IT Architecture and Infrastructure Technology Committee

October 14, 2016 | FAC 228D | 9:00-10:30 am

  1. ITS Core Infrastructure Critical Services (Brad Englert)
  • ITS Service Plan Update hand out was included in meeting packet
  • Overview of service list and introduction of survey
  • Core infrastructure, critical, major, minor, and overhead
  • Definitions for critical, major, minor, and overhead will be included in the survey that goes out to IT Governance committees
  • It would be ideal to quantify populations that are backing up the definitions of “many people on campus use this service” etc.
  • A list of all ITS costs, including all services and personnel will be available later this semester. At this point we are trying to prioritize. Later in the semester we will look at costs for our priorities and move from there.
  • Recommendation: AITL would be a good group to survey. Some of the other subcommittees would also have some interesting feedback. Graham will discuss with Angie Newell.
  • We plan to send the survey next week and you’ll have until the end of the October to complete.
  • Discussion: What is the near-term impact of this budget issue on campus? What can we expect? Is it that people won’t get paid? Or contracts and services won’t be renewed?
  • Central funding covers ITS salaries, so people will be paid. We do not have enough MO&E, which is Maintenance, Operations, and Equipment and we’re working with the CFO to figure out how to cover those costs.
  • Would it be correct to say that mission-critical costs are being addressed until we know more?
  • Yes
  • I saw on a slide that some things that are funded centrally may be charged fees in the future?
  • Brad: Yes. One example is mainframe printing.
  • Recommendation: Maybe we should specifically call those things “centrally-funded” instead of “common-good.” If you call something common good and then make it not common good, it causes problems.
  1. Co-Char Election (Charles Soto, Brad Johnson, nominee)
  • Brad Johnson: I believe Charles would be the best choice for co-chair and chair for next year.
  • Charles Soto was elected the new co-chair
  1. Wireless Access Point Upgrade- Endorse (Pug Bainter)
  • Hand out included in meeting packet
  • 1,800 Wireless Access Points (WAPs) are expected to reach End of Operations (EoO) next summer. Units must purchase upgrades through ITS and be installed through the summer of 2017 (est. $1.2 million for WAP portion). ITS has negotiated additional trade-in discounts with the vendor for EoO WAPs.
  • All target replacement units have been identified and the new units, Cisco 2800s, have also been identified.
  • TKIP (vulnerable deprecated encryption protocol) will cease to work by December 18, 2017 because of the new units
  • Question: Which POEs won’t work?
  • Pug: The 3560s are the most common
  • Question: In the last upgrade there were some WAPs that were moved/removed, which left holes and anchors around certain buildings that caused some grumpy emails. Is there a plan for addressing that before it starts?
  • Pug: Yes, we are coming up with a plan to address what happens if WAPs are moved in the process and we’ll communicate that with everyone before we start.
  • Question: Does VoIP require a lot from WAPs?
  • Pug: No, there is not much difference between what is consumed between the old system and VoIP.
  • Question: Can you expand on how the cost for multi-unit buildings will be determined?
  • William and Pug: It’s a complicated process. We’ll come up with initial recommendations and the units will give their input at that point, and if they don’t we’ll move ahead with whatever our initial recommendations were.
  • Question: Do we have any financial numbers yet? Like cost per unit?
  • Pug: No. The cost will be slightly higher this time around because units cost more overall, but the deep discount we got helps.
  • Discussion: This cost comes about every two years and some units still aren’t preparing for that.
  • William: The network report card outlines these annual costs. We have made the recommendation that these costs be centralized so that units aren’t having to anticipate the spikes in cost that come every two years.
  • AIC asked William and Pug for a one-page explanation that the TSCs can give to their business officers explaining the situation.
  • Motion to endorse? Yes. Seconded? Yes. All in favor? Majority.
  • Upgrade is endorsed.
  1. Web Central Service Retirement (Christina Konstantinidou, Jenn Coast)
  • Hand out included in meeting packet
  • WCSR is the retirement and decommissioning of the websites, email addresses, data and infrastructure that comprised Web Central.
  • Highlights:
  • 514 website migrations completed
  • 2,297 websites archived
  • 297 redirects implemented and will exist until 9/1/2017
  • Project was completed on time and did not require AIC stepping in to pressure anyone. Great work from nearly every department on campus.
  • Web Central Office hours were extremely helpful in helping this process run smoothly and will continue to help people through the migration process.
  • Celebration at the Cactus Café next week to celebrate!
  • Question about performance, which has not been too great recently
  • Trice: We are currently working on how to manage sites that consume a lot of the environment on the shared infrastructure of UT Web. In the last week we have shut some of those down and we are continuing identify those. We are also trying to work with people to help them understand how to code for UT Web.
  • Question: Is there a contingency plan to address this issue?
  • Trice: Yes. The number of users associated with this problem is actually pretty small and we are continuously working on addressing the issues with users as they come up. And we don’t stop after 5 or so have been addressed, we keep addressing them as they come.
  • When UT Web was initially conceptualized, we thought we would have about 500 sites, but there are actually about 600. UT Quicksites was supposed to arrive faster than it did, which would have helped a lot.
  • Is that overcapacity causing a problem?
  • Trice: It wouldn’t be if every site were well tuned and properly structured, but with poor-performing sites it is causing a problem for the entire system.
  • Discussion: Were the deadlines too fast? Did they unfairly push under-resourced areas of campus too quickly?
  • William: The deadlines for the migration were very long and the technology had existed for nearly a year. But the entire university cannot wait to move on IT issues because someone somewhere in the university cannot afford it.
  • AIC asked Trice for a one-page explanation that the TSCs can give to their CSU leadership explaining the situation and what ITS is doing to address the issues.

1