end of the month and then everything will be pulled together in terms of an organizational view.
New Co-operative Education & Career Action (CECA) system. Dave Kibble will provide an update on the new co-op system at the next meeting.
Approval of the minutes of the meeting of December 13, 2013 and business arising
The minutes of the meeting of December 13, 2012 were approved as distributed. Bill Baer will provide an update on student printing at the next meeting.
Distributed management tools for email (Martin Timmerman)
It was suggested at a recent meeting that Information Systems & Technology (IST) has promised some level of tools and a discussion on whether those tools have been delivered was requested.
With Connect/Exchange there is a help desk role that allows help desk staff to do various things (change someone’s vacation message, etc). This is set up with a wide variety of groups at the faculty or department level. Trevor Bain has also spoken at FACulty Computing User Support group (FACCUS) and met with individual groups regarding capabilities.
With respect to mailservices, there are no generic tools - selected faculty IT support staff have access to mailservices logs using traditional UNIX tools.
Email tools will be on the agenda at the next Campus Email Services Committee (CESC) agenda. Timmerman will provide an update at the next Computing Technology and Services Commitee (CTSC) meeting.
The roles of various groups will need to be defined and could be included as part of an Organizational Level Agreement (OLA). Some groups (e.g., Engineering) would like to play the role of broker and continue to be the ‘front door’ for their clients. After talking with the client, they would go to IST to identify the issue and get the fix, and then go back to the client. Other groups may prefer that IST is the front end for the clients and that will work too. We just need to document who (faculty, department, or IST) does what and when.
Changes to userids: simplyfiyin the process (Bob Hicks)
A CTSC subcommittee looked at userids and identified two valid reasons for a userid to be be changed:
- A change in marital status
- A userid implies a questionable meaning.
At the most recent UCIST meeting, a third reason for a userid change was approved and that is at the discretion of the Dean or of the Dean’s designate (assuming the requested id has not been used in the last 5 years or that there is no risk to make the change).
If a userid is changed before the user logs in for the first time, the additional effort is trivial; however, if the user has logged in, a significant amount of work may be required. The issues are documented in the Changing your Waterloo Identity Access Management (WatIAM) userid web page.
UCIST has advised that rather than make it difficult for people to get a new userid, we should look at how to make the process of changing the userid less cumbersome. A new subcommittee, with a new chair, will be formed to investigate.
In the case of Academic Support units, it was suggested that the request should come from the Executive Council member or their designate.
Next step is to look at the complete set of processes and implications of account/naming changes in particular. Sean Mason will work with a staff member in the Computing Help & Information Place (CHIP), and Marko Dumancic. The group will report back to CTSC at the February 7th meeting.
IT Strategy, Enterprise Architecture, and Organize for Success Initiative update (Andrea Chappella, Bob Hicks, Dave Wallace)
IT Strategic Plan
- Now in phase 2
- Input received form may faculty and administrative groups, plus IST
- Not much direct input from faculty members
- There are a few more grous to meet with
- Communication through open house, Daily Bulletin, WatITis
The team is now reviewing all the data collected and eight themes have been identified.
The plan is to prepare an initial report for the end of January. The report will then go to the governance group (UCIST, Executive Advisory Committee, and IST senior management) who will meet to discuss findings on February 13th. The report will then be released to the campus.
For more information, view the IT Strategic Plan website.
Enterprise Architecture
The group has consulted with both Laurentian and Concordia, two institutions who have been working with the framework. Concordia approached this from the top down, while Laurentian did it from the foundation up. We will likely do a hybrid of both. The working group will use identity management and institutional data as test cases .When the Enterprise Architecture group is further along, they will be invited to present at a CTSC meeting.
Organize for Success
The purpose is to best position IST for what is coming out of the IT Strategic Plan and to further the federated model between IST, faculty IT groups and academic support groups.
Coming up:
- Management retreat on January 14th
- The core project team continues to meet with Kenton Needham on a biweekly basis.
- Tracey White of Human Resources will lead IST Management in a Leading Change workshop on January 21st.
- Further investigate the concept of a federated model; perfecting the “handshake” between the groups.
- At the next UCIST meeting, Hicks will share what the arrangements are now with respect to IST Client Services staff working in the various faculties.
Updates
Email (Martin Timmerman)
Another agenda item at the upcoming Campus Email Services Committee (CESC) meeting is how to provide storage outside of the mailbox. Microsoft was surprised we do not have quotas, but if we are not going to provide storage in the mailbox we will need to provide storage somewhere else. The Secretariat advises that you can keep emails too long. We can implement guidelines when they are put in place. In response to a committee member's question about keeping faculty email servers active, Timmerman notes the opportunity for one central service where people read email, but is also aware of local servers that generate automatic email that is sent to other servers for processing.
Active Directory (Martin Timmerman)
A consolidation meeting was held at the end of December and Colin Bell will be distributing notes from that meeting. Change Management and tools are being addressed. Bell will attend an upcoming meeting to give a detailed report.
Green IT (Marko Dumancic)
- The GreenIT Advisory Group (GITAG) presented at the latest WatITis conference
- The GreenIT web site has a PDF copy of the printing position paper – usual GITAG site
- How-to pages have also been added for the printing position paper (link from navigation menu should appear soon)
- The group has their next meeting in February at which time they will be talking with representatives from Waterloo North Hydro.
IT Security (Jason Testart)
Those interested in sending staff to a “Securing Windows” partnership System Administration, Networking, and Security (SANS) course are asked to contact Testart. If there is enough interest, Testart will prepare a business case and request central funding.
Campus Firewall Project (Bruce Campbell)
The project is on schedule and there is recognition that having a wide open network is not necessary in most cases. Campbell continues to make himself available to meet with groups, upon request. Campbell will provide a substantive update to CTSC on February 7th.
Other business
Reports from committee members.
The Chair will be more than happy to put time aside in meetings for committee members to share things that are coming up in their respective areas.
Multiple entries reported in WatIAM.
Dave Kibble will investigate and report back at the next meeting.
Next meeting
The next meeting will be held on January 24, 2013, at 1:30pm, in MC 2018A.