Tips From Your Admin

Did you know that University policy requires all purchases of equipment or services in excess of $5,000 to be open to bid, unless we provide a written "sole-source" justification?

Staff Happenings

Retirement Plan Changes

Learn about upcoming 403(b) changes—Stanford Benefits is holding a series of town hall meetings to explain upcoming changes to the 403(b) retirement investment options and to give employees an opportunity to ask questions. For a schedule of the town halls and more information, see the Benefits calendar. Note: Although the web site has a link for Required Registration through STARS, this requirement has been waived.

- Cheryl Miller
Human Resources

Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day on April 17

Every spring, Stanford celebrates "Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day" to support the cause of educating and empowering children and teens to explore careers and opportunities available in their communities. Stanford is committed to this important event and will be celebrating it on a departmental basis this year on April 17, 2009.

IT Services will be hosting its own program, specifically for the children of IT Services staff. The program will be targeted for children from 10 to 15 years of age. If you would like for your child to participate in this event, please plan to bring them to work on Friday, April 17, 2009. Our event within IT Services begins at 8:30 a.m. and ends at noon. You are responsible for picking up your child at that time and returning him/her to school or taking him/her home. If you would like your child to remain at work with you after the event, you will need to get advance approval from your immediate supervisor.

Please take a moment to fill out the brief survey that has gone out to IT Services staff to ask for potential participation in the event, as well as to solicit ideas for what types of activities your children may be interested in.

Thanks in advance for your participation!

- Matthew Ricks, Computing Services
John Freshwaters, Business Services

Comings and Goings

There are no staff changes to report in this issue of its in bits.

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

Tech Briefings

Tech Briefings

Fridays
2:00–3:30 p.m.
Turing Auditorium

Friday, March 20

Stanford Whole Disk Encryption (SWDE)—Due to the recent loss of University data, Stanford is in the process of revisiting the level of protection for campus desktops/laptops and associated Stanford data. Across campus there is no single solution to protect the University's data. IT Services is focused on providing alternatives for campus users to increase the protection of Stanford data while providing alternatives that are secure and not overly burdensome, increasing the likelihood they will be used. The alternative service provided by this project is Stanford Whole Disk Encryption (SWDE). It is recommended for faculty and staff who must store Restricted and/or Confidential data on their computer. Please check the Information Security Office Data Classification Guidelines to determine if you might have restricted or confidential data on your computer. This session will introduce you to the new IT Services alternative solution for SWDE using PGP's Universal Server. If you know you need this solution, think you need the solution, are part of an IT support group at Stanford, or are just interested, please attend.

Friday, March 27

Web Security—In this presentation by Mark Branom of IT Services, learn about controlling access to internal or confidential documents on a Stanford website using the Stanford Web Authentication Services, commonly known as WebAuth, along with other standard password protection schemes. The presenter will cover how to restrict access to certain website directories, to certain SUNet IDs, and how to create a password protection scheme that can be used by any selected group of users—such as collaborators at other universities or institutions who might not have a SUNet ID.

Check the Tech Briefings home page for future sessions and to subscribe to the mailing list. Also see the Tech Express home page for information on upcoming presentations.

Technology Training Courses

IT Professional Development:

NEW! Introduction to Drupal (choose one of three sessions) (ITS-3020), April 27, May 5, or May 19, 9:00–4:00, $395

SQL Basics (ITS-2521), May 7, 9:00–4:00, $325

PHP Workshop (2 days) (ITS-2511), May 26-27, 9:00–4:00, $525

NEW! Perl Programming Plus Workshop (2 days) (ITS-2522), June 22-23, 9:00–4:00, $525

Certification Workshop:

Web Professional in the Stanford Environment (ITS-2606), Tues, Mar 31, 9:00–4:00, $325

More information at http://webcertificate.stanford.edu.

Upcoming Tech Training Classes of Interest to IT Services Staff:

Excel 2007: Seven Essential Time-saving Skills for Effective Excel Use (ITS-1146), Tues, Mar 24, 9:00–4:00, $325

Word 2007: Collaboration with Word (Level 3) (ITS-0933), Wed, Mar 25, 9:00–4:00, $325

OrderIT Site Training (ITS-8301), Thurs, Mar 26, 1:00–4:30, Free

Wikis: Setting Up a Wiki at Stanford (ITS-0804), Thurs, Mar 26, 1:30–4:30, $195

PowerPoint 2007 Presentation Skills (ITS-1322), Thurs, Mar 26, 8:30–12:00, $195

Free Email / Calendar Training:

Introduction to the New Stanford Email and Calendar (ITS-2115), Tues, Mar 31, 9:30–11:00

The full listing of Current Courses is available on the Tech Training web site.

Sign up at http://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.

- Nancy Baumann
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

“Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.”

- Japanese Proverb

News

A Note From Bill...

Budget reduction planning and actions remain front and center across the University as Stanford works to maintain and increase its quality while dealing with the uncertainty of the current financial climate. Last week, the Provost announced a Stanford-wide salary freeze for the next year and the press has been reporting that Stanford's projected budget reduction has grown from $70 million to $100 million.

IT Services has received its budget letter and the reductions we have been asked to take are significant. (By now, your director should have reviewed these reductions with you.) In addition to these reductions, we are also faced with the reality that this is a campus-wide issue that will have an indirect effect on most organizations, like IT Services, that sell services. Many of our clients are reducing the services they purchase from us in an effort to reduce their own budgets.

Frankly, we are at a tipping point for IT at Stanford. The only way that we can continue to truly deliver on our mission to the University is by meeting a twofold challenge. First, we must offer new services and technologies that will provide the University new efficiencies. Second, we must significantly reduce the cost of our current services.

I have every reason to be confident that we can accomplish this and I have already seen that our efforts in this direction have had an effect. Last spring's realignment helped lessen the financial impact of budget cuts to our organization. I have been especially heartened by the efforts you have all already put in to reduce this year's expenses. These reductions have positioned us to make key investments that offset further reductions, especially in our service centers, and allow us to reduce the future operating costs of some strategic offerings. We are working with clients who are looking to use more of the automation we provide to meet their budget reduction goals, and this new business will help partially offset some lost revenue with some new revenue. And, we have several projects "in flight" that will continue to improve existing services while reducing operating costs.

The challenges we currently face, while difficult, also produce rare opportunities. If we are able to seize these opportunities, we can increase our value to the University community through services that increase effectiveness and create cost efficiencies. That is what will give IT Services a key competitive advantage for Stanford.

We must change and we must do it more quickly than we ever have. I know that all of you have ideas about actions that can help us change how we do business and increase our value. Many of these ideas have already greatly influenced our direction. Please continue to share your thoughts with your Director or me. Please stay open and inquisitive when others have new ideas and embrace change. I have every confidence that the community will support us, and that we will succeed. After all, we must remember that this kind of change and entrepreneurialism are exactly what has made Stanford the premier research and teaching institution in the world.

- Bill Clebsch
IT Services

Stanford Whole Disk Encryption (SWDE)

Stanford's implementation of PGP's Whole Disk Encryption is on schedule for Production Service in May, 2009. The project team is working closely with our IT Partners across campus to offer information and training opportunities on both the technology and the service offering. While this project's technology aspects continue to make progress, sharing its non-technology aspects is of equal importance.

The clients of this service will request SWDE through a HelpSU template, which will include three questions:

  • Is the client faculty, staff, or a student with a staff appointment?
  • Does the client have Restricted Data on the computer being encrypted?
  • Has the client read and understood the terms of service?

We will verify each client's affiliation, add them to the SWDE workgroup, and send the user an email with information on the installation process. The user's HelpSU request will be forwarded to their local IT staff HelpSU queue, alerting support that their client has requested the SWDE service.

The Reporting effort has made significant progress. Reports will include an "Audit Trail" of the status of the computer at the time a computer went missing. Reports will also provide information on the status of the encryption process, who is using the SWDE service, and which clients have requested to unencrypt their computer.

The Information Security Office has updated the Data Classification Guidelines.

For additional information, please join us at the March 20 Tech Briefing in Turing.

- For the SWDE Project Team: Shirley Hodges
Computer Resource Consulting/Desktop Systems Group

Business Partner Update

Over the past quarter, the Business Partner team has been actively engaged with clients on numerous fronts: budget planning, aligning IT Services with immediate business needs, and future business directions. It’s safe to say that all of our clients are looking closely at their budgets and areas where savings can be achieved; however, they are doing so with the goal of maintaining service levels for their users. Reduction of phone charges is a general theme with our clients, and many are auditing phone lines and looking to IT Services to standardize that service with more effective cost models. Business Partners are providing client insight into the development of a Converged Communications service approach.

Some of the more specific client activities this past quarter included:

  • Installation of Cisco VoIP for the Stanford Medicine Outpatient Clinic in Redwood City;
  • Working with Administrative Systems to migrate from Tier 1 to Tier 2 storage;
  • Helping Student Affairs embrace mobile technology with iStanford, a suite of campus services for the iPhone;
  • Conducting a GSB IT Management class in conjunction with Professor Jeffrey Moore. The class included a tour of the Forsythe Data Center;
  • Expansion of services at the Science and Engineering Quad II, including a new CRC contract at Y2E2, expanded SEQ2 Wifi VoIP evaluation, and a SOE SharePoint assessment; and
  • Working with R&DE to roll out its new housing application, SAM2, which will utilize the new MS SQL DB support service from Ntirety.

Other services of general interest across our client base include Low Cost Central Storage, SharePoint, Hosting Services, and varying levels of development assistance.

Business Partner Support efforts include ongoing improvements to the ordering process, including "Just in Time" creation of Remedy sub-tickets. This change should improve the overall ordering process, improve our billing cycles, and provide valuable metrics to focus additional process improvement efforts. Finally, the Business Partners have been busy preparing client Service Level Agreements with the underlying goal to more clearly set client expectations and improve client satisfaction.

If you would like additional information or have any questions, please contact your Business Partner team at its-sm-team@lists.

- Liz Goesseringer
Business Services

CampusIT at Stanford

In late February the CampusIT group met for the first time in several months. This group is comprised of about 50 IT Leaders across campus, and typically this meeting has been owned and driven by IT Services. We recently partnered with Matt Riley, Associate Director for Information Systems for the School of Humanities and Sciences, to begin to chair this meeting. General feedback from the group indicated that perhaps it was too centrally IT-focused and we needed to bring in more school and department IT perspectives. Suzanne Schiessler, Kim Seidler, and Matt sent out a survey to the group in December, asking them specifically what they wanted from this meeting, how often it should convene, and what topics/content they would like covered.

At the February meeting, we shared the results of the survey, changed the meeting format, and discussed plans to annually rotate ownership with other local IT groups. Our first topic speaker was our very own Mark Miyasaki, who discussed the direction of voice services at Stanford (Cisco VoIP and Unified Messaging). Mark also provided a demo of the Unified Messaging system. (Thank you Andrew Leman, Kelly Miller, Christine Moe, and Jimmy Hale.) We were excited to see so many folks show up (past meetings had dwindled down to just a handful of participants). We had representation from the Office of Development, Controller’s Office, Information Security Office, School of Engineering, Science and Engineering Quad, Administrative Systems, SULAIR, Stanford Medicine, and the School of Medicine. To see the presentation materials from this meeting, go to docushare.

Feedback from this first meeting has been very good. We hope that we can continue to draw in our IT colleagues from across the campus and collaborate on initiatives. The next meeting is at the end of April, and the next planned speaker is Tina Darmohray, who will be discussing the new Security Standards and the Admin Guide. Please let Kim or me know if you have any ideas for sharing with this group.

- Suzanne Schiessler and Kim Seidler
Client Support

Update on the Auxiliary Data Center at Livermore

The construction phase for the Auxiliary Data Center (ADC) at Livermore was completed in late February. Stanford has filed for a "green" rebate from PG&E based on the power-saving design and construction parameters, and is expecting a rebate of $48,000!

Although there are a few outstanding permit details remaining, the TFAC (Technical Facilities) team wasted no time in furnishing the 17 racks with remote control-capable power strips. In parallel, the IT Services Networking team commissioned the redundant circuits, the routers, the Disaster Recovery IP address space, and the local network distribution equipment.

Tasks remaining in March include:

  • Installation of the storage equipment, both NAS and SAN;
  • The racking and configuring of about 20 servers to support IT Services infrastructure services (such as DNS, LDAP, AD, NetDB, email relay, Web, etc.); and
  • Baseline testing and configuration of data, network, utilities, and security and monitoring systems.

The first client moves will begin in early April and will continue at two-week intervals throughout the spring. IT Services expects the room to be at planned occupancy by June, and is targeting July 2009 for the first offsite disaster recovery exercise at Livermore.

- Steve Loving
Business Services

Unified Messaging Pilot Update

On Thursday, March 12, IT Services successfully switched to the new voice messaging system. After the usual launch-related tickets managing passwords and missed mailboxes, the new system has performed flawlessly.

Some staff have found a lot to cheer about in the new system. The ability to receive voice mail via email means that you don’t have to be near your phone to get your messages. The ability to receive faxes via your voice mail means never having to stand next to the fax machine waiting for an important fax to arrive.

Several system changes have also been implemented. You can now access the voice portal from off-campus using VPN. A Stanford banner replaced the Movius branding just in time for the cutover. Other changes are being made here and there to improve the experience for IT Services.

IT Services staff are encouraged to continue exploring the new system and to report any problems or issues via HelpSU. You can find instructions for using the system—including an at-a-glance voicemail key guide—online.

- Ammy Hill
Campus Readiness

Hey, What Happened to the Seal?

You may have noticed that the screens you see when signing on to a protected Stanford web site have changed. Revised WebLogin pages were implemented on Tuesday, March 11. The new screens have been streamlined to load more quickly and to match the new look-and-feel of University web pages. Best of all, a stylesheet was added that makes it easier to sign in on your iPhone, Blackberry, or other mobile device (the chief reason that the seal was eliminated). Now, you can just click in the SUNet ID and Password fields and they will automatically resize for easier ID and password entry.

Thanks go to Brian Young for the redesign and Russ Allbery for implementing them throughout the suite of WebLogin pages.

- Christopher Kittle
Client Support

Configuration Management Database

The CMDB project continues toward completion of its Phase I deliverables. A candidate data model has been established in the CMDB database, and coding is in progress on the Extractor and Registration/Query Service, with UNIX systems the first target for CMDB population. All Remedy environments (sandbox, Dev, UAT and Prod) have been upgraded to the same application and core AR Server version and patch levels. By August 31, the team intends to deliver a CMDB, dynamically populated with elements from the UNIX, Windows, and Networking areas as well as Business Service modeling, end to end, of two complex services: Stanford Integrated Email and Calendar, and OrderIT. Once these are complete, the team will continue to model additional Business Services, beginning with those that include components for which data population is already automated.

With the successful completion of this phase of work, incident and change management practices at Stanford will be enhanced by offering the tools and functionality to deliver enhanced incident identification and impact analysis, and existing hardware management processes will be revised to support the CMDB as the central repository.

Project leadership has been restructured to ensure specific deliverables are completed. Sam Steinhardt remains Executive Sponsor, with tactical support from Nan McKenna. Project Management will be satisfied with a distributed approach, with Jon Pilat representing and overseeing the technical implementation, Donna Cummings representing and overseeing the design and integration of supporting service management processes, and Kathy Pappas-Kassaras representing and overseeing business service modeling as well as handling overall project tracking responsibilities.

The project team thanks Ramon Herrera for his many contributions as Project Manager over the past several months.

- Sam Steinhardt
Business Services

About its in bits

A regular summary of IT business, news about personnel, and pointers to other information of interest to IT Services staff. Coordinated, compiled, and published by the Communication Strategy and Standards Team. its in bits is published 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, April 1, 2009.