its in bits

A Note From Bill...

On Monday, the Directors and I met to launch our planning process for FY09–11. We started with our existing roadmap [PDF], confirmed where we were likely to end the year against our goals, and began to identify the likely objectives/initiatives for FY09 and FY10. The point of the meeting Monday was to begin the input process.

It is clear that our priorities must still focus on:

Support for University and Research Computing, particularly through the delivery of needed facilities and services
Providing Communications and Collaboration Infrastructure, especially through support for converged devices, successful delivery of the Integrated Email & Calendar project, and solutions for content/document management and other web-based services
Delivering service and organizational excellence, by focusing on service management, process automation, and investments in employee development

The best plans are created when the entire organization participates in identifying the solutions to move us forward. I invite all of you to work with your managers and directors to surface ideas and suggestions for the things we need to do. I ask that you think about answering the question: "What one to three steps can we take next year that will make the biggest difference for our organization?"

We will use the summer months to narrow our goals into clear priorities and plans. An updated plan will be available for discussion to coincide with our October Town Hall meeting.

In my May 7 column, I outlined the progress-to-date associated with our planned organizational changes. The majority of the planned changes have, in fact, been completed. There are three remaining areas where we are continuing to sort out some additional details: Order Management, the Production Control Group (PCG), and Business Services. Updates related to Order Management and the PCG appear in this edition. Members of the Business Services organization will hear more during an all-hands for their unit scheduled for Thursday. I expect to discuss all of this at our June 3 Town Hall meeting.

- Bill Clebsch
IT Services

Commencement Freeze

Commencement will take place June 15 this year. Once again, we need to ensure that our systems and services are functioning at peak performance to support all Commencement activities.

As is our practice, no changes to supporting hardware, systems, or services should be undertaken between May 31 and June 16.

Basically, what this means is that no IT production system or service should undergo any changes during this critical period. Students, faculty, and staff are relying on our services to be up and available. If you have anything that needs to be changed and you believe it will not affect student systems or Commencement, please be sure to use the Change Management process to ensure that the proposed change can be discussed in that forum.

- Nancy Ware
Planning & Communications

Integrated Email and Calendar: Four Weeks Away

The timeline for the Sundial Calendar migration has changed, but that hasn't stopped progress on the Integrated Email and Calendar project. IT Services staff will still be the first to convert to the new tools. On June 23, we will move our email servers to Zimbra. A month later, on July 21, we'll move our calendars.

This staged conversion provides a little more time to get accustomed to the new tools as well as time to thoroughly test the tools and prepare the rest of the campus community for conversion. The additional time for testing and campus readiness will undoubtedly result in the release of a better product.

Students will be the next group to move to the new service. We’ve collaborated with SULAIR to schedule an August timeline for students to transition their email and add calendars. At the same time, IT Services will make the service available to expert users who can choose to participate in an advanced pilot before their entire department or group converts.

The next major conversion will take place in October when IT Services transitions all Sundial users to the new email and calendar service.

In the past few weeks, project staff have discussed these changes with key partners from across campus and have received positive feedback on the new timeline. Public demonstrations were also available via our Tech Express and Tech Briefing venues. A new list of Frequently Asked Questions is available on the project web site.

Technical activities are also moving forward. A small-scale test environment is available to the project team and work is finishing up on the production and distributed test environment that will be available for larger-scale testing later this month. A bug tracking system is in place and early load-testing is underway. The project team continues to collect feedback from clients and is working with the vendor to enhance the product to better meet the campus needs.

We'll continue to update you in its in bits and on the project web site. If you have additional questions about the project, please contact us via the email link on the project page.

- Ammy Hill
Campus Readiness

Serra Moves

As the 651 and 655 Serra buildings are vacated this June and July, staff in IT Services have been actively working to prepare facilities for the moves. This includes departments moving to Porter Drive as well as departments relocating on the main campus. Computer Resource Consulting (CRC) staff, currently in 651 Serra and in Bambi, will move to Encina Hall. Software Licensing staff, currently in Bambi, will move to space in Polya that will be vacated by Administrative Systems staff moving to Porter Drive.

Business Affairs and Land, Buildings, and Real Estate held a series of Town Hall Meetings to provide updates on the Stanford at Porter Drive and Business Affairs moves. If you were unable to attend one of the meetings, you can listen to a recorded session available on the Stanford at Porter Drive web site. The web site is chock-full of information regarding the designs, schedules, and training. It includes information about how to work with people off campus. If you haven’t already, take some time and tour the web site.

- Jan Cicero
Client Support

Order Management Update

Here is an update on the effort I kicked off in April to explore ways to improve the end-to-end order management process and continue to improve our clients' experience, especially with ordering and receiving services.

We have completed gathering data from staff, some of our clients, and IT Services directors and managers. Thank you for sharing your great ideas. Based on the feedback received, we put together recommendations. I shared these recommendations with the Client Support Leadership team, and their ideas have been incorporated.

We will be working to implement these short and long-term recommendations. I have chartered a "Quick Wins" team to tackle implementing the short-term changes. Over the next months, that will make a big difference for our clients. This team will be facilitated by Dani Aivazian and Tom Goodrich.

I will be working with the Suzanne Schiessler and the Order Management Group to plan and begin implementing the longer-term changes for ordering and service management.

One of the critical changes that jumpstarts our work is an organizational realignment of this area. The Service Desk will report to Suzanne Schiessler, effective May 31. We recognize that putting the team together is ideal, and we are evaluating the possibility of physically co-locating them in the future.

Your ideas and feedback continue to provide critical input to our success in this effort. Please don't hesitate to write or call if you have any questions. Thanks in advance.

- Jan Cicero
Client Support

Production Control Group Update

I hope you read my article in the last its in bits that mentioned the Production Control Group is now reporting to me in Client Support. I want to inform you about the organizational assessment I plan to complete by the end of May. I am working with Carolyn Kane and Anna Pettinati on current metrics and data. I have asked Dani Aivazian to help me complete all of the data gathering interviews.

Our plan is to complete this assessment and deliver recommendations by May 30. We will be gathering data and interviewing clients, staff, and key stakeholders—including each of you—during the week of May 16. We will be working on analysis and recommendations during the week of May 23, and refining the recommendations and reviewing them with stakeholders and the team during the week of May 30. Thank you in advance for your help.

- Jan Cicero
Client Support

5th Annual Client Satisfaction Survey

The 2008 edition of the annual IT Services client satisfaction survey has been completed and we're awaiting the final results. This year's survey went out to 1,200 faculty, staff, and students. Our response rate, while down a little from prior years, was still robust. The survey consisted of 45 questions, covering a broad selection of our services.

Once we've received and reviewed the results of the survey, probably by late June, the survey team will share the results with the IT Services organization. In addition, the results help to inform the organization's planning process for next year, as well as pointing to some future directions for our services.

If you have any questions about the survey, you can ask any member of the team: Christine Soldahl, Heather Flanagan, Jan Cicero, Jim Knox, Nan McKenna, Nancy Ware, Suzanne Schiessler, and Tom Goodrich.

Past years' surveys are available if you'd like to take a look at our past questions and results.

- Nan McKenna
Systems Administration

Stanford Owned Equipment

All equipment purchased with Stanford funds is considered Stanford property. This includes equipment that is capital or non-capital, including home equipment. This equipment does not belong to the individual who uses the asset; it belongs to the department that paid for it. When an employee leaves Stanford or IT Services, the equipment will remain with the department to be reassigned or assessed for disposal.

The following tips will serve as an aid to managers to ensure that property administration is performed within the University’s guidelines. The Department Property Administrator (DPA) is the primary resource within IT Services to contact for movement or any other disposal of property.

IT Services is not authorized to give away Stanford-owned equipment to employees as a parting gift. If the asset is no longer needed by the department, it can be transferred, sold, or disposed of.
If the employee transfers to another IT Services department, the employee can take his/her equipment if both managers approve. If the equipment is currently being amortized, the future charges will be transferred to the new account. This is not a sale, it is an internal IT Services transfer.
When assets are no longer needed by IT Services, the status should be reported to the DPA. The DPA is responsible for posting the asset for reutilization at Stanford or processing an Excess Request to initiate disposal actions for the item.
If the employee transfers to another Stanford department, the equipment can be transferred (for a fee) to the new department, providing the IT Services manager no longer needs the asset. The fee is based on three years of useful life. For example, if the asset had been used for twelve months when the employee transfers, the new department will be requested to pay IT Services for the remaining 24 months. This is not a sale; it is a University transfer.
When an employee leaves IT Services and/or Stanford, the manager must notify one of the DPAs to determine which method will be used to reallocate the departing employee’s equipment. If the asset is reassigned, the DPA will need to update the official asset record in the Sunflower Inventory software. Once the method is determined, the DPA will then process the asset for transfer, sale, or disposal. Upon request, the DPA can provide managers with a detailed listing of assets assigned to their direct reports.

Please contact your IT Services DPAs, Christine Wynkoop and Sally Davis, if you have questions or need details on any IT Services property issues.

Additional information also available in the Property Administration Manual.

- Sally Davis
Technical Facilities

The Last Leland System

On May 1, the UNIX Systems group upgraded the Leland Systems Database (LSDB) from Solaris to Debian, and from Oracle to MySQL after five years of loyal service. LSDB is the system that handles the provisioning of SUNet ID services (e-mail, AFS, kerberos, etc.), manages IT Services-provided course support, hosts Stanford's wallet implementation, and handles some of the reporting for AFS and other campus services. This upgrade was one of the last remaining requirements for turning off Kerberos 4 on May 15.

The previous incarnation of LSDB was brought into service when the mainframe was turned off in 2003. Continuing a proud tradition, it was named after a piece of the organization that no longer existed—Leland Systems had been disbanded. Prior versions called DCODB and DSODB were both brought into service shortly before both DCO and DSO were reorganized. The new system, however, is still called LSDB as UNIX Systems and Applications did not change names during the current reorganization.

The project team consisted of Jon Robertson, who did almost all of the actual work, Jon Pilat, who attempted to run the meetings, and Russ Allbery, who mostly told Jon (both of them) what to do.

- Jonathan Pilat
Systems Administration

Kerberos 4 Goes Dark

Shortly after 5:00 a.m. on May 15, 2008, Russ Allbery turned off all authentication services on Stanford's Kerberos 4 cell and waited for the phone to start ringing. With very few exceptions, those calls never came. So ended the Kerberos Migration project—an effort spanning 28 months, three project managers, three project sponsors, and at least 25 people working on the project in one capacity or another. That the final day of Kerberos 4 came and went with so little notice is a credit to both the technical team for creating compelling and innovative tools to support the migration and the campus readiness team for handling communications to the campus user and systems administration communities.

Thanks are due to everybody involved with the project for helping with a smooth transition, including the core project team members: Russ Allbery, Kathy Baker, Jim Brown, Jason Cowart, Michael Dave, Heather Flanagan, John Freshwaters, Ammy Hill, John Klemm, Jay Kohn, Greg Koss, Brad Lauster, Jane Marcus, Andrew May, Jonathan Pilat, Linda Pilkin, Jon Robertson, Tony Silveira, Jay Stamps, Ross Wilper, and Christine Yelda.

- Jonathan Pilat
Systems Administration

Town Hall

The next IT Services Town Hall meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, June 3, from 10:00 a.m. to noon in the Oak Lounges at Tresidder Union. The meeting should already be noted on your Sundial calendar. We are also planning a post-Town Hall event that afternoon from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. on the Turing Lawn. We will continue the Wellness Theme by offering chair massages, Jamba Juices, and some healthy snacks.

Please make plans to attend. Additional details will follow as we get closer to the event.

- Nancy Ware
Planning & Communications