Committee meeting - January 19, 2017

Darren Bondy
Secretary to the Committee
January 23, 2016

Present: 

Bruce Campbell (Chair), Darren Bondy (Secretary), Trevor Bain, Colin Bell, Steven Bourque, Andrea Chappell, Don Duff-McCracken, Erick Engelke, Lawrence Folland, Bob Hicks, Dawn Keenan, Paul Miskovsky, Carl Nagel, Jason Testart

Guests:

Chris Calzonetti, Peggy Day, Matthew Harford

Regrets:

Dave Kibble, Robyn Landers, Sati Singh

Agenda

  1. IST Service Desk update (Matthew Harford) [20 min.]
  2. Chair’s remarks [5 min.]
  3. Approval of the minutes of the meeting of December 22, 2016 [5 min.]
  4. VPN Features discussion – all [20 min.]
  5. Other Business [5 min.]
  6. Roundtable discussion – all [15 min.]
  7. Next CTSC Meeting

[Will be held Thursday, February 2, 2017, at 1:30 p.m., in EC2 1021.]

IST Service Desk (Matthew Harford)

Matthew Harford presented an update on the IST Service Desks. Topics included:

  • Locations
  • How busy are we?
  • What do we do?
  • How we do it: the SCC program
  • Challenges and lessons
  • How do we compare?

View the full presentation on the IST Service Desks (PDF).

Comments & discussion

  • Do you get complaints about wireless in the DC library?
    • Yes we do. Mostly because of speed and most concerns come from highly condensed areas in the library where there is a lot of traffic.
  • Have there been discussions about the design of the desk in DC recently?
    • We have been meeting with the DC library reps to discuss space allocation; we have yet to be told if our desk will be included in general DC renovations.
  • There have been discussions about having a desk in the DP library but that may change now with the one stop shop going in at Needles Hall.
  • The committee would be interested in having follow up discussions with Matthew Harford regarding pain points for students that they are going to service desks to address.

Chair’s Remarks

  • None

Approval of the minutes of the previous meeting

The minutes from the previous meeting were accepted as distributed.

VPN features

Lawrence Folland initiated the discussion regarding a VPN service that Computer Science has operated in the past that allows staff to connect from anywhere in the world.

  • CS needs to update this service or decide not to provide it anymore.
  • Is this something that other areas are interested in? Is it something IST would consider offering if enough people were interested?
  • IST is technically capable of providing this service but there are potential legal, security and/or political issues in doing so.
  • The current VPN system is approaching end of life so this is a good time to do this if it is decided that we should.
  • This topic will require further discussion offline and be brought back at a future meeting.

Other business

Skype for Business and Emergency communication

  • Bruce had raised the topic of using Skype for Business as an emergency communication tool.
    • It has not been decided if this is the best tool to use for this yet, especially since it is not used campus-wide at this point.
  • We are hoping to deploy Skype for Business out to campus as soon as possible.
  • The campus telephone system will eventually be replaced by Skype for Business.

Roundtable Report

Andrea Chappell

  • Going through the requirements list again for the Video Storage and Delivery project
  • Held a learning environment retreat last June, with four primary topics to pursue. The next topic will be in February, on the Next Generation Digital Learning Environment, tracking trends in NGDLE discussions, and thinking about where Waterloo wants to go.

Client Services, IST (Bob Hicks)

  • Lisa Tomalty had organized some RT training recently with a new version of RT coming. She will be doing a Friday morning seminar on Friday, January 27th.
    • Good potential topic for a future meeting.

Library (Carl Nagel)

  • Still having issues with our VDI dropping out; started before the holidays and started back up again last week.
    • VMWare doesn’t know why it is happening. Adam Savage will follow up with Steven Bourque’s team.

IT Security (Jason Testart)

  • Proofpoint (the #2 option from the RFP) was evaluated through December and the holidays.
  • Last week, we made the decision to go forward with Proofpoint after the Trend Micro solution was unable to meet our needs.
  • Once we get full access to Proofpoint, there will be a training and documentation period.
  • There will be an announcement coming in the next few weeks; hoping to have it in production in the next couple of months.

Next meeting

The next meeting will be held on February 2, 2017 at 1:30pm, in EC2 1021