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ICC Meeting:

IFAS COMPUTER COORDINATORS
(ICC)

NOTES FROM July 10th 2015 REGULAR MEETING


A meeting of the ICC was held on Friday, July 10th, 2015 in the UF/IFAS Communications Building. The meeting was chaired and called to order by Jimmy Anuszewski at about 10:02 am.

PRESENT: At least 31 members participated.

Remote participants: Tom Barnash, Angelo Daniels, Donna McCraw, David DePatie, DeWayne Hyatt, Wayne Hyde, Luis Coll, Dan Christophy, Al Ibanez, Kevin Hill, John Macias, Marion Douglas, Angel Perez, Javier Real, Scott Owens, Larry Treadaway, John Wells.

On-site participants:
Jimmy Anuszewski, Francis Ferguson, Winnie Lante, Santos Soler, James Canter, Dan Cromer, Raichel White.

STREAMING AUDIO: The digital audio recorder died at the beginning of the meeting, so there is only a video.

Recorded Video: Here. (It's a big file, so give it time ;) )


NOTES:

Winnie Lante should be commended for her food/drink accomodations. Also, thank you to Francis Ferguson to providing the amazing Dunkin Donuts.


Report from the chairman

Member news: None reported.

Recap since last meeting:

As per his usual procedure, Jimmy pointed folks to the notes of the last meeting, without going into any details.

Details about this meeting:

I've deleted a lot of the old anchors that were in the minutes due to lack of updates. I suggest searching the ICC site for information that you may be looking for.


Security: (previous discussion)

The university’s licenses for McAfee anti-virus is expiring in four months. UF’s replacement for this expiring functionality is UF Endpoint Management (UFEM). If not started already, university IT staff should be planning their UFEM deployment strategy to replace McAfee. UF’s license with McAfee will expire in September, 2015.
All copies of McAfee software must be removed by September 20, 2015. IFAS IT Hard deadline is July 13th. SCCM will be pushed out. More information will be avaiable soon.

From UF IT:
"UF Endpoint Management (UFEM) is UF’s New Solution! UFIT provides endpoint management services for all UF endpoints via UFEM (it.ufl.edu/ufem). Since UFEM went live last fall, there has been strong, early adoption by numerous colleges and units of the university. UFEM replaces the functionality of McAfee for anti-malware. In the time period since the service has been in production, more than 14,000 endpoints (e.g., servers, desktop PCs, laptops and tablets) are already connected to UFEM. The ability to manage all aspects of Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux endpoints from a single console is a big plus for workstation managers and IT directors. UFEM is FREE to all colleges and units of the university, including DSOs. Training is mandatory before service access (via security roles) is granted. For more information please visit the UFEM site: http://www.it.ufl.edu/ufem"

 

Patching updates... (previous discussion)

Microsoft

July's Microsoft patches have not been listed yet. The link is to June's. Current risk assessments can be found here.

Outlook for iOS and Android still has not met criteria (as of this day) to allow it to be used on UF Exchange system.

Native mail apps for Androids and iPhones are still ok to use.

Microsoft also released the official version of Office 2016 for Mac. The installer package is available on the IFAS Software server.

Adobe

There were some Adobe Flash updates here (including Flash and Flash Player). Bridge had an update on June 16th, Flash on July 7th,

Java

Java updates were on April 14 and Java 7 reached end of life on April of 2015. Next critical patch update for Java 8 will be July 14, 2015.

Apple

There have been several Apple updates, including system updates for security, iTunes (for the new iRadio), QuickTime for Windows, and iOS 8.4.

SAS

SAS University Edition recently had an update. Please visit this link.

Other

Something that I wasn't aware of until recently is that the University Apps system is provided, for free, to students. This includes some popular software such as SAS and Sigmaplot. I'm not sure why faculty and staff are not able to use this, but I did provide feedback asking that question. This would definitely make imaging new machines easier, without the need to install cumbersome software such as SAS. Does anyone have any information on this system? Dan and Winnie noted that Faculty and Staff can request access if their students use any of the apps.

Updates as available...


Videoconferencing and WAN discussion

Videoconferencing topics (previous discussion)

Acano released update R1.7 July 1st.

I have recently used Acano for 3 different conferences involving on campus and off campus participants with no problem, all involving video conferencing and desktop computer end points.

Updates as available...


End-user Scheduling (previous discussion)

Updates as available...

Lync updates (previous discussion)

Updates as available...

WAN (previous discussion)


Wireless printers (previous discussion)

Updates as available...

 


Policy


Content Management System (CMS) for UF: Entering preparation phase (previous discussion)

Terminal 4 is now live on NFREC and MREC. Both GCREC and IFAS main are being hosted on the IFAS Servers. ICS is providing T4 tips every Friday, located here.

Updates as available.

Cloud Services (previous discussion)

Updates as available.

UF Exchange updates (previous discussion)

Unless something has changed or I missed the notes, Exchange Server still hasn't reached 100% compatibility with OWA or Mac's version of Outlook.

Have a couple of users that are not able to set up online meetings in their Outlook (or OWA) calendar. Have not found a fix.

Notes from last month's SIAC meeting

Notes from past meetings are available here. Last update was from February. Dan is going to send out notes from the last meeting.

Last month's IT Directors Meeting Notes

IBM Endpoint Management was discussed, ITSM, BigFix and Terminal 4 updates were discussed.

PrintSmart initiative (previous discussion)

Santos has created a step-by-step guide for the PrintSmart install. You can find it....on the WIKI! And he's added to it!
Please pay attention to the new models (8870 and 8880), do not move the printer while it is hot. They use an ink that is wax based and could cause problems when bumped or moved.

New 'Trouble-Ticket' Entry Page for CNS (previous discussion)

There are still some people that have not completed the required training to fulfill the role requests required by the new Trouble Ticket system. For those of you that have completed the lessons, Dan Cromer wanted to send his appreciation out.

Dan announced that he plans on making these tests mandatory for those with ADMN rights.

Remedy sunsets (think "An Officer and a Gentleman") on June 30th.

These are the required courses: (courses are hyperlinked to the UF Training Site)

PRV800 - HIPAA
PRV802 - FERPA
PRV804 - SSN
OIT100 - ITSM Awareness
OIT 200 - myIT Tool Incident & Request

Please remember to submit a request to your DSA (Department Security Administrator)(normally UF_N_SM_STAFF (Service Management Staff)) after you have passed the courses. Don't know who your DSA is? Click here to find out.

KACE (previous discussion)

This has gone the way of the Dodo bird.

 


Projects


Services Documentation: Is a Wiki the way? (previous discussion)

Would be really nice if more people could contribute to this.

Attention!Attention!Attention!Attention!Attention!

A wiki has been created at http://my.ifas.ufl.edu/wiki/icc/. Everyone in the ICC distribution group should be able to add/edit.

Attention!Attention!Attention!Attention!Attention!

Operations


IFAS IT Updates (previous discussion)

The guys in IT have been busy traveling the state, installing servers and setting up new servers on East Campus, amongst other things. We'll try to get an update.

Don't forget that if you need instructions on OS Deployment, a simplified set of instructions are located on the wiki.

We (in ICC) are still waiting on an update for the server migration (if it's happening, how reliable, budget concerns, etc etc). Maybe Dan can give us an update?

According to Dan, EI&O's proposed budget to migrate IFAS servers to East Campus came in well over $2 million (that's 7 zero's) over what IFAS IT was quoted by Dell. That, combined with concerns over supervisor roles and customer service, have put a halt on the move to their services. Monday, July 13, will be the final discussion with EI&O in regards to the concerns over the move. Dan said unless those concerns are met, we will not be moving our services.

Jimmy voiced his concern with the move, stressing that IFAS ICC is accustomed to hands on service and close relations and timely resolutions to problems and that we didn't want to lose that. Jimmy has expressed his concern that $2 million (that's 7 zero's) is a large sum that should be a cause for conern in regards to wreckless spending on EI&O's part.

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.

Creating guest GatorLink accounts: singly or in bulk (previous discussion)

Steve had left this on the agenda in case further discussion was deemed warranted. So Jimmy will leave it here.

Wayne's Power Tools (previous discussion)

Powertools will be getting updated and fixed as time allows.

Public folder file deletion policies and procedures status (previous discussion)

Updates as available...

 


Other Topics


SAS depot updated

The SAS 9.4 installation depot (\\ad.ufl.edu\ifas\SOFTWARE\SAS\SAS9.4_32bit ) has been updated to permit installation on Windows 8.1 AND to allow installation on 32 bit Windows installs.

FAQs for new hires (should use http://my.ifas.ufl.edu/wiki/icc/)

Updates as available...

Adobe licensing (previous discussion)

Updates as available...

Misc.

GatorBox (leaving this here)
Research Computing has launched GatorBox, an enhanced storage option for research. GatorBox features a dropbox-like interface provided by ownCloud software. The new interface offers a convenient and familiar interface as well as desktop and mobile clients, with simple file sync and share functionality. Please contact Research Computing for more information about GatorBox: info@hpc.ufl.edu.

Peer2Peer

Peer 2 Peer can be viewed online.

 


That's All Folks!

The meeting was adjourned at 11:18 and the next meeting will take place August 7th (this is one week earlier then normal, due to scheduling conflicts).