Present: Arlene Allen, Debbie Anglin, Glenn Davis, Bill
Doering, Chuck Haines, Gail Johnson, Rick Johnson, Bill Koseluk, Tom Lawton,
Elise Meyer, Alan Moses, Joan Murdoch, Stan Nicholson, Kevin Schmidt, Deborah
Scott, Bob Sugar, John Vasi
Not Present: Kevin Barron, Art Battson, Ken Bowers, George
Gregg, Phil Handley, Tom Marazita, Ed Mehlschau, Larry Murdock, Vince Sefcik,
Jamie Sonsini
Bill K. presented data showing that UCSB’s rank among
UC campuses on several measures, including number of IT staff, total staff,
compensation, and equipment expenditures, lags our rank in number of students.
Further, the cost of living in Santa Barbara is not recognized. Consequently,
a strong argument can be made that IT activities on this campus are underfunded
relative to the rest of the UC system. This study was based on UCOP corporate
systems for 1998 and 1999 and on information presented on their website.
After some validation has taken place, the data will be presented to ITB.
The Library and Housing indicated that the numbers of IT staff on other
campuses in their respective areas exceeds the number at UCSB. It was also
noted that there are different salary scales in use across the UC systems
and that UCSB tends to fall in the lower tier. Moreover, we seem to have
a relatively narrow hiring range on positions such as Development Engineer.
Bob will request that the data be posted on the ITB web page. In preparation
for a meeting with ITB we might ponder the impact of these statistics.
How does this impede our ability to move forward on IT initiatives?
The CalREN-2 group reported that two additional sites
(CREATE & Multimedia) are very close to connection. Superweb, however,
has run into a wall (literally). High Energy Physics, Alexandria and ITP
are currently connected and it was announced at the meeting that ICESS/Bren
had just made their connection. The ninth original CalREN-2 project (Arts)
has left campus.
The Survey group is busy entering test data in anticipation
of recruiting volunteers to key student response forms.
The Security Working Group met and discussed several items:
First, if Secure Shell software were made generally available for university
users, SWG might recommend switching to it and disabling all non-encrypted
log-ins. Secondly, plans for an upcoming class in how to secure a Unix
box and another in general awareness for MSOs and unit heads were discussed.
It was suggested that the quarterly Administrative Services meeting for
MSOs might be a good place to introduce security topics. It was also suggested
that the class might include citations (and translations) of relevant security
policies.
The job description for the new security position was
circulated for comment. It was noted that a process for speedy completion
of background checks has not yet been established. The new position will
report to the OIT with Bob Sugar listed as unit head in the recruiting
package. The group reached consensus on the wording in the job description
and endorsed sending it to HR to initiate recruiting. As a general security
note, it was observed that while attacks on Unix boxes have be prevalent
for years, the incidence of attacks on Microsoft platforms has been increasing
lately.
Auth/Dir reported that conversion to Netscape Directory
Server 4.11 has been accomplished and the new software is in production
use in support of CorporateTime. The new implementation has authentication
turned on, meaning that one must login using a correct password to search
the directory and review attributes other than name. An additional attribute,
commonly used first-name (Ucsbcufn), which is used in the CorporateTime
implementation, has been added with access control set to allow people
to edit their own entries.
It was noted that we have submitted our first feed of
student data to UCOP for inclusion in UCdir. Current plans are to send
subsequent feeds on the first Wednesday of each month. Our first LDAP extract
containing all of the entries we have collected has also been sent. Fields
transmitted were given name, surname, ucnetid, and business 1 email address.
This feed will allow UCOP to update UCdir in support of rolling out self-service
applications that depend on the availability of email addresses to provide
feedback to users.
Recent announcements that LDAP directory servers are being
bundled with operating systems offered by Sun and IBM bear investigation.
Although we have already paid Netscape license fees for faculty, staff
and student entries in our main LDAP server, we might be able to avoid
yearly license costs for these entries and additional license costs for
the publicly accessible (non-authenticated) LDAP server that is planned.
It was noted that the name@ucsb.edu
email address re-write project has now been restarted and will be integrated
with the new LDAP service.
Proxy service is under investigation by the Library and
IS&C. Although a few localized proxy experiments have been done, the
lack of a campus directory server has prevented their widespread deployment
as general services. Further, we currently believe that a Netscape proxy
server is capable of dynamically loading into browsers only three destinations
to be proxied. Given that there are hundreds of potential content providers
currently authenticating on IP address, some method of deciding which destinations
to load and how to change them when necessary must be developed. Possibilities
are: (1) the Netscape limitation of three might be only superficial and,
therefore, easily changed, (2) Apache proxy servers do not have this limitation,
and (3) a web server might be customized to dynamically load the appropriate
destinations into browsers at the point they are selected by the user.
UCI has tried alternative number 3 and is now moving to alternative number
2. Investigation into the appropriate configuration for the Library continues.
It was noted that all nine campuses either have a proxy
server in place or are building one. However, most of the others are being
implemented as general campus services rather than services specific to
the Library.
A kickoff meeting of the group discussing guidelines for
acquisition of personal computers by students was reported. Initial feelings
are that the group should avoid specifying a brand name and should concentrate
on communicating required functionality instead. Macintosh remains an issue
because students continue to acquire Macs although back-level browser problems
prevent their usage with newer administrative systems such as BARC. Apple
has been contacted regarding the browser problems and some hope that this
problem can be remedied or circumvented exists.
In response to a question from Communications Services,
the group reached consensus on configuration of the new campus modem service.
In short, there will be two modem numbers to dial. One number will provide
access to 16 modems configured to run at 56Kbps with a two-hour time limit.
The other number will provide access to about 112 modems also configured
to run at 56Kpbs, but with a 30 minutes time limit. The new configuration
should provide the data we need to make appropriate adjustments to parameters
as we go along.
Berkeley’s experience with Napster and the Search for
Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project was reported. Each of these
activities consumes about 1/3 of the ISP bandwidth charged to UCB, leaving
the remaining third for the other 40,000 users on their network. Restrictions
have now been placed on the UCB residence halls and the SETI project has
voluntarily scaled back its usage. Nevertheless, these examples show that
unrestricted demand for network bandwidth can generate large expenditures
for a campus and that fixed port pricing might not be sufficient to manage
demand.
It was noted that the GTE contract for unlimited hours
of ISP service for a reduced charge will expire in September. Communications
Services would like to know whether or not there is interest in negotiating
a new contract for reduced-rate ISP service.
Advertising for the new Associate Director of the OIT
is expected to hit the streets soon. Candidates for this position and for
the ½ time faculty Director position are being recruited, as are
people to populate the search committees.
Space for the OIT has also been identified in North Hall.
The goal is to relocate current occupants and reconfigure the space in
time to begin OIT operations on July 1.
The OIT Transition Team has compiled a draft mission statement
and a draft service list for the new organization. Refinements will follow
as will a discussion of which services should be free and which should
be recharged. This document will be offered as advice to the incoming OIT
directors.
The major discussion topic of the meeting revolved around
the issue of virus protection software contracts. UCOP had negotiated a
potential deal with NAI. Moreover, our current agreement with Symantec
expires in May. One difficulty is raising the $31k required to participate
in the UCOP deal in the time available (a few days at most). A larger issue
is finding some rational way of paying for campus software licenses other
than "passing the hat". For example, a goal of acquiring this site license
would be encourage students and researchers to use virus protection software
at no cost and, thus, improve network security on campus in general. However,
no unit has a budget for making such acquisitions that are in the general
interest of the campus.
At the end of the discussion we agreed not to pursue the
NAI contract. Before doing so we would need to answer questions such as:
(1) Is NAI the right product for UCSB? (2) What are the alternatives? (3)
Is there a budget available? (4) Who should pay? (5) Who would be eligible
to use the product?
Secondly, we agreed that virus protection for servers
was a different issue that would be pursued independently by service providers.
Thirdly, we agreed to invite Laurice Kennel of the UCSB
Software Depot to attend a future ITPG meeting to help us explore the alternatives.
The meeting closed with an announcement that the campus
Usenet service had recently been moved to new hardware.
The next meeting of ITPG is scheduled for Wednesday, April
12, at 10:00 a.m. in North Hall 1131.
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