Committee meeting - June 27, 2013

Melissa Conrad
Secretary to the Committee
July 4, 2013

Present:

Dave Wallace (Chair), Melissa Conrad (Secretary), Bill Baer, Andrea Chappell, Erick Engelke, Bob Hicks, Bill Ince, Robyn Landers, Paul Miskovsky, Carl Nagel, Terry Stewart, Jason Testart

Guests:

Joe Allen, Pavol Chvala, Paul Dietrich, Martin Timmerman

Regrets:

Bruce Campbell, Marko Dumancic, Dawn Keenan, Dave Kibble

Agenda

  1. Lync discussion (Paul Dietrich) [1:30-1:50pm]
  2. Chair’s remarks, approval of the minutes of the meeting of June 13, 2013, and business arising [1:50pm-2:00pm]
  3. Secunia update (Jason Testart) [2:00-2:10pm]
  4. IT Strategy, Enterprise Architecture, and Organize for Success Update (2:10-2:30pm; Andrea Chappell, Dave Wallace, Bob Hicks)
  5. Engineering’s Student Portal – mobile.eng.uwaterloo.ca (Erick Engelke) [2:30-2:50pm]
  6. Updates (2:50-3:00pm; Various)
    • Email (Bruce Campbell)
    • Active Directory (Bruce Campbell)
    • Green IT (Marko Dumancic)
    • IT security (Jason Testart)
    • Campus Firewall project (Bruce Campbell)
    • Student Printing (Bill Baer)
  7. Next Computing Technology and Services Committee (CTSC) meeting
    [Will be held Thursday, July 11, 2013, at 1:30 p.m., in Mathematics & Computing building (MC) 2018A.]

Microsoft Lync (Paul Dietrich)

Paul Dietrich attended the meeting to present information on Microsoft Lync. Topics included:

  • What is Lync?
    • Unified communications tool(s)
      • Chat, voice, video
    • Presence
    • The “Lync” between Microsoft products such as Exchange, Office, and SharePoint
    • An extension of the Private Branch Exchange (PBX) to provide feature-rich applications, on top of the well-built Avaya PBX core
  • Pilot topology
  • Tested features/testimonials
  • Federation
  • Cost
  • The blog (SharePoint)

The group is also looking at options from other vendors; however, Lync is promising because from an architecture perspective, it does not need to be “all or nothing”. We could leverage what we have and add additional services rather than be required to move completely to something else. We know that our PBX will be supported for at least 6 more years so a drastic change is not being forced upon us.

There are currently 70 days left of the 180 day free trial. Microsoft will be asked to extend the trial period. Dietrich will return in September to provide another update.

The entire Microsoft Lync presentation (PDF) is available here.

Chair's remarks, approval of the minutes of the meeting of June 13, 2013, and business arising

The minutes of the meeting of June 13, 2013 were approved as distributed.

Secunia update (Jason Testart)

Secunia Corporate Software Inspector (CSI) has been deployed to a set of workstations in NEXUS, most of which are managed by Information Systems & Technology (IST). The purpose of Secunia CSI is to analyze installed software, assess the vulnerability profile, and optionally update insecure/unpatched software. Of the 1731 hosts where a Secunia CSI agent is reporting, approximately 90% are running Windows 7. Only about 9% are running Windows XP.

The most commonly installed insecure programs are:

  • Acrobat Reader 11.x
  • Flash Player 11.x
  • Acrobat 10.x
  • Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 1.7
  • Firefox 17.x
  • Quicktime 7.x
  • Acrobat Reader 10.x
  • Acrobat 11.x
  • AIR 3.x
  • Acrobat 9.x
  • Chrome 27.x

Secunia SCI offers tight integration with Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) and/or Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2012, so it may be possible to use Secunia-supplied updates for software rather than packaging things on our own. More testing is needed.

It should be noted that the bulk of detected workstation compromises at Waterloo are a result of unpatched Java Runtime Environment (JRE).

Testart will distribute the cost information to CTSC members.

IT Strategy, Enterprise Architecture, and Organize for Success Initiative update (Andrea Chappell, Bob Hicks, Dave Wallace)

IT Strategic Plan (ITSP)

[Secretary’s note: Due to time constraints, Chappell’s summary was distributed after the meeting, via email.]

  • IT Strategic Plan audit kick-off will happen within the next week or so, to plan audit activity, including identifying information needed about project, who to interview about the project process, etc.
  • IT governance
    • An Information Management Steering Committee is being set up.
    • A Tech-enabled Learning Advisory group/process is being discussed.
    • Based on similar "feeder" groups and activities, will propose an overall IT governance design draft as a start for discussions on IT governance.
  • Completion of the mapping of Potential Opportunity activities from the IT Directions to strategic objectives was delayed but will be finished next week.
  • IST to hold a workshop on our project portfolio and plan for participation in the potential opportunities in the IT Directions.
  • Planned IST workshop on indicators (measures).

Enterprise Architecture

No update

Organize for Success

The Chair shared information with CTSC members which included:

  • What’s been happening in March/April
  • What’s been happening in May/June
  • Implementation approach
  • Group functions
  • Staff changes summary
  • Next steps

Engineering's Student Portal (Erick Engelke)

Erick Engelke presented on UWeng’s mobile application. Topics included:

  • Need
  • Engineering Vision 2015
  • Technologies
  • Rules
  • iOS Style Guide
  • Organize Content
  • Result: UWeng
  • Problems
  • Schedule – core system
  • What does it mean?
  • What UWeng means
  • What open data means
  • UWeng next steps

Engelke’s entire Engineering Student Portal presentation (PDF) can be found here.

The Chair noted that this could be very complementary with our university student portal. A main goal would be ensuring a consistent user experience.

Next step will be a planning discussion regarding the consistent user experience. Pavol Chvala will speak to Colin Bell and then meet with Engelke and Jason Testart. CTSC members will be updated on progress at the July 25th meeting.

Updates

Email (Martin Timmerman for Bruce Campbell)

Working towards getting graduate students from Applied Health Sciences (AHS) and Environment provisioned on connect for the fall term.

No other updates.

Other business

None

Next meeting

The next meeting will be held on July 11, 2013, at 1:30pm, in MC 2018A.