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ICC Meeting: |
IFAS COMPUTER COORDINATORS
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Forwarded message from Elias Eldayrie to the IT-Directors list: I am pleased to announce a few organizational changes for UF Information Technology (UFIT). Computing & Networking Services (CNS) will be split into two units: Enterprise Infrastructure & Operations and Network Services. Additionally, the UFIT Business Center will grow in responsibilities and services. Enterprise Infrastructure & Operations will be led by an Interim Director and will oversee both the computing and data center services. Effective immediately, Chris Easley will assume this position and report directly to me. I want to thank Chris for his willingness to serve the university in this capacity. I will form a search committee to assist me in recruiting a permanent Director of Enterprise Infrastructure & Operations within the next 12 months. As you know, we are recruiting a Director of Network Services for the University of Florida. We have made great progress, but are not finished yet. I am working on concluding this process as soon as possible before I communicate the outcome. My goal is to name a Director before Tim Fitzpatrick retires on January 24, 2014. Furthermore, the UFIT Business Center will begin to assume the responsibility of the consolidation of our billing services, IT asset management and performance metrics for all UFIT units. Effective immediately, Barb Sedesse will transfer to the UFIT Business Center and will lead our efforts around these continuous improvements. Barb will be a member of the UFIT Business Center leadership team and will report directly to Bonnie Cauthon. I would like thank Barb, also, for her willingness to take on these new responsibilities as we continue to push for innovation and efficiencies in all parts of our organization. Please join me in welcoming Chris and Barb to their new roles. |
Just the other day further details were provided via the same route:
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Forwarded message from Elias Eldayrie to the IT-Directors list: I am pleased to announce that we have concluded our search for a Director of Network Services for the University of Florida. Tom Livoti has accepted the position and will join UF Information Technology (UFIT) effective February 14, 2014. Reporting directly to me, Tom will be responsible for developing the University of Florida data and voice network strategy and roadmap and will have overall responsibility for data and voice network architecture, design, engineering and operations. Tom has worked at the University of Florida for over 25 years, the last 16 in network management and telecommunications. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with an emphasis in Healthcare Administration as well as a Registered Communications Distribution Designer certification. During his tenure at UF he has been involved in the conversion of the Health Center to Voice over IP (VoIP) and installation of the UFHealth wireless network, HealthNet, as well as the network infrastructure for over seven new buildings. He also worked closely with campus to install a common wireless network and the new research network. Please join me in welcoming Tom to UFIT. Additionally, I want to announce that we have established and filled a new and strategically important position for UFIT that will focus on the delivery of service and process improvement initiatives. Effective January 13, 2014, Ayola Singh-Kreitz will assume the position of ITSM Delivery Manager and report directly to the Sr. Director of Enterprise Systems. This position will work with cross-functional information technology (IT) teams to ensure that IT processes and procedures are designed, integrated, and implemented utilizing best practices and industry standards. Ayola has been working for Information Technology at the University of Florida for over 10 years. She graduated summa cum laude with her B.A. in Linguistics with specializations in Mass Communications and TESOL, and her M.S. in Management. From leading the UF Computing Help Desk she brings to the position years of cross-functional project leadership, partnerships with countless stakeholders across campus, and customer-centric operational excellence. Please join me in welcoming Ayola to her new role in UFIT. |
Dan Cromer clarified that Enterprise Systems under David Gruber is not part of this realignment. Things like OSG that were formerly under CNS are will now be part of EIO under Chris Easley (interim).
Options for file sharing by faculty with others outside UF
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Notes from last month's SIAC meeting
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Proposal to move "former students" to the Disabled Accounts OU (previous discussion)
Dan Cromer intends to discuss this matter at the upcoming ITPAC meeting:
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Former students to be denied access to UF/IFAS computer resources... Our current security settings in UF Active Director (UFAD) allow anyone with an active GatorLink account access to IFAS computers and network. However, former students can keep their accounts active indefinitely. This is for Registrar use so that the student can log on to request a transcript. I will recommend that former students, who are no longer attending or otherwise continuing in a working relationship to UF, be blocked from continued access to UF/IFAS computers and network. |
Steve pointed out that we had discussed this matter at the December meeting and the consensus was that the ICC supported the effort provided it was handled automatically via centralized processes and that the processes be documented.
There was some more conversation on this matter today. Steve would like automated central processes that would move UFAD user accounts to the disabled OU as appropriate based on their roles and associations. This is already being done in the case of retiring faculty and Steve sees no reason that something similar couldn't be done for students who have graduated and have no other roles or associations that would/should override that. Departments would still have the ability to override via setting the user as Departmental Associate.
Dan intends to take this matter through the formal governance process. Steve has drawn up a written recommendation from the ICC that Dennis Brown can present to ITPAC.
Last month's IT Directors Meeting Notes
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PrintSmart initiative (previous discussion)
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New IT Service Management Initiative
Dan Cromer had shared an email with the ICC saying that an IT Service Management tool from Cherwell has been recommended for use at UF by the UF ITSM Evaluation Steering Committee:
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Good Afternoon ITSM Steering Committee, Thanks again for your input and direction at our last Steering Committee meeting before the holidays. I wanted to follow up on the action item to complete the additional Cherwell reference call. The ITSM Tool Evaluation Team was able to complete the reference call with QuickenLoans on Friday, December 20. As we discussed, the key objective for this reference check was to hear from a Cherwell customer with a much larger and comparable implementation than what we heard from UCF. The good news is that based on their answers, they did not raise any red flags on the size and scale Cherwell can accommodate. In fact, their Cherwell footprint is actually significantly bigger than what our UF sizing would be with regard to concurrent licenses for IT staff:
With this positive confirmation from a large Cherwell implementation completed, we will continue with the next steps that the Steering Committee outlined for entering into procurement activities with Cherwell. |
Content Management System (CMS) for UF: Entering purchasing phase (previous discussion)
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Authentication Management policy draft (previous discussion)
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New 'Trouble-Ticket' Entry Page for CNS (previous discussion)
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KACE (previous discussion)
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CNS working to implement NAC for UF wireless (previous discussion)
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UF Exchange updates (previous discussion)
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Outsourcing of student e-mail
Dan Cromer intends to discuss this matter at the upcoming ITPAC meeting:
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Email accounts for students to be separate from work accounts... To protect restricted student data, student correspondence needs to be separate from UF business correspondence. This likewise keeps UF business messages separate from student accounts for archival purposes. This requires that students who also work for UF, normally as OPS, to have a “service account” configured for business use. Our previous practice in many cases was to allow the student to have work messages go to his/her one UF mailbox. These email accounts for student use would be generically named by position rather than by individual, so that when one student leaves and another takes the position, the same mailbox can be used. For example, we have set up accounts of IF-SVC-ITSS01 and IF-SVC-ITSS02 for our IT OPS Software Systems employees. Only the password needs to be changed when one person leaves and another takes over, retaining the archive of all messages handled in the course of the work for that position. The disadvantage is that the student must check two different email addresses to get student-related messages and work-related messages. |
Steve can see how we can provide the technical means for keeping student and employee roles separate, but he doesn't understand how we can get people to separate the two roles in practice. Many if not most graduate students are employees with assistantships (at least in his own department). Student email addresses will undoubtedly be the recipient of incoming work-related messages as role-based service accounts will not be what people locate as the contact address from the GAL. Given that Entomology, for example, currently has 39 OPS employees and 155 graduate students, Steve sees this as a tremendous amount of administrative overhead to create a system that does not even really encourage compliance yet alone assure or even monitor it.
While Steve understands the legalities prompting the proposal, he is hesitant to support the creation of further administrative overhead when the results hold such low realistic expectations for acceptance and compliance.
After some discussion we all seemed to agree that service accounts are definitely the way to go for clearly role-based email in positions with high/frequent turnover or where multiple individuals might need to monitor the same role-based email address. Implementation should be done as deemed necessary and prudent in order to protect the department rather than on some black/white non-exceptions basis--at least until UF policy dictates otherwise.
Outlook asking for re-authentication
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Sakai e-Learning System now in production (previous discussion)
Steve mentioned that most seem convinced that Canvas is going to replace Sakai, but Dan Cromer was cautious in pointing out that these are just rumors. He suspects both systems might co-exist, at least for some period of time.
Alternate IFAS domains in e-mail (previous discussion)
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Split DNS solution for UFAD problems (previous discussion)
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New web cluster (previous discussion)
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Windows 8 Deployment? (previous discussion)
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SCCM for IFAS
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Exit processes, NMB and permission removal (previous discussion)
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Services Documentation: Is a Wiki the way? (previous discussion)
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Moving from McAfee VirusScan to Microsoft Endpoint Protection? (previous discussion)
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Print server (previous discussion)
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Recording lectures for Distance Education (previous discussion)
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New DHCP reservation site created (previous discussion)
You are reminded that Santos Soler has created a new DHCP reservation site which you may use to request reservations.
Restoration of back-ups on the file server
Wayne Hyde intends to document and announce proper usage as time permits.
Membership of ". IFAS-ICC" e-mail distribution group to be narrowed to ICC members only (previous discussion)
Steve will keep this as a standing item on our agendas for now as a reminder. The ICC distribution list is more targeted and restricted to IFAS IT support folks only.
Creating guest GatorLink accounts: singly or in bulk (previous discussion)
Steve had left this on the agenda in case further discussion was deemed warranted.
DirectAccess pilot (previous discussion)
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VDI desktops as admin workstations (previous discussion)
Wayne mentioned that he is working on a Windows 8 VDI pool that will be available on a test basis to faculty and staff shortly.
Wayne's Power Tools (previous discussion)
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Computer compliance tool update (previous discussion)
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Folder permissioning on the IFAS file server (previous discussion)
You are reminded to please take the time to read and implement the new standards. If you have any questions get with Wayne or Steve.
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Disabling/deleting computer accounts based on computer password age (previous discussion)
This is yet another matter for which finding time for implementation is proving difficult. Steve wants folks to remember that Andrew Carey had a good plan for dealing with this which perhaps DeWayne Hyatt can find the time to address eventually. In the meantime, it would be very good of each OU Admin to consider mimicking the proposed plan manually by keeping their own records and deleting any computer object which have been disabled for 90 or more days; Wayne's Power Tools can identify those. Steve has finally begun doing that for his own unit and it has made his view within ADUC much more agreeable.
Since BitLocker stores its keys within the computer object in UFAD, Chris Leopold was considering scavenging those keys for secure storage elsewhere. That would provide a fallback for decrypting a drive should the associated computer object be deleted.
Core Services status (previous discussion)
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ePO updates (previous discussion)
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Status of SharePoint services (previous discussion)
IFAS migrating to centralized MOSS
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Public folder file deletion policies and procedures status (previous discussion)
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MS Office News update (previous discussion)
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Job Matrix Update status (previous discussion)
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Adobe licensing
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Planning for a new ICC Chairman
Steve pointed out that the original plan was to hold an election for ICC officers yearly each August. That has never really happened, however, because no one expressed interest in running against Steve. Steve will be retiring from UF after March 2015, however, and he suggests that we appoint or elect his replacement this August in order to permit some overlap so that Steve might assist in orienting the new chair.
Dan Cromer asked Steve if he would be willing to head a nominations committee for this and Steve agreed. For the next few months Steve will be accepting nominations for both Chair and Vice-chair. Please let him know if you are interested in the position or if you have someone you would wish to nominate.
It would be good to have a vice-chair as well if we can find someone willing. Steve's note taking could be handled by an ICC Secretary and the snacks by an ICC Treasurer, if we could fill those positions as well. Spreading out the workload would certainly make things easier.
The meeting was adjourned early at about 11:10 AM.
