Network Managers Meeting Minutes

September 6, 2001

 

Minutes by Joe Dance – send corrections or comments to dancejoe@moore.sc.edu

 

 

Michael Dollar opened the meeting at 2:00 PM.

 

 

Troy Travis:  Energy Conservation

-          Attended a meeting re: sustainable universities energy, etc.

-          A group called ConserveIT will be formed to look at ways of saving energy in IT.

-          Introduced Jim Demarest.

 

Jim Demarest, Facilities Mgt.:  Energy Conservation

-          USC is developing energy policy.

-          Wants involvement of everyone in the USC community.

-          Forming subcommittee re: IT.

-          USC spends $11m/year for utilities, 50% of operating budget ($22m).

-          Wants to work through Network Mgrs; i.e., the administration will expect Network Mgrs to “lead the way” in our respective departments, regarding energy conservation,

 

Troy Travis:  Energy Conservation

-          Came up with a simple list of measures to conserve energy.

-          Funding requested to some basic research as to potential savings.

-          Community involvement needed to succeed.

-          This is an opportunity for us – the IT community at USC -  to be proactive and to contribute in two of three key areas (research and community service).

 

Steve Wright:  Filtering Incoming Email

-          There will be a forum on USC campus e-mail & virus filtering.

-          This will be held in the Computer Services Auditorium Tuesday, September 11 at 2:00 PM. 

-          Everyone who is interested in this topic is welcome.

 

Ruth Abercrombie and Ronni Wilkinson:  “Move-in Weekend”

-          “Move-in weekend” went very well.

-          6,026 students moved in by Monday.

-          NetReg was implemented to associate usernames with USC addresses.

-          3,759 NICs were registered.

-          NetReg has enabled staff to track down a problem system in much less time, generally 1-2 hours (vs. a week), and sometimes as little as 5 minutes.

-          100 volunteers participated.

-          1000 requests for assistance were received; 850 were completed over the weekend.

-          Approximately 500 tickets outstanding in dorms.

-          The number of new tickets has declined to 30+ per day.

-          We should be caught up in the next week.

-          Many of the problems were caused by a single router, which has now been fixed.

-          Some subnets ran out of space; additional subnets were created.

 

Ronnie Wilkinson: Security

-          The blocking of web servers has been delayed.

-          The IDS is generating too many alerts, and needs to be reconfigured.

-          On Sep 20, at CSD, at 2PM: Checkpoint presentation.

-          New firewalls have been installed and configured.

-          New switches have not yet arrived.

-          Kaaza/Morpheus, a peer-to-peer file sharing application like Napster is consuming a huge portion of our outbound bandwidth.

-          Tell staff, if they install it, their PC becomes a server.

 

Jim Curtis:  New Telephone Switch

-          Service to Currell will be cut off on 9/21/2001, and back online at 9/24/2001.

-          Users of digital phones will get new phones, and must attend training.

-          Users of analog phones will not get new phones.

-          Vendor (Avaya) has reps on campus taking inventory of digital systems, and programming new units.

-          Two weeks prior to cutover, moves, etc. will be suspended, until that building is completed.

-          Priority will be to alarms, call boxes, and elevators.

-          Schedule and plans will be available – e-mail Jim Curtis or see the Network Managers website.

 

Lorie Edwards

-          Projected technology fee expenditures for FY2001/2002 include the following: 
Blackboard (software maintenance, consulting services)                                         110,000.00 
Direct Support to Students/public labs (network & telephone)                                 240,000.00 
Hardware Leases (public labs, Thomas Cooper Library)                                          102,000.00 
Infrastructure Enhancements (WAN video project, Wireless

                  on the horseshoe, etc.)                                                                                   210,000.00 
Internet Access (Commodity) (does not include Internet 2)                                       274,000.00 
McAfee Virus Software                                                                                               165,000.00 
Microsoft Campus Agreement                                                                                    230,000.00 
Miscellaneous Software Maintenance (DARS, Alertpage,

Web Search Engine, Rexxware, etc)                                                               25,000.00 
Novell Site License (includes Groupwise)                                                                  160,000.00 
Office of Information Technology                                                                                300,000.00 
Student Network & Security/Firewall Enhancements                                                184,000.00 
VIP Enhancements                                                                                                     200,000.00 

-     Monthly billing of departmental telephones allows an upgrade to the current

telephone system.  Total cost of telephone system upgrade is                              5,737,191.00

-          Continuing to visit schools, meet deans, discussing mainly Blackboard 

-          and VIP; goal is to meet with all deans in coming months

-     Computer Services website redesigned: www.csd.sc.edu

 

Helen Epting:  Training

-          We have leased the TCT Technical Training for one year.

-          The training includes: Sniffer, Cisco, Windows NT Admin, Windows 2000 Server, NetWare, ATM, Voice over IP, Linux, Unix, and more.

-          Details are forthcoming as soon as the vendor receives the PO.

-          It will be announced on Net Manage.

-          The number of seats will be limited.

 

 

 

Michael Dollar:  Cloning

-          Requested that anyone with expertise in cloning, contact him.

 

Troy Travis:  Vendor Consulting Assistance

-          We may be able to get some consulting assistance from Microsoft, in light of our contract.

 

Tobias Brasier:  Accessibility of IT Resources

-     I am working on a list of names of talented and dedicated individuals to research accessibility (with regard to Section 508) of IT resources at the University. The deliverable items include:

 

o        A policy and procedure to ensure IT resources at the University are
accessible to everyone, and

o        A transition plan for making IT resources at the University accessible
to everyone.

 

-          There will be three groups for this project:

 

o        A working group - This group will do the grunt work of the project. I hope for individuals with knowledge and talents in the areas of IT accessibility and policy writing. I anticipate this group will meet once every two weeks.

o        An advisory group - This group will do the cheer-leading work of the project. I hope for individuals with clout and the ability to sing the praises of the project to the higher-ups at the University. I anticipate this group will meet once every two weeks.

o        A resource group - This group will provide specialized information to the working group. I hope for individuals with knowledge and talents in the areas which the working group might need information (purchasing, law, human resources, etc.). I anticipate individuals from this group will meet once (at most) with the working group. This group is already selected for the most part.

-          I wish to have the first meeting by the end of September.

-          If you are interested in working with this group, please contact me at tobias@sc.edu by close of business, Friday, 7 September 2001. Please remember that your interest does not mean automatic inclusion in a group, though it might come down to that or to your ability to fog a mirror.

 

Michael Dollar concluded the meeting.