Staff Happenings

Comings and Goings

The Information Security Office is excited to welcome Michael Duff, our new Associate Chief Information Security Officer. Prior to joining us at Stanford, he served as Director of IT at SRI International for 11 years, where he was responsible for information security, virtualization infrastructure, email, identity management, application development, and web services. Previous positions he held include CTO at MDinteractive, Visiting Instructor in the Computer Science Department at Miami University, and CEO at Melampus Enterprises.

Michael holds three degrees from MIT. His master's degree is in Engineering and Computer Science, and his two bachelor's degrees are in Electrical Physics and Computer Science.

Stop by Polya Hall room 119 to welcome Michael.

- Tina Darmohray
Information Security Office

I'm happy to announce that Peter Overaas will join the Voice Applications and Services Team (VAST) team on Monday, May 21. Peter brings over 28 years of telephony experience with him. He has had a broad career path of architecture, engineering, and support roles with systems including Nortel, Avaya, Cisco, AMCOM, Microwave Radio, and more. Peter has a very strong background in both Nortel CS-2100 and Avaya ACM system platforms, as well as a breadth of telephony ancillary application integration experience.

Peter joins IT Services from NVIDIA Corporation where he served in a Principal Network Engineering position representing the architecture, engineering, and support roles of NVIDIA's global Avaya ACM infrastructure. He recently completed a global SIP architecture design proposal for NVIDIA's Avaya ACM network, and NVIDIA plans to implement his proposal.

Peter's primary focus will be around the ancillary systems for VAST. His initial responsibility will be taking on the Unified Messaging upgrade and AMCOM paging systems engineering role. In addition, Peter will be taking a lead role in the deployment of the Remote Access Device (RAD) equipment that is replacing the old Nortel OC-12 ring. With his Nortel CS-2100 background, he will collaborate with VAST Engineering peers and the ITSOC-SME team to oversee the careful migration of Nortel peripheral T1s from the OC-12 ring to RAD.

I'm certain that Peter is going to be a strong addition to IT Services. I think that he's really going to be excited about working with such an awesome organization of people.

- Jimmy Hale
Voice Applications and Services Team

The following people have left Information Technology Services. Please contact their manager if you need to follow up on any open items.

Joyce Dickerson (Matthew Ricks)

Rosa Leung (Matthew Ricks)

its in bits welcomes more detailed employee news submissions from all staff. Please submit to itsinbits-submissions@lists.stanford.edu

Tips From Your Admin

Did you know that the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) has created per diem mobile applications for Android, iPhone, and Blackberry?

The application allows travelers to look up Federal government per diem rates by city/state and ZIP code in locations throughout the United States and its territories. Per diem is the daily allowance for lodging (excluding taxes), meals, and incidental expenses.

- Cholada Chenhansa
Administrative Services

Tech Briefings

Fridays
2–3:30 p.m.
Turing Auditorium

Friday, May 18
Farmshare — Shared Computing Environment

Friday, May 25
No Tech Briefing — Memorial Day Weekend

Check the Tech Briefings home page for future sessions and to subscribe to the mailing list.

Technology Training

NEW! Techie Tips of the Week

Upcoming Tech Training classes of interest to IT Services staff May 16 to June 6:

Note: Click class title for more information or to enroll in STARS.

IT PROFESSIONAL TRAINING

SQL Basics

MySQL/PHP/SQL: Developing Web Applications Workshop

FUNDAMENTALS OF COMPUTING

Accomplishing More with Less (Webinar Series)

Accomplish More with Social Media (Webinar Series)

MICROSOFT OFFICE

Advanced Excel 2007 Pivot Tables & Macros Crash Course (Webinar)

Word 2010 (PC): Essential Time-saving Skills

PRESENTATIONS AND PUBLICATIONS

Creating Forms and Managing PDFs

Photoshop Level 1

WEB DESIGN/CONTENT AND DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT

Intermediate HTML

Drupal: Intermediate Workshop — Site Building

MS SharePoint Techniques (Webinar)

EMAIL AND CALENDAR

Using Mailman for Stanford Email Lists

The full listing of Current Courses is available at itsupcoming.stanford.edu, or on the Tech Training website. Find us on Twitter and Facebook!

Sign up at axess.stanford.edu.

Classes with low enrollment may be cancelled one week in advance. More information on courses, registration, and training is available at the Technology Training Services site.

- Don Cameron
Technology Training Services

IT Employment Opportunities

There were no new job postings for IT Services this week.

To view the complete listings or to apply for a position, visit the StanfordJobs web site at: jobs.stanford.edu.

There are other open Information Technology positions at Stanford. To see what other opportunities exist on campus, link to the full list of all open IT positions at Stanford.

Quote of the Week

“Paris is always a good idea.”

- Audrey Hepburn

News

Guest Wireless Gets Easier

IT Services will soon offer a new way for guests to get Wi-Fi access at Stanford. For the past eight years, guests have been able to get temporary access by asking someone with a SUNet ID to create a wireless guest account at wirelessguest.stanford.edu. It was a free, easy way for invited guests to get access while preventing people without any association with Stanford from using the campus Wi-Fi network. Client surveys, however, have indicated that many users would prefer an even easier way for guests to get access.

Starting in mid-August, the new Wi-Fi service set identifier (SSID) named Stanford Visitor will be available. Guests who select that network will be presented with a simple web page which will allow access after the guest clicks a button to acknowledge that they have read and will comply with Wi-Fi guest use policies.

The Stanford Visitor SSID will be subject to the following restrictions:

  • Maximum download speed of 1.5 MB per second
  • Access only to specific services (such as Web, email, VPN, and instant messaging)
  • Maximum access time of 12 hours

The old sponsored Wi-Fi guest access will still be available on the Stanford SSID for guests who require less restricted access.

- Alvin Chew
Departmental Network Engineering

Goodbye CS Gold

The Provost and CFO have approved the Legacy Equipment Replacement project to transition legacy CS Gold and Onity access control systems to the current Access Control Enterprise System (ACES) standard on Lenel. Encompassing over 80 buildings and 700 access control devices, existing access control systems will be replaced in buildings that have not already scheduled system replacement as part of a project or renovation.

The project will begin in Summer 2012 and finish in August 2013. Upgrade dates for each building will be based on consultations with the building managers, the age of the devices being replaced, and the timing of any smaller projects already planned for the building.

The full ACES standard includes running a composite cable to support multiple features (such as speakers) and a Category 6 cable to support an IP device (such as a camera) at the door. The full standard also includes a four-hour uninterruptible power supply (UPS) to allow door operations to continue during short power outages and to provide planning time for extended power outages.

The Legacy Equipment Replacement project provides only like-for-like replacement of existing equipment, not an upgrade to the full standard described in the previous paragraph. It will make use of existing wiring and UPS where available, and will not fund additional wiring to add speakers, adding a Category 6 cable for IP devices, or installing a UPS unit if one is not already present.

If a school or department wants the full ACES standard, they must pay for the additional items between the previous CS Gold installation and the new standard. We will provide the estimate to any school or department interested in funding the upgrade. The UPS will cost approximately $1,600; wiring cost will vary by building depending on how much cable is needed.

Please contact Jay Kohn with any questions about the Legacy Equipment Replacement project.

- Jay Kohn
Card Services

VMAP Software Is No Longer Free

Regrettably, the "free" VMware Academic Program (VMAP) has officially ended. For information about the revised VMware academic program, visit www.vmware.com/partners/academic/program-overview.html.

- Debbi Barley
Software Licensing

Keeping IT All in Perspective

A couple of weeks ago, Jay Kohn and I attended the National Association of Campus Card Users (NACCU) conference in Seattle, Washington. To an audience of 45 individuals, our presentation “Evolving Technology, Expectations, and Business Needs” gave a dual-lens look at the business view and technology view of how we've worked together to transform the Card Services environment over the past five-plus years.

While definitely a "long and winding road," we led our audience through the journey from the 2006 Building Access and Security Initiative to the present of Card Services at Stanford. Many of our peer institutions confessed that they have long dreamed of the integrations that we are either currently looking into (Live25) or have already accomplished (PeopleSoft and StarRez). Many more confessed to still using batch imports of cardholder data and manual processing of changes.

The lesson I learned walking away from the conference was, interestingly, not about Card Services at all. The lesson learned was that all the time we felt we were just scratching the surface of what we want to do with Card Services, we were actually very much ahead of the pack. In our presentation feedback, one of our peers stated, “We're heading down the road you've trailblazed.”

So . . . as you get buried in deliverables and wish lists and look at the Gantt chart of projects queued up from now until your retirement, take a moment to appreciate and acknowledge the mountains you’ve climbed. Then . . . take a deep breath and look at the mountain in front of you with a whole new perspective, because it’s my guess that your group is trailblazing paths for Higher Ed as well.

- Anne Pinkowski
Application Support

New Lead for the Research Computing Effort

After a nine-month search, the Dean of Research and IT Services are pleased to welcome Ruth Marinshaw to Stanford. Ruth is currently Assistant Vice Chancellor for Research Computing at the University of North Carolina. In her new role, she will lead the new and growing Research Computing effort.

Ruth's oversight will be the Research Computing Facility (RCF@Stanford) and the Stanford Research Computing Facility (SRCF) spaces, but that is just the start! She is being asked to develop a program to provide the Stanford research community with optimal facilities, education, and collaboration options that have been previously unavailable.

Ruth will be the technology decision maker for the overall research computing effort. She'll have a small staff to help her, which will allow her to impact many other technology areas within IT Services as well as the technology groups across the schools. Similarly, she is expected to lead, inform, and influence campus administrators about the ideas and efforts for computational research directions, support, and funding.

It is a big task in front of her. The recruitment committee was very pleased with her background and interview responses.

Ruth will start at Stanford on Monday, July 16, after she and her husband make the cross-country trek from the Research Triangle area of North Carolina.

- Phil Reese
Research Computing

About its in bits

A regular summary of IT business, news about personnel, and pointers to other information of interest to IT Services staff. its in bits is published by Information Technology Services on the first and third Wednesday of the month.

Submissions are due by Noon on the Friday before the scheduled issue, to itsinbits-submissions@lists.stanford.edu for consideration. its in bits is distributed via email to its-all-staff@lists.stanford.edu and the subscription list itsinbits-subscribers@lists.stanford.edu People outside of IT Services can self-subscribe via mailman.

The next its in bits will be published on Wednesday, June 6, 2012.