ICC Meeting:

IFAS COMPUTER COORDINATORS (ICC)

MAY 12th 2017 REGULAR MEETING

A meeting of the ICC was held on Friday, May 12th, 2017 in the IFAS Administration building, 89, Room 109. The meeting was chaired and called to order by Jimmy Anuszewski at about 10:01 am.

PRESENT: Twenty-three members participated.

Remote participants: Wei Cao, Andrew Cary, Jonathon Chirino, Daniel Christophy, Angelo Daniels, David Depatie, Haracio Elman, Javier Herrera, DeWayne Hyatt, Kevin Hill, Brian Hurt, Al Ibanez, John Macias, Donna McCraw, Marvin Newman, Scott Owens, Joel Parlin, Angel Perez, Javier Real, Lawrence Treadaway, Philip Lazenby, Russell Hunter, Russell Hunter, Ben Beach, William Thrasher, Abraham Turrell.

On-site participants: Dennis Brown, Francis Ferguson, Wendy Williams, Karen Porter, Jimmy Anuszewski.

STREAMING AUDIO: The audio will available here.

Recorded Video: Video will be available here. (There was a hiccup with SfB during the meeting, which caused us to reboot, so video was lost around the 25 minute mark).

NOTES:

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

Report from the chairman

Member news: None.

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)

UPDATE: No updates.

Update as needed.

Patching updates... (previous discussion)

Microsoft

March's Microsoft patches are still listed in the link, with April, I'm sure, to follow shortly. Current risk assessments can be found here.

There were several Microsoft Office updates to the Apple version, as recently as 5/10/17. Please run AutoUpdater to install those updates.

Adobe

Flash, Acrobat, Reader, Connect, along with several other Adobe products, have updates here. Last updates were on May 9, 2017.

For those of you that have Creative Cloud licenses and renewed, please be aware of an ongoing conversation on the UF IT Discussion list.

Java

Java updates were in April for Java 8U131. Release notes can be found here. This includes a critical patch. Java 8U131 for Mac was released in April, 2017 and is available here. Make sure you double check your Macs for this update as I've seen some not automagically apply it. April 18th is the next planned critical update.

Apple

There have been several Apple updates, including a new system update, security updates and printer driver updates. There is still an issue with SMB server connectivity. I am finding that if you use the IP address, you have a more consistent connection then using the named server.

SAS

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

JMP

JMP 13 is now available through the UF Software Licensing Division.

Other

Email phishing attempts are gettig more common (as if that was possible). Please continue to monitor and report this situation and keep your users aware of this continuing annoyance.

We are happy to report that Cherwell has been working since the latest version was installed and since the move from McCarty D to the IFAS Admin building. Thanks to Angel Perez for working on this problem.

Videoconferencing and WAN discussion

Videoconferencing topics (previous discussion)

Acano latest release is still update R1.8.36. It should be noted that the update site now redirects to the Cisco site and requires a Cisco username and password to login. I spoke with Abraham Turell about the update and he said that the new software and system is currently undergoing reconstruction and that we will be notified when the new software is ready to be used.

Abraham Turrell provided a link to the Acano download here. Abraham explained that the new Cisco video client that will replace Acano has a new color and some minor changes, the most notable will be the login account is different then Acano, which will cause the spaces (co-spaces) to be lost. There is no need to update to the Cisco client yet, Video Services will notify everyone when the time comes.

Skype Business for Mac has updates that should install using your Microsoft Autoupdater. The latest update (4/10/17) included file sharing and some other minor changes.

Update to the problem of Mediasite not recording non-bridge conferences, from Patrick Pettus: Using the content server is not an option for recording Zoom meetings. Those resources are limited to 5 concurrent recordings and are reserved for recording conferences on the Codian Bridge or Cisco Meeting Server. The limited nature of those resources means they have to be scheduled through TMS to prevent overbooking. We can do this for WebEx meeting as those can be scheduled directly from TMS.

Suggested storage areas for Zoom video includes local drive, shared server drive or cloud services.

Updates as available...

End-user Scheduling (previous discussion)

Updates as available...

WAN (previous discussion)

Updates as available...

Wireless printers (previous discussion)

Any updates to this?

Policy

Content Management System (CMS) (previous discussion)

T4 recently demonstrated form and calendar useage, we are awaiting test results on our platforms. UF IT's website is now a T4 site. As a sidenote, http://security.it.ufl.edu is still a Wordpress site.

Updates as available.

Cloud Services (previous discussion)

Updates as available.

Backups/Server Drives (I'm leaving this here!)

I was asked to add this to the agenda. Some Department and REC IT people are wondering if there's official policy in regards to backups and what some IT people are doing for it. From my understanding, that's why we have server drives, but I'll let the discussion start amongst everyone. During the discussion, it was addressed that the server drives should be used because they are backed up multiple times during the day and can be access through VDI at any time. It was also stated that external hard drives should not be relied on nor should they be purchased using department funds.

Admin rights became a separate topic during this discussion and there was a split amongst the participants about how Admin rights should be dispersed. One side stated that Admin rights should only be granted based upon the situation of the user. An exmample Jimmy gave was field computers that needed to have software installed or updated while away from the IT person or users that are in lab that need to install specific software at a moment's notice. All of this would be LOCAL Admin rights. Others stated that it was too much to try and update every computer at the same time (such as Java updates) or to install the same software on multiple computers. Consensus is do what works for each individual situation but rememeber that ultimately, it comes down to the IT person's responsibility if something should go wrong with that computer.

Updates as available.

UF Exchange updates (previous discussion)

Updates as available.

Notes from last month's SIAC meeting

Notes from past meetings are available here. Last update was from October, 2015.

Last month's IT Directors Meeting Notes

You can now view the notes from each meeting at this link.

PrintSmart initiative (previous discussion)

There have been more people dropping out of the PrintSmart option. Seems that the charges for not printing enough per month is starting to make it a not-too-smart choice. It would be interesting to hear how everyone's experience is going with their PrintSmart printers since it's been online for a couple of years.

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

Update as needed...

Mac's: To Domain or Not to Domain(previous discussion)

For those that need instructions on Mac domain"ing" and server connections: https://wiki.it.ufl.edu/index.php?title=Apple_OS_X

ITSA Policy and UF IT Policy

I've found it difficult to find the ITSA Computing Policy and the UF IT Policies, so I will provide the links here and keep them here.

ITSA - http://imm.ifas.ufl.edu

UF IT - http://www.it.ufl.edu/policies/

There will now be an ICC Policy Page that will keep track of policy and guidelines. These are not strict rules meant to dictate what must be done, but instead, a page of policies that are meant to help keep things running smoothly for each department and ITSA. You can find it here.

Projects

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

Would be really nice if more people could contribute to this. Could be changes coming soon! Keep an eye out on the mail list for that announcement!! New content has been added!

A wiki has been created at https://uflorida.sharepoint.com/sites/ifas/wiki/icc/Pages/Home.aspx. Everyone in the ICC distribution group should be able to add/edit.

Operations

IFAS IT Updates (previous discussion)

ITSA has several updates that they'd like to talk about. The floor is theirs. (Including IFAS Help)

Chris explained that ITSA will implement some procedures (and he wanted to clarify that any policy recommendations would be brought before the ICC for discussion but procedural changes will be made when needed and the ICC will be notified of those changes) that will require Windows 10 to be the only image available unless an exception is needed, which will require permission from ITSA (submit a ticket). Chris also noted that R/W permissions to ACLs shouldn't be changed if you're unsure of what changes should be made. Please contact ITSA if a change is needed.

DeWayne gave several updates:

1) DeWayne continued with what Chris was explaining in regards to imaging a new OS. The software membership scheme will be used if W7 or 8.1 are needed. The machine will have to be put into the software group in order to have that option when you PXE boot. (procedure usually takes about 15 minutes). For machines that do not exist in SCCM already (eg - new machines), and it's brand new, then W10 should be installed. Dennis noted that Microsoft will not make patches so that an old OS will not be able to run on a new computer. (those with new chipsets and processors) When asked about faculty members that buy new lab equipment that requires an older OS, they need to be made to work with W10. As alternatives, HyperV, backwards compatibility are amongst the popular options to use that will allow W10 to work with older equipment and software.

2) ITSA is working on the internet-based client SCCM. He will let us know when it is ready. Be prepared if you see some changes going on as they get it ready and set up.

3) The Intel vPro Exploit: They implemented a package in SCCM to detect vulnerable computers and will contact those will computers that need to be patched (BIOS update is the only way to fix it).

Jimmy brought up the topic of deleting computers in AD. Please do not delete a computer just because you do not recognize it. Find out who is using it and go from there.

New DHCP reservation site created (previous discussion)

Update as needed.

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)

Updates as available...

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

Updates as available...

ICC Meeting:

IFAS COMPUTER COORDINATORS (ICC)

MAY 12th 2017 REGULAR MEETING

Report from the chairman

Videoconferencing and WAN discussion

Policy

Projects

Operations

Other Topics