its in bits

A Note from Bill

Here we are at the one-hundredth anniversary of the 1906 earthquake, when Stanford found itself in a truly perilous position. Major damage had been sustained, and there was even some question about how the University could go forward as an institution.

Naturally, a lot has changed since that time and we face a very different set of challenges now in preparing for any kind of disaster. There was of course no IT to worry about in 1906. Stanford has evolved over time to become utterly dependent on IT to do everything from registering students, to giving grades and diplomas, to tracking tuition and paying the bills, to communicating both internally and to the world, as well as to conducting large-scale research. Today, IT is both a central concern in any major event, as well as a critical catalyst in the University recovering from one.

Since the 1989 earthquake, Stanford substantially braced many of its buildings, making them far less vulnerable to significant damage. However, Forsythe Hall remains a physical liability for the University, and a potential single point of failure for a large array of IT systems and services. Annual disaster drills allow us to practice our response during and following a large–scale event. I want to thank all of you who spent valuable time preparing for and conducting the Emergency Exercise on April 6th. We learned a lot from that, including the fact that we now know that we must exercise our Satellite Operations Center (SOC) at least quarterly if we want to achieve our strategic goals.

In a recent set of enterprise risk evaluations done at Stanford, the University identified IT as its top risk concern. That is how foundational our systems and services are to the institution. Of course, with this comes a large responsibility to keep all of these systems and services highly available, and to be able to help the University recover from any kind of disaster.

This will be a cornerstone of our strategy over the next few years: how can we ensure that our services are highly reliable and what do we need to do to improve disaster recovery and business continuity for the University. We are helping Stanford develop a new data center (and ECH) strategy to address these concerns. We are also looking at key elements of our services such as our storage strategies, network design and firewalls, system replication and virtualization, standard desktop configuration, and others, in order to provide more robustness.

These are exciting times to be part of IT Services, and to know that we are so connected to the University in every aspect of its existence. We are truly a community at Stanford that serves the entire community of Stanford. Every day we need to ask ourselves: how we can work together to deliver better, more reliable, and more recoverable services to our clients.

- Bill Clebsch
IT Services

Metrics

In February, the IT Services Leadership team selected a “wish list” of ten high-level metrics of strategic value to the organization. This is a continuation of lasts year’s initiative published on our Client Facing Metrics page.

This list was a blend of measurements aimed at improving client service (% of SLA’s in compliance), assisting in planning (% of Data Center space available), internal process improvement (# of Billing rejects/refunds per month), and monitoring system accessibility (% of uptime/week Remedy).

The project team—Chris Lundin, Nan McKenna, Lynne Myers—took the “wish list of ten” and developed a model that defined the actual measurement, service, or system measured, the business owner of the system or service, the estimated hours of staff time to implement, and the additional resources necessary to deliver and publish metrics on a regular basis. Our single page list of ten items blossomed into a five page list of 40 items!

We then met with the Executive Directors and determined which metrics were “in scope” for delivery by August 31, 2006. Our first criterion was to choose those metrics which were of most importance in increasing client satisfaction. The second was to choose metrics that provided a baseline for process improvement efforts already underway. The third was to capitalize on measurements that were already being collected within the business units and leverage a low investment in the time-to-delivery process. Our over-arching goal is to develop tools that will minimize the staff labor required to produce and publish these metrics by utilizing automation and web-based templates.

The Top Ten Metrics Goals FY06:

Time to Provision Servers: Windows and Unix
Number of Rule Changes: Firewalls
System Availability: Telecom Switch, Email, Remedy, Network, IT Services site
Capacity/Space/Power: Forsythe, ECHs, Sweet
Billing System accuracy
Financial Forecasts: Timeliness and Accuracy
Project Management: Strategic Fit and On-Time Performance
Ticket Response Time
SLA Compliance
Service Expansion: Wireless Network

We will be contacting many of you in the near future to assist in this IT Services multi-year effort. If you have any questions or suggestions, please give me, Nan, or Chris a call.

-Lynne Myers
Planning, Metrics, and Communication

Our Disaster Was Definitely Not a Disaster...

There is some history here about lack of resources, changes in org charts, and changes in people, but the bottom line is that going into the Campus-Wide Emergency Drill on April 6th, we didn't have a plan that exactly matched what we look like today from a functional, organizational, or personnel level. IT Services had, however, started an initiative several months back to rewrite the Departmental Emergency Response Plan and the team is in the final stages of this process—but again—not quite finished.

It was with trepidation that some of us entered the room on April 6th bright and early to get prepared for what really might have been a disaster of a Disaster exercise. It wasn't though; and here are some of the reasons why, as well as some of the things we learned.

- The ITS/AS SOC (Satellite Operations Center) team has quite a few members who really care, are willing to get in and simulate, and weren't afraid to play pretend.

- The ITS/AS SOC Plan, although out-of-date and not matching our current organization, creates a nice, flexible, and manageable structure for "managing an emergency." It's not rigid or specific—it's an excellent framework and we easily fell into appropriate roles.

- The Drill covered the 4th day after the event occurred. A simulated earthquake centered in Los Altos struck approximately 72 hours before the drill started. This allowed us to focus on the beginnings of recovery, and to think about the application of rebuilding, rather than simply response.

- The SOC Team learned we have a few things to take care of; the primary focus is the need for everyone to fully support the Disaster Recovery efforts being led by Bill Heiser and Steve Loving. There is a big difference in IT Services' and Administrative Systems' levels of preparedness for Disaster Response and Disaster Recovery.

- The ITS/AS SOC also learned that we can teach the University a few things. Our SOC is recognized as perhaps the most well-organized and planned within the Stanford community of 26 SOCs. As such, several of the questions, scenarios, and paths we were able to consider were "challenges" to the Emergency Operations Center (EOC). At one point we were even told offline by the EOC "Hey, that's a great idea! We need to add that to our plan!"

- The Emergency Response team, led by Tom Prussing, took the opportunity to initiate some of their immediate response protocols. This caused a few questions and concerns amongst the team, as well as in the SOC. We have several items on the "Lessons Learned" list due to their efforts to make a good realistic drill.

For more information, and to read some of the details, please refer to the new SOC web site. You can read more about the scenario by going to EH&S Emergency Preparedness site.

I'd like to thank everyone who participated in the planning, the execution, and in the follow-up we will now need to do. A job well done to the SOC and ERT teams!

- Erik M. Cummings
Chair; Satellite Operations Center

So You Wanna Be A Project Manager?

Check out the new web site for IT Services' Project Management Office (PMO). We've packed it with new material—including toolkits for embedded Project Managers, status reports on both the PMO and embedded projects, a glossary of terms, checklists for project managers, how to request a Project Manager, links to training resources, and more.

Our goal is to make the site a destination "how-to" site for IT project management at Stanford. Almost all of the content is available to the public, and other departments and universities are looking to us as they begin building project management expertise in their organizations. Please let us know what you like and what you don't like, and anything else you'd like to see.

The PMO team is also growing as we take on more projects. Four new team members are joining us as contractors through the end of the fiscal year.
- Donna Cummings: Change Management Phase 3
- Kevin Szady: Load Balancing and Managed Machine Room
- Kathryn Osawa: Order Management Redesign
- Kathy Baker: Campus Readiness (across multiple projects)

They all have offices in the large room outside of Forsythe 246, so be sure to say hello if you're up there. Feel free to contact them directly if you have any questions about the projects they'll be leading.

Finally, the PMO is publishing three reports; all are available on the PMO web site:
1) The Weekly Project Status (directory of Excel files) report gives the status on all of the projects being managed by the PMO (41 projects at present), and is sent via email. You can subscribe by joining the list.
2) The Embedded Project (Excel file) report (95 projects) lists projects being led outside of the PMO, and is updated by embedded Project Managers through a web application on an as-needed basis.
3) The Milestone (Excel file) report highlights important milestones for the most important projects between now and August 31 and tracks how well we are meeting the milestones. The Milestone report will also be posted outside Polya 160 for anyone who wants to see how IT Services is tracking to timelines.

Also, the Project page is back; it includes links to project and service pages for selected projects.

Thanks to everyone in IT Services for contributing to the progress we're making on all of these projects, both PMO and Embedded, and for your input and insights which have made the web site possible.

- Joyce Dickerson
Client Support; Project Management Office

IT Services Initiatives: Status Report Available

The monthly status update for the IT Services FY06 initiatives is now available. The status reflected in this report is as of 3/31/2006. You can contact the director of the listed initiative with any questions.

The one page "Status-At-A-Glance" view as well as the detailed update on each initiative is available.

- Nancy Ware
Planning, Metrics, and Communication

Quarterly Exceptional Nomination Deadline is May 5

The Quarterly Exceptional nomination period is coming to a close. We are accepting nominations through May 5, 2006 for the January through March quarter. If you know of a deserving individual or team, please take time to complete a nomination form on their behalf.

Quarterly Exceptional awards are made to individuals and teams that made a significant contribution during the quarter. In addition, they should be seen to be a role model to others, consistently effective in getting things done well, and to demonstrate teamwork and collaboration.

You can read more about the program and find nomination forms on the RRI page.

- Nancy Ware
Planning, Metrics, and Communication

Next Town Hall: May 23

The next IT Services Town Hall session will take place on Tuesday, May 23. The meeting is scheduled 10:30 to Noon at Tresidder Union, in the Oak lounge. You should already see this meeting on your Sundial calendar.

The agenda topics are still being finalized, so stay tuned for more details as the meeting approaches. Please let Nancy Ware know if you have any requests for topics you would like covered.

- Nancy Ware
Planning, Metrics, and Communication

Holiday Video Available on DVD

In response to the voices ringing out (in his head), John Klemm has prepared a DVD featuring this past December's ITSS Holiday Video: ITSSN'T. The DVD includes some extra material ("bonus" would be too strong a term), including short videos shown at the previous year's party. All this can be yours for the only slightly outrageous price of $10. If you'd like a copy, please contact John.

- John Klemm
Administrative Systems