Present: Arlene Allen, Lubo Bojilov, Eric Brody, Larry Carver, Chris Dempsey, Bill Doering, Doug Drury, Matthew Dunham, George Gregg, Bill Koseluk, Elise Meyer, George Michaels, Alan Moses, Linda Moskovits, Larry Murdock, Stan Nicholson, Mike Oliva, Glenn Schiferl, Deborah Scott, Jamie Sonsini, Chris Sneathen, Jan Smith, Chas Thompson, Paul Weakliem, Paul Valenzuela.
In order to optimize ITPG members' time, regular subcommittee updates should be submitted to the mailing list prior to the monthly meeting. And the meetings will focus on issues that most benefit from interactive discussion. Subcommittee updates were submitted from NBA, OIT, DECAF and BITS.
ITPG Proposal Funding Status
Software Depot received word that the $45K CNT II position (out of a total $90K request) has probably been funded. Matthew Dunham will convene the proposal's Software Depot Advisory Committee to discuss and update the implementation plan. This group will look at options for making up the funding gap, including recharge. Contact Matthew if you would like to participate on this committee.
The GUS Executive Committee (GUSEC) has been notified that 3 years of funding has been provided for the GUS proposal. GUSEC is now working on bylaws and program management decisions. (NB: For further information, contact Leslie Edgerton.)
We've asked about the funding status of the other proposals, but we haven't heard yet. The EVC has been updated on current plans to provide real-time updates of student data from ADABAS to a SQL server.
Feedback from 2/15–2/16 ITLC Meeting
Handout distributed by Arlene Allen
IT Support of Research: UC is falling behind other leading research institutions with respect to IT. Funding continues to be a major issue. The focus is now on how the ten campuses can work together, e.g., GRID computing.
A UC-wide IT Committee consisting of UC executives will be formed under Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Greenwood (ex-Chancellor of UCSC). The ITLC will provide support to this committee.
IT Strategic Sourcing is becoming a critical component for generating cost savings. Currently the campuses all pay a share to support Patrick Collins's office (IS&C and OIT cover UCSB's $7,015 share). There is a proposal to enhance this service and to get system-wide funding to place a contract negotiator on each campus.
UC Strategic Sourcing Director Stuart Davis will be on campus March 8 to discuss the new E-procurement strategy. He is also encouraging adoption of the KST Desktop Procurement Initiative. KST is a broker that negotiates with the major computer vendors and puts together various system configurations, including some "sweet spot" configurations with pricing that appears to be better than we can achieve with the vendors directly. The pricing (and configurations) are renegotiated every quarter. IS&C is looking to fast-path an implementation using UCLA's web interface. Concern was expressed that this would make it difficult to purchase identical configurations over a period of time. This program provides the most benefits when it is used for large purchases, rather than single purchases. The systems come with a three-year on-site warranty from the manufacturer.
The next UCCSC meeting is in San Francisco August 7-9, 2005. Travel costs have shrunk attendance at some previous meetings so there is a push for each campus to identify a champion/coordinator to drum up interest.
Review of ECP & IS-3 Revisions Deadline
Reminder: Review of ECP & IS-3 Revisions is due April 30, 2005. There have been significant changes to these documents. Please check them out at the links below.
Sun JES/I2 Proposal
The current proposal has Sun providing almost their entire suite of software at a flat cost of $65,000/year. For products that require maintenance this would be 7/24 premium support. This time it does not have any requirements regarding hardware or operating systems, and it also includes the Waveset provisioning technology. Should we continue to seek "best of breed" solutions for each piece of our software infrastructure, or should we instead go with an economic decision that gets us reasonable solutions that are better integrated but not necessarily "best of breed"? And where do the Open Source Initiatives of SAKAI and Kuali fit into this picture? Arlene Allen and Bill Doering are going to schedule a meeting with Sun representatives to ask them hard questions about the program and what their solutions are for Active Directory.
Regents Cost Cutting Initiative
McKinsey, a consulting firm looking for a contract with UC, made a proposal to the UC Regents in which they said that UC could save 5-15% ($100M-$200M) in IT spending across the campuses. Financial analyses by the ITLC indicate that the campus central IT budgets have already been reduced by 14.5% due to the budget cuts (UCSB's reduction was 20%). They also show that central IT represents only 20-25% of total IT spending, with the majority (75-80%) occurring in the departments. None of these numbers take into account the growing workload everyone is facing. The current focus for savings is on Strategic Sourcing and Telecom. Outside consultants may be hired to look for additional cost savings.
Next Meeting
The next ITPG meeting will be Monday, March 28, 2005 at 10:00 am in 5125 Cheadle.
Back to ITPG Meeting Schedule
