CCFIT > Calendar & Minutes > 1998-2003 Minutes > February 4, 2002 AC4 Minutes

Agenda

1. Approval of Minutes
2. Announcements
3. New Business Architecture: Update from the Implementation Workgroup
4. Status of the Campus Remote Access Service
5. Microsoft Licensing Update
6. Report from the AC4 Education Subcommittee

Minutes

Excused: Cristina Gonzalez, and Kathi Sylva.

Absent: Angela Cheer.

Guests: Mike Allred, Bob Ono, and Doug Williams.

Staff to the Councils: Randy Moory, Julie Saylor, and Babette Schmitt.

I. Approval of Minutes

Chair Plant requested comments on the minutes from the last Council meeting in October. Plant informed the Council that he has followed up on the bandwidth issues in the Residence Halls discussed at the last meeting. He reported that the Residence Halls did restrict bandwidth available for KaZaA use to 8Mb/sec as anticipated; no problems were encountered. The minutes were approved as submitted.

Chair Plant introduced a new Council member, Jason Woods, representing the Graduate Students Association.

Pilot to Test Anti-virus Products on Central Email Servers: Security Coordinator Ono announced a pilot project to test anti-virus products on the central campus listproc servers. Ono reported that the software will scan emails sent and received and quarantine any infected email. The sender or receiver will be notified if their email is quarantined. The three anti-virus products being tested are: Sophos, Trendmicro, and Norton. The test will be conducted between February 4th and March 15th.

Council asked about the scalability of the solutions. Ono replied that scalability is one of the pilot's evaluation criteria. Council also asked if the pilot included an inventory of anti-virus solutions currently being used by campus units. Ono replied that the project would look at what others were using for virus protection.

Upcoming Talks on Enterprise Portals: Randy Moory announced that the campus will be hosting Howard Strauss from Princeton University on March 15, 2002. Strauss will be giving 2 talks focused on enterprise portals. The first talk will be a general overview about portals and the future of the Web. The second will focus on how Strauss expects portals to evolve over time. Moory reported that Howard Strauss is a recognized expert on portals and has spoken frequently on the subject, including through presentations at EDUCAUSE and for CREN. The event will be held at the University Club.

Handouts:

1. NBA Technology Development Team - Project Report (PDF)
2. New Business Architecture Implementation Workgroup - Status of Activities (Sept. 2001 - Jan. 2002) (PDF)
3. Final PI Reports on MyUCDavis (PDF)
4. Features Available to Instructors via MyUCDavis Portal (as of 02/04/02) (PDF)

Assistant Vice Provost Shelby and Associate Vice Chancellor Allred, co-chairs of the NBA Implementation Workgroup, provided an overview of the status of the NBA initiative. Shelby reported that the NBA implementation structure for the campus includes the following groups:

1. NBA Steering Committee, chaired by Vice Provost Bruno and Vice Chancellor Hamilton
2. Implementation Workgroup, chaired by Assistant Vice Provost Shelby and Associate Vice Chancellor Allred
3. Technology Development Team, chaired by Brian Alexander and Jeff Barrett
4. Change Management Team
5. Business Process Reengineering Team

Neither the Change Management nor the Business Process Team has been created yet. The Steering Committee will soon discuss how to establish and fund the NBA project team, with a project manager and two staff support positions. The Implementation Workgroup will develop a proposal outlining an approach.

Shelby reported that, during this first phase of the initiative, the Implementation Workgroup has identified "quick wins" that will relatively easily add new functionality to the portal. Examples include the additions of the DaFIS and PPS decision support channels.

The Implementation Workgroup also asked the Technology Development Team to identify the 3 top priority projects for the campus to undertake. The Technology Development Team identified:

1. Three important infrastructure projects: person registry/enterprise directory services, common authentication, and MyUCDavis architecture/interface standards for porting applications.
2. The possible creation of a campuswide pool of Citrix server.
3. The addition of e-mail and calendaring functionality into the MyUCDavis portal.

The Implementation Workgroup and NBA Steering Committee endorsed these proposals by the Technology Development Team.

In Phase 2 of the NBA implementation process, the team will focus on identifying and prioritizing business process reengineering projects identified by the Business Process Reengineering Team.

Associate Vice Chancellor Allred outlined a proposal to add new functionality to the Contracts and Grants channel in MyUCDavis. Allred reported that his office and the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research (OVCR) are investigating adding a report function that would allow Principal Investigators (PIs) to electronically file their final reports for grants and awards. The University of Indiana, where a system similar to DaFIS is used, has already created such a reporting function.

The Chair of the AC4 Research Subcommittee reported that they too are working with OVCR to add functionality to the Contracts and Grants channel so as to make it possible for PIs to submit grant applications and report needs for submission of grant proposals. Council recommended that the efforts proposed by Allred be coordinated with the efforts of the Research Subcommittee.

Council discussed the need for further investigation before proceeding with the PI project proposal. Council asked that the nature and scope of the problem to be resolved be more clearly defined. Council asked about how UC Davis' delinquency in reporting compares with other institutions. Council also asked for statistics on the level of delinquency. Specific questions for further investigation include:

• Were the delinquencies outstanding for long periods?
• Was the delinquency problem widespread or confined to a few PIs?
• What procedures are in place for this process, and what procedures could the campus use to address the delinquency problem?

Council concluded that the problem needed to be better defined before proceeding with the change in the Contracts and Grants channel.

Doug Williams, IET-Communications Resources, reported on the current status and usage of the campus remote access modem pool. Williams noted that Communications Resources has investigated alternatives for reducing costs to support the modem pool. The three options involve reducing the number of lines available for dial up access and increasing the contention for these lines by dial-up users.

Council asked about the usage of the modem pool. Williams replied that the statistics show a decline in the number of connections, but he suggested that many continue to use the modem pool primarily because of the lack of alternatives in the City of Davis. Council commented that many students seek housing where access to faster, broadband connections is available when they move from on-campus housing.

Council commented that there is a possibility that usage will increase as the campus population grows and the campus adds more services to the portal, particularly services related to instruction. Council commented that faculty are increasingly placing materials on the Web that are used in classroom instruction. Members agreed that the campus needs to continue to guarantee access in anticipation of new online services.

Council discussed the need to add high-speed bandwidth but expressed concern that serious issues would arise if the campus becomes an internet service provider for more that UC Davis students, staff, and faculty.

Vice Provost Bruno provided an update on the changes in Microsoft's licensing programs. Bruno explained that, under the new approach, Microsoft would provide essentially two licensing options: renting or buying software. Under the Software Assurance Program, the licensing is similar to buying: software is licensed per machine. Software Assurance requires the license be current at the time of licensing (i.e., the license must be the most current supported release). Software Assurance requires an annual payment to keep the license current.

The Campus Agreement corresponds to renting software for a year. Licenses are based on the total number of FTE (in a department, college, lab, or other group). To qualify for the campus agreement the number of FTE multiplied by the number of products to be used must be greater or equal to 300. Under the Campus Agreement, there are no limits to the number of machines that licenses can be installed upon.

Bruno volunteered IET's assistance to Council members as they prepare to determine which option best suits their needs. Council members may contact Debra Castanon, Site Licensing Coordinator.