Southern Connecticut State University
Office of Information Technology
Administrative Computing
Annual Report for FY 2005
Ending June 30, 2005
Introduction
In FY2005, the Administrative Computing unit of OIT continued with its plans for many ongoing improvements to the technology infrastructure for the campus community. These improvements included:
· Installation of a high speed, high capacity LTO tape backup system.
· Hardware upgrades for email, campus portal, and web services.
· New hardware to support a variety of new applications for administrative offices.
· Continuation of the administrative PC replacement plan.
In addition, efforts continue to improve support capability for campus users, including automated virus and spam updates, a simpler and easier to manage user account system, and a campus wide printer network.
Also, in conjunction with other OIT departments, plans are currently being developed for 3 major initiatives that will be implemented in FY 06:
· The upgrade from Campus Pipeline to the Luminis portal.
· The upgrade to Banner 7.x.
·
The migration from WebCT Campus Edition to the WebCT Vista
product.
· Implementation of a centralized backup system. All campus Windows and UNIX servers will be backed up using the Veritas NetBackup product to a multi-unit tape library. As additional servers and storage are added, this will provide additional backup capacity and reduce the backup window time. This was completed in is scheduled for November 2004.
· New hardware was purchased and installed in preparation for the migration of the campus portal from Campus Pipeline to the SCT Luminis product. Migration is scheduled for August, 2005.
· Hardware was purchased and installed for several new Windows applications, including the DialVision system and the Optika document management system.
Functional Units and Operations (Personnel)
The Full-Time personnel are currently organized and their major
responsibilities are as follows:
John Young, Director
Diane Tourangeau, Secretary
Christine Risley, Computer Operations Supervisor
Matt LeSieur, System Administration, Internet and UNIX Services
John Bergevin, Administrative Desktop Support Manager
Linda Mordente (currently on medical leave), Desktop and LAN Support
Cliff Cohen, System Administration, Windows and LAN Services
Jeffrey Otis, Client/Server System Administrator
University Assistants and University Student Workers:
Mary Gagel, UA, Computer Operations and Windows support
Anthony Cangiani, UA, Desktop Support
R. James Scheffler, UA, UNIX Support
Amy Capello, USW, Desktop Support
Support continues for a variety of Windows applications and services, including
network file storage, print services, and application hosting.
Application Support. The following Windows based applications were implemented or upgraded in FY 05:
Streaming Services. The
Helix streaming multimedia server from RealNetworks has been upgraded to
support unlimited connections, as well as multicasting to support live streaming
broadcasts.
Email/Web Portal. Preparations are underway to migrate the campus
portal to the SCT Luminis product. This will include a content management
system to distribute content creation and editing to a variety of departments.
Hardware has been upgraded for portal, email, and directory services.
Jennings Operations Center
Storage / Backup Project. Phase I of the storage/backup project was concluded with the implementation of the new backup system in November, 2004. All Windows and UNIX servers now back up to a central backup system using a SUN tape library with 4 LTO tape drives. The backup window for nightly backups has been reduced by 60% (from 10 hours to 4 hours), providing enough capacity to handle future backup requirements. Disaster recovery procedures have been updated and formalized with respect to backup/restore functions.
Cable Management. With the assistance of Network and Telecom, a new cable management system was installed in the Operations Center, streamlining procedures for server management and updates.
The replacement cycle for
administrative desktops continued through FY 2005. 171 new PCs were deployed
during this fiscal year.
The administrative desktop staff received 1,994 help desk tickets during the
course of the fiscal year. In addition to new deployments, these consisted of
358 hardware/repair based calls and 1,218 software support calls.
Hardware repair costs continue to be low, costing less than $500 for the year.
In addition, administrative desktop inventory has been tracked to a 0% variance
(i.e. every piece of equipment has been accounted for) for the fiscal year.
Conclusion
While much of the role of Administrative Computing is supporting administrative applications, this unit has migrated to provide infrastructure support for a wide variety of administrative, academic, and university wide applications, including many mission critical 24 by 7 services, such as email and web services. Administrative Computing is continually taking measures to increase reliability and capacity of these services.
While the number and quality of services increase, our
staffing levels have remained consistent (8 full time, 4 part time employees),
providing the university a greater cost benefit. Although we have been
successful in the past, the level of technology change is truly daunting and
our ability to keep pace with this change continues to be a serious challenge.
In spite of these challenges, Administrative Computing has, and
will continue to, expand and improve a wide array of services for student,
faculty, and staff. At the same time, measures will continue to be taken
to reduce costs, wherever possible. The Administrative Computing unit is
proud of its contributions to OIT and to the University at large.