Present: Mark Aldenderfer, Arlene Allen, Larry Carver, Glenn Davis, William Doering, Doug Drury, Matt Dunham, Bill Koseluk, Deborah Dawicki, Tom Lawton, Tom Marazita, Elise Meyer, Linda Moskovitz, Joan Murdoch, Stan Nicholson, Michael Oliva, Fuzzy Rogers, Glenn Schiferl, Chris Sneathen, Jamie Sonsini, Paul Weaklien, Craig Welsh
AuthDir
Arlene reported that work is progressing on the new web user interface. She and Matt Dunham are also working with the Registrar’s office, determining the nature of what data takes precedence and how it should be released. A massive set of “truth tables” is being created, consisting of UMAIL and the LDAP directory, which together it is hoped will end up with a publishable set of information. It is hoped that Arlene’s and Matt's web pages will point to each other. The UCOP Authorization RFQ is still circulating in rough draft form, and although there is no tentative due date, early June is hoped for.
Faculty Survey
Glenn Davis reported on the quarterly Joint Operations Group (JOG) meeting whose attendees represented all campuses and labs. The RFP for a portal content management system has been sent out, responses have been returned, and 4 finalists have been chosen. Meetings have been scheduled in Oakland most of next week (seats are available if anyone is interested in attending), and recommendations are expected by the end of the first week in June. Questions arose regarding OP funding for portal/content management systems. It also appeared to the ITPG that starting with the portal rather than the authorization package is backwards. Reports regarding ongoing discussions will be coming soon. David Walker has moved to OP/IT and is reconvening the directory group to try and get it going.
PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) is happening on some campuses such as UCLA, UCSD, and UC Irvine. Presentations are being prepared for systemwide.
Doug reported that UCOP is very interested in E-Procurement. Each campus has performed an analysis but there is no justification on the benefits of such a program except for UCLA, which already has a system in place. UCLA, UCSF, UCSD, and UCSC are getting together and verifying the results of the analysis. The possibility of partnering with UCLA in order to combine resources is technically feasible, and San Diego and Santa Cruz are actively pursuing this avenue. Donna Carpenter (UCSB Accounting) may be interested as well. Sociologically, an agreement needs to be reached on issues such as processes, licenses, etc.
There are two suggestions related to HRIS implementation: either enhance PPS, or replace it. Both have huge costs (approx. $86M) UCOP needs better access to data in order to effectively deal with labor union issues. The current proposal is to enhance PPS to provide more detail, access to history, define action codes, establish a front-end web page, and expose the data to a UC-wide data warehouse.
Budget
The good news is that core funding and capital funding is protected. The bad news is that there are targeted cuts in the areas of infrastructure and outreach. Cuts to permanent Internet2 funding are anticipated to be in the neighborhood of 7-30%. Both permanent and one-time Internet2 funds are used to support the WAN, IBW and NGB initiatives. OIT has responded to UCOP’s request regarding current commitments. No response has been received to date.
Gartner Renewal
For the last two years, OIT funded a 7-seat Gartner subscription for $19,500/year. Both the terms and the cost have changed for the next 3-year subscription period. The new terms include 2 full-access seats, access to 95% of Gartner’s materials (no longer limited to educational data), and a CD-ROM service that we could post on our internal network and make available to all faculty, staff and students. And the new cost is $27,000/year. We have also been offered an additional semi-full access seat as a “good customer” discount. Given the budget situation and the fact that there is competition in the market, UCOP advises that we refuse to renew under this offer and negotiate for a better deal. The question was raised as to the feasibility of “passing the hat” if we cannot obtain better pricing, keeping in mind that current subscription funding is from Internet II allocations. It was pointed out that we could not “piggyback” with another campus. It was decided that we should research the best cost, consider the funds available, check out the competition, and then make a final decision.
Patriot Act
Under the Patriot Act, system administrators can independently request police investigations of computer records. A committee, which includes Mark, has been formed at UCSB to deal with Patriot Act requests. A memo will be forthcoming identifying point people as contacts. In dealing with situations, when in doubt, consider the ECP, go up the chain of command, and “do the right thing.” Questions should be forwarded to the OIT.
KaZaA
KaZaA has greatly affected the ISP usage (and costs) at other campuses. At Irvine the increase was due to KaZaA running on 5 compromised systems. At Berkeley the increase was due to a negligible use on each machine, which aggregated to a large amount of traffic by the campus as a whole. Berkeley began to identify systems running KaZaA and went to the departments to have them investigate and stop the usage. These tactics brought up ECP questions, with the issue of whether or not the port number should be considered as part of the content or transaction data.
A new version of KaZaA involves entering into an agreement to make a user’s hard drive and bandwidth available to KaZaA. The effect for campus users is that they are trading resources (bandwidth) that they don’t own. Although KaZaA has filed bankruptcy, they have unloaded their technical infrastructure and are still alive and well. Be cautious regarding your rights to access data and content. Currently UCSB departments should be advised to notify users not to use KaZaA, if traffic is detected on their systems.
ONI
The latest development is that seismic work on the Los Carneros Bridge could interfere with the planned “last mile” route. The route may be changed to go out of the HRC to Castilian, and out to the railroad tracks from there. Due to not receiving the funding for our last mile construction project by April 1st, we don’t expect to meet the December 1st Pac Bell contract expiration deadline. If new routes are not available, we will need to lease Gigabit service to an ONI hubsite location. Currently the closest ONI hubsites are in LA and SLO, but there may be an option to recreate the Santa Barbara hubsite at 17 E. Cota, possibly piggybacking with SBCC and the Santa Barbara schools. (The shorter the distance we have to lease service, the lower the cost.) As another alternative, UCOP is budgeting to keep the SONET rings going beyond December 1st at double the cost. However they will push hard to at least get campuses off at least one ring. We should expect a memo regarding a $140K commitment to help UCOP get financing for $18M in last mile construction. Campuses should be prepared to acquire border equipment capable of handling 10 GB traffic over the next 4-5 years. UCOP distributed a memo at CPG that included the justification for ONI that we will have insufficient bandwith in 2 years, and that ONI will allow greater bandwidth at current prices. We are working with a Civil engineering company on plans and permits to allow us to move forward quickly when the project is funded.
Networking Equipment Agreements
UCOP approached Cisco and demanded their best pricing, and were granted a 40% discount on equipment, but over the last month or two, ENI (co-op through IBM) has been granting 45% discounts to their customers. Cisco will match this 45% discount effective retroactively approximately 60 days. You should include the 45% discount and request that UCSB purchasing contact Jane Schoenfeld on your orders. Negotiations continue with Foundry.
address@ucsb.edu
Kevin Schmidt reported that they try to avoid pre-assigned names, but suggests first.last@ucsb.edu as a format. Users can select their addresses, but once selected, cannot change them. He also highlighted the following points:
- It would be helpful to have a page of technical support contacts.
- The accounts are end-user accounts only, not functional accounts, i.e., no soc.chair@ucsb.edu.
- Addresses will not be held for individuals who leave and then return at a later date.
- The system cannot block or be selective in regards to spam, but it may be able to tag it in the X-headers, leaving further processing to the end user.
- Some filtering for viruses is available, but more licenses are needed. Currently intended recipients are not notified when viruses are detected, but the system does send a message back to the sender. There is no guarantee that this feature will be continued, and it is suggested that some form of desktop antivirus software be used consistently.
- The default is to re-write addresses on inbound messages. If you use hub.ucsb.edu for outbound messages, you can request rewriting for outbound messages.
- The system does not provide any POP or IMAP access.
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