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ICC Meeting:

IFAS COMPUTER COORDINATORS (ICC)

ROUGH DRAFT - NOTES FROM SEPT 11th 2015 REGULAR MEETING


A meeting of the ICC was held on Friday, September 11th, 2015 in the UF/IFAS Communications Building. The meeting was chaired and called to order by Dennis Brown (thanks for taking care of this meeting!) at about 10:01 am.

PRESENT: At least 30 members participated.

Remote participants: Tom Barnash, Al Ibanez, Chris Leopold, Santos Soler, Ben Beach, Luis Riviera, David Depatie, Javier Herrera, Brian Hurt, Wayne Hyde, Marvin Newman, Joel Parlin, Javier Real, Daniel Christophy, DeWayne Hyatt, Marion Douglas, Angelo Daniels, David Bauldree, Kevin Hill, John Macias, Donna McCraw, Angel Perez.

On-site participants:
Winnie Lante, Karen Porter, Dennis Brown, James Canter, Dan Cromer, Raichel White, Spencer Young.

STREAMING AUDIO: The audio link will be available here.

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


NOTES:

Winnie Lante, Karen Porter and Dennis Brown should be commended for their food/drink accomodations.


Report from the chairman

Member news: Let's give a welcome to Ian McLean, who is starting at the WFREC located in Jay, FL.

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)

Updated as they come in.

Patching updates... (previous discussion)

Microsoft

August's Microsoft patches are listed in the link. Current risk assessments, along with USB Stick vulnerabilities, can be found here.

Adobe

Flash and Photoshop have updates here.

Java

Java updates were in August for Java 8U60.

Apple

There have been several Apple updates, including system updates for security, firmware and Java.

SAS

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

Other

Updates as available...


Videoconferencing and WAN discussion

Videoconferencing topics (previous discussion)

Acano released update R1.7.11 August 11th.

Updates as available...


End-user Scheduling (previous discussion)

Updates as available...

Lync updates (previous discussion)

I've had several people ask me about the new Skype Business and if it will be available for Macs. The official word from Microsoft is that it will not be available until sometime in 2016.

WAN (previous discussion)

On Sunday, August 16, during the normal 6am-9am maintenance window, UFIT will deploy a new, stronger certificate for the "UF" wireless system. This system, which is based on the 802.1x standard, uses certificates to assure a secure wireless connection. Most users will see no change in behavior. Please encourage the faculty, staff, and students in your area that haven't used UFIT's automated wireless configuration in the past to visit http://getonline.ufl.edu/ prior to the August 16 upgrade. Users experiencing difficulties before or after the certificate upgrade may contact the UF Computing Helpdesk (352-392-HELP/4357 or helpdesk@ufl.edu) for assistance.


Wireless printers (previous discussion)

Updates as available...

 


Policy


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

Several more IFAS sites have transitioned to Terminal 4, including FYCS and SWFREC.

Terminal 4, Version 8 has been pushed back...again. Due to "resources being unavailable" and Shibboleth support problems. Stand by.

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 June.

Last month's IT Directors Meeting Notes

IBM Endpoint Management was discussed, ITSM, BigFix and Terminal 4 updates were discussed. You can now view the notes from each meeting at this link.

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.

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.

It was mentioned that even if you receive a phone call from users within your department, you should still create a ticket (even if you solved the problem over the phone) because the IT specialist will be credited with the trouble shoot.

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)

I've been out of the office for the past 2-3 weeks, so I haven't been able to get an update, but I believe IFAS IT is waiting on the new hardware to arrive to begin the migration. Perhaps Wayne or Chris can give us an update?

 

From the previous meeting notes that some of you may have missed:

A Sidenote from Jimmy Anuszewski: As Chair of the ICC, I would like to express the fact that there are no personal attacks being made. The concern comes with a history of conflict between certain groups within the complete UF IT family (including IFAS IT). Even with SLA's in place, there have been times when policy or promises have been broken. There is also concern with how a $2.4 million difference in budgets can be negotiated down without loss of quality or service or without that difference in cost being picked up somewhere else (in other words, someone is still paying for it). There are no known provisions for the next purchase in 5 years, which should also be a concern. There are still undetermined costs at hand (such as large virtual servers have still not been determined). Now we have to negotiate what backup servers to buy because it has to benefit UF and not just IFAS (with that, what I mean is that EI&O has different criteria then IFAS IT in regards to machine components)

I believe it is within our rights to question decisions that have been made without the input of the ICC and without any explanation to the ICC. From the July meeting, where it was stated that the deal would not happen, to the August meeting where we are being told the deal was made, the ICC was never included in any decisions, yet, in the past, the ICC was ALWAYS asked about even the smallest decisions that involved us. If there was any subject which should be brought before the ICC, it should have been this topic. I feel that we are being rushed into something that didn't need to be rushed. Why the urgency? Why not allow us to see the budgets and spreadsheets? And how do we already make a deal with no SLA even written yet? I understand that Dr.Payne or Dr.Mastrodicasa would not let anything happen to IFAS IT and only want the best for us, but how much do they know or really understand of the situation? My point is not to keep regurgitating the same questions, my point is to make sure that we are all completely and 100% fully informed of the details and kept within the loop. My predecessor was very active in regards to the integrity and health of the ICC and I was voted in after his retirement to do the same. Therefore, I will keep asking questions.

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 11:35 and the next meeting will take place October 9th and Jimmy will be back.