State of IT

June 2, 2005

By

William Lewis, CIO

ABOR Issues/Pressures

• Centralization of Administrative Systems

• IT Architectural Standards

• Project Review

FUNDING PRESSURES

• Increasing Demands for Resources and Services

• Demands for IT as a Utility Service– Security– Storage– Archiving– Networking

Funding Pressures(continued)

• Resources/Services Required by the New American University

Need for Enhanced Communications

• Linking IT to the Planning and Budgeting Process

• Sharing Information to Maximize Impact of Investments

Exchange 2003• Planned migration during month of July • Initial 2003 server in production now • Improvements include:

– Much better OWA interface – RPC over HTTP – no VPN required from off campus – Improved efficiency and security between Outlook and

Exchange (compression and encryption) – Outlook Mobile Access for web browsers on phones

and PDAs (http://exchange.asu.edu/oma) – ActiveSync for Outlook Mobile devices

E-mail Archive• Planned implementation June 27th, IT staff activated on

June 2nd. • Will archive oldest items in mailboxes over 100 MB • Replaces archive items with shortcut, message can be

viewed as normal (different icon for shortcut) • Web interface to manage and search archive, and restore

full message from archive • 1 GB quota for archive mailboxes • Items older than 2 years in archive will be deleted • Significant communications on details coming soon

Blackberry

• Completed upgrade to 4.0 BES

• Expanded to two servers – increased capacity

• Improved attachment support

myASU (uPortal)

• Departmental development now supported

• 2 hour training class available for channel developers

• New look-n-feel (skins) coming soon

Help Desk Services

• Expanded Hours of Service as of Aug. 2005 – 6:30am to 12:30am daily

• Improve Communications Among Various Help Desks

Administrative Systems

• All Are Under Review for Possible Refresh or Replacement– SIS– HR– Finance

• Issues– $$$$

Data Network

• Two Diverse-path Gigabit Connections to Internet

• New ISP Service Provider – Sterling Networks– Current ISP Service is 200Mbps

• Joining CENIC (Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California)– Internet 2– National Lambda Rail

Data Network (Continued)

• Wireless Network Expansion• Guest Access Service• Cisco Clean Access (Perfigo)• Downtown Tempe Public Wireless• CDP Upgrade Status

– ~25% complete– Status available at http://

datacomm.asu.edu/cdpprogress/

Data Network (Continued)

• Research Cluster Network Investigation

• Valley Light Rail Fiber

• Looking at Possibility of a Metropolitan Research Network – very preliminary stages of feasibility

• Fulton School Network Support

ASUrite Infrastructure Upgrades

• Doubled the Portal/MyASU Server Farm

• Increased Webauth Servers and Added a Redundant Site

• Upgraded DB2 Environment

• Installed Enhanced DHCP Servers

• Upgraded IMAP Servers

ASUrite Infrastructure Upgrades (continued)

• Upgraded EDNA Servers and Added Redundancy

• Added Webtrends Redundancy

• Upgraded AFS Servers

• Upgraded ASU Web Servers

• Upgraded the Post Office

ASUrite Infrastructure Upgrades (continued)

• New STRONG Password Procedure– Implement in June– Enforced in November

Telephone Services

• Modular Messaging• Avaya 8700 Switch Replacement• Network Assessment Planning

(QOS)• VoIP Pilots• Developing Cell Phone Strategy for

Enhanced Coverage for Interior and Exterior Spaces

New Computing Sites

• ISTB1 – 5,000 Sq. Ft. “DARK” Node

• Downtown Campus – 411 N. Central

Blackboard

• Fall 2004– 3080 Courses– 49,200 Students*

• Spring 2005– 3109 Courses– 49,800 Students*

• Related Help Desk Questions– 2004 Jan-Dec 10,890 Inquiries– 2005 Jan-May 4,130 Inquiries

Blackboard (continued)

• Environment– Application Servers: 8 IBM xSeries

Servers– Oracle Data Base Server: SUN 880

migrating to Dual SUN V40Z’s– Fully Mirrored Disk

Blackboard (continued)

• Performance– Spring 2005: 100% availability Except

for Scheduled Maintenance Windows– Fall 2004: During Finals Week, the

Data Base Server Peaked at 100% on Several Occasions

– After Database Tuning, the Peak Usage during Spring 2005 Finals Week was 60%

Instructional Support Software/Services Additions

• BREEZE: Multi-Media Instructional Creation and Delivery Software

• FLEX: Data Visualization Tool for Accessing Disparate Datasets

• Turnitin: Plagiarism Prevention/Evaluation Tool (Currently Under Evaluation)

• ACCESS Grid: Video Collaboration Over I2 Service (Joint with COE)

Services Being Evaluated by DMIT

• Ruckus Network: Digital Video and Audio Subscription Service

• Cisco IPTV: Video Distribution Over IP

Research Computing Support

• Held 2 Sessions Where Faculty Presented Research Computing Needs

• No One Computing Architecture Works Best For All Problems

• Upgraded Existing Research Computing Support Servers

• Have Ordered 2 Cray XD1 Systems

Research Computing Support (continued)

• Looking for a Large Memory Grid Computing System That Can be Grown

Classrooms and Computing Sites

• Upgrades 192 old computers• Responded to 4127 Classroom

Support calls• Provided 569 Instructor Training

Sessions• Installed 9 Classroom Performance

Systems and Will Be Installing 10 More this Summer

Classrooms and Computing Sites (continued)

• Installing Charge-For-Print systems in Classrooms This Fall

• Implementing “Virtual Site” Service This Fall to Provide Web-based Access to a Subset of the Site Software Using Tarantella

QUESTIONS