OCIO / ENGINEERING COMPUTER COMMITTEE MEETING
September 19, 2005
Attending: Matthew Kuhn, Joe Hoffbeck, Jamie Strohecker
Absent: Sig Lillevik, Bob Koretsky, Paul Erdmann, Peter Chamberlain
Since a majority of the committee was unable to attend, general discussion on a variety of topics took place.
The OCIO / IS’s new “Pay for Print” program is currently not working within Engineering due to technical difficulties. Since this system has not been able to run within Engineering, students are not being charge by IS for copies made on Engineering system computers. Matthew indicated that he is unable to connect to printers in the labs because of this “glitch”.
MSDN Program – Bobk currently manages the Microsoft Licensing that the School of Engineering receives for various Microsoft programs and support. Since Bob is retiring at the end of the school year Spring 2006, the question was asked who will be doing this task? Bob has suggested to Matthew that IS be put in charge of keeping this contract up to do date and going. Matthew suggested we also confer with Steve Vegdahl, Co-Chair of the CS department, to see if any of the CS faculty would be willing to take on this task.
Matthewwill ask the CS department about possible MSDN replacement contact person.
The University is planning on a university-wide network upgrade to occur Summer 2006. Overall concern is that the change-over will not go as smoothly as we hope it will and there will be little to no testing of the new system prior to going “live” for Fall 2006.
Joe reiterated Peter Osterberg’s mantra of “make before break” and perhaps we should work with IS to have them inform us of their plan, testing schedule and issues resolution before Fall 2006.
Several questions were asked, in particular:
Who will be testing these new programs to make sure they all work?
Who is doing the planning for this network change-over?
How many months for testing are going to happen before the final cut?
It was mentioned that it would be helpful to request Kent be sure and assist IS when they are in the process of the network change-over, especially as it may affect Engineering specifically. Concern is that other qualified personnel within IS are not as familiar with Engineering’s systems, and Kent’s knowledge and expertise would be invaluable during this process.
Matthew will request to IS that Kent be very involved in the network change-over process specifically assigned to Engineering during this period in Summer 2006.
Matthew will contact Paul and/or Brian with our questions and concerns about the network upgrade and have them address these concerns with us directly.
Joe asked if it would be worthwhile for this committee to talk about making software available to students with laptops. Since most students prefer to do their lab and homework on their laptops in lieu of coming to the computer labs, this might provide them with those resources as well as be more efficient for them and us.
Joe wanted to know how IS keeps track and closes out their job queues for various job requests they get on campus. This would help us understand how they determine personnel, hardware and/or software for a particular job and how they notify their customers of job’s completion.
The committee will meet next week and Matthew and Joe felt that the computer “drop” room list should be revisited to make sure the correct information was being given to IS and Zia.
Next committee meeting will be December 15, 2005 at 1:35 – 3:00 pm in the Engineering Conference room.
Respectfully submitted,
Jamie Strohecker
Engineering Faculty Secretary
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