Survey

How often do you feel stress on your job?

Constantly
Occasionally
Rarely
Never

Results from last issue's survey question: In general, Town Hall meetings are: Too long, Too short, Just right.

There were 27 responses: 8 responded "too long," and 19 responded "just
right."

Staff Profile

Ross Wilper is the technical lead for the Windows Systems group in Shared Application Services. He was a Quarterly Exceptional recipient in Spring, 2005.

How would you describe your current job responsibilities?

I help to architect, design, and develop services that allow people to make effective use of computers. I am probably most widely-known for my work with Active Directory and the Windows Infrastructure systems. My focus is on Microsoft software and technologies, but I do a significant amount of work in other technologies as well. Depending on the project, I am a Solutions Architect, Software Developer, Systems Integrator, Systems Administrator, or pincushion.

Which aspects of your job do you enjoy the most?

I am constantly learning new things. I love collaborating with the many talented individuals at Stanford and at peer institutions.

What did you do before you came to Stanford?

I graduated from the University of Missouri-Rolla with a BSEE. While I was in college, I worked at the campus video center producing distance-learning telecasts among other projects. I also co-founded the anime club there. Between school and coming to Stanford, I worked at Amdahl (later merged into Fujitsu) doing Windows desktop and server support for Amdahl's storage division.

What do you like to do when you're not at work?

I spend a lot of time hanging out with my daughter. She is at a fun age. She also gave me a good excuse to do some dabbling into video production again. I also enjoy reading; mostly (science) fiction, but also history...and I still watch a lot of anime.

What is your favorite movie, book, song?

My long-time favorite movie is "kaze no tani no naushika" (Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind). Song would have to be "Everybody Wants to Rule the World."

Staff Happenings

Comings and Goings

Dani Aivazian has recently returned from maternity leave. Her second daughter, Lucia, was born at the beginning of February. Lulu (the nickname her big sister gave her) was a healthy/hefty 9 lb., 3 oz. at birth, and has considerably added to that weight since then. She has large brown eyes, and a full head of dark brown hair. After some initial health problems that made life interesting for Dani and her husband, Lulu is now healthy and thriving with a sweet temperament and a hearty laugh.

Dani is getting back into the swing of IT Services after three-and-a-half months away. She is working to get our Mentoring Program back on-track (you'll be hearing more about this shortly). She'll also be working closely with Nilda Bonet on several HR-related initiatives, the employee survey follow-up, additional team recognition and rewards, and the new technical competency model. And of course, she'll continue to provide facilitation support to various meetings, including the Leadership Team's meetings.

- Bill Clebsch
IT Services

I am pleased to introduce you to two new additions to the Humanities team: Noah Abrahamson and Russell Scheil.

Noah started on May 8, but Stanford is not his first experience with academe. He has worked in IT at the University of Michigan and Wayne State University, and for the past couple of years was an IT consultant in the Bay Area. He has strong Mac OS X system administration skills and deep experience with integrating Macs in Windows environments, including AD integration.

Russell started May 22 and came to us from BOJI Information Systems in Okoboji, Iowa, where he was a desktop support engineer. He has worked on Macs and Windows PCs in a mixed environment, as well as PDAs and a wide variety of software applications. Prior to his position at BOJI Russell worked as a technical support engineer for several companies in San Francisco and Hilo, Hawaii.

Both Noah and Russell have experience in creating readily understandable documentation and have great customer service skills.

- Karen Zack
Client Support; Computer Resource Consulting

Please join me in welcoming a new temp, Victor Chavez, to Computer Resource Consulting.  Victor is working with CRC through Robert Half Technologies. Victor has been working as an independent IT consultant for three years, primarily supporting non-profit organizations in the East Bay. He has experience supporting Macs, Windows, and Linux. If you ask Victor, he will even tell you he likes all platforms equally. Victor is currently assigned to the Department of Athletics. 

- Maria Maravilla
Client Support; Computer Resource Consulting

May 31 was Tom Ostroff's final day with Stanford. I wanted to personally extend my thanks to Tom for all of his many contributions to Stanford and IT Services in his role with the Windows team.

Tom has passionately supported and championed the successful patch management environment (BigFix) at Stanford, and has actively contributed to the success and growth of this program. Tom has also supported various clients, including Continuing Studies, and he helped roll out the integration of Active Directory with the Office of the Registrar.

Thanks Tom, for your dedication and contributions internally and externally. On behalf of the Shared Application Services group, I wish you the very best in your future steps.

- John Freshwaters
Shared Application Services

Will Mingle has elected to move back into the technical career path. I would like to sincerely thank Will for his commitment and dedication supporting his staff through a variety of changes as well as his focus on CRC strategies and goals. Will has an amazing set of technical skills that will help lead us through the continuing changes and challenges that technology has to offer.

Thanks again Will for your support and teamwork over the past year.

- Jan Cicero
Client Support

Crystal Gonzalez joined the Administrative Services Team on May 22nd. Prior to her arrival, Crystal spent almost three years working in the Operator Services Center in Forsythe Hall. Crystal will be working in two different buildings - with Raj Singh in Puichon and with Valerie Cruz in Polya Hall

Crystal is working on her AA degree at De Anza College in the evenings and planning to pursue a degree in Administration of Justice in the future.

- Cholada Chenhansa
Client Support; Finance and Administration

The following people recently joined Information Technology Services. Welcome!

  • Kelly Le Dang (Mark Miyasaki, Shared Communication Services; Networking Systems)
  • Jason Crain (Barry Magsanay, Shared Application Services; Windows Systems)

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

Tech Briefings

Dell Servers

Join Dell for a pre-announcement overview of their new 9th Generation of PowerEdge servers and a complete look at their new Enterprise systems. The briefing will include:

• The enhancements to Dell’s 9th generation of servers.

• How these servers have improved performance and significant power draw enhancements over Dell's 8th generation of servers.

• New methods to help reduce server complexity.

• Disk and Tape storage overview.

Turing Auditorium
Friday, June 9
2:00 – 3:30 p.m.

For the complete schedule, a map to Turing Auditorium, times, and a list of topics, visit the Tech Briefings site.

Technology Training Courses

Seats are still available for the following IT Services Technology Training class the week of June 19:

  • Explore techport.stanford.edu, open Lab (ITS-0601), Tuesday, June 20, 9:00 – 12:00, free
  • IT Services Site Training (ITS-8301), Wednesday, June 21, 1:00 – 4:30, free

If you are interested in signing up for a course, please register by Monday, June 12. Classes with low enrollments may be cancelled one week in advance.

More information on courses, registration, and training is available at the Technology Training Services site.

- Phyllis Olrich
Client Support; Technology Training Services

IT Employment Opportunities

There were five additions to the IT Services job requisition postings for this edition.

Req.#010607 – Production Control Staff Member, 100% FTE continuing position, Range 4P2, Erik Cummings, Manager.

Primarily responsible for monitoring and incident management, the PCG is also a primary Level One Help Desk for many of the Communications Systems (phone, voice mail, DSL, etc.). With the incident management responsibility, the Control Desk must quickly assess the scope and impact of service outages, determine the appropriate subject matter experts to bring into the situation, and manage the internal and external communications surrounding the incident itself.

Req.# 010522 – Field Support Team Senior Technologist, 100% FTE continuing position, Range 4P3, Jan Cicero, Manager.

The FST Senior Technologist is a senior-level technical lead who is responsible for the day-to-day management of a team of consultants. 80% of the time will be dedicated to supervising staff and managing the overall operations of the work group, including handling Remedy queues. 20% of the time will be dedicated to direct consulting work.

Req.# 010646 – Paging Administrator (Admin. Assoc. IV), 100% FTE continuing position, Range 1A4, Carolyn Kane, Manager.

The Paging Administrator reports to the Operator Services Center (OSC) Manager within IT Services' Shared Services, Operations. (S)he works out of the Paging Administration Office located at Stanford Hospital. (S)he is able to function well with minimal supervision and represent the OSC to Hospital paging clients.

Req.#010647 – Administrative Associate IV, 100% FTE continuing position, Range 1A4, Carolyn Kane, Manager.

This Administrative Associate position performs a broad range of administrative support duties in support of call center operations. (S)he serves as the primary Time and Leave Administrator in the Kronos system for the OSC bargaining unit staff. (S)he maintains call center schedules under the guidance of the Operations Supervisor and Manager. (S)he also maintains Excel files documenting operator performance and statistics in support of the Supervisor.

Req.#010659 – Telephone Operator, 100%FTE continuing position, Carolyn Kane, Manager.

The Stanford Telephone attendant works in a 24x7 operation answering, processing, paging, and directing calls for Stanford University, University Hospital and Clinics, SLAC, Medical School, as well as faculty, students, and staff. The attendant also serves critical special call functions of Stanford Hospital and Clinics and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, including hospital paging, after-hours physician on-call rosters, and coordinating critical code calls.

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 open positions from: itss.stanford.edu/staff/itssjobs.html

Quote of the Week

"If you cannot clearly describe it in writing beforehand, then you should not try to build it."

- Glascow's Laws of Computing

News

Quarterly Exceptional Recipients

We announced the current Quarterly Exceptional recipients at the May 23th Town Hall. The following individuals and teams were recognized for significant accomplishments during the January to March, 2006 time frame.

Individual Recipients:

  • Scotty Logan, Strategy and Architecture
  • Jai Suengsumpathan, Finance and Administration
  • Johan van Reijendam, Networking Systems

Team Award Recipients:

  • IT Services Field Support Team (Rosy Alvarez, Rodney Carter, Jay Heyman, William Kaut, Sean Mahanay, Mark Mannia, Kevin Stephens, Brian Wankel, Peter Phan)
  • IT Services Web Site Restructuring Team (Russ Allbery, Cynthia Endriga, Nuriya Janss, Christopher Kittle, Linda Pilkin, Thomas Wiggins, David Ream, Marco Wise, Brian Young)
  • Residential and Dining Enterprises Support (Russ Allbery, Paul Keser, Darren Patterson, Larry Ploetz, Sean Riordan)
  • Software Portal Team (Deborah Barley, Patricia Box, Robin Cohen, Edith Marsiske, Jane Tansuwan, David Ream, Marco Wise, Brian Young)

You can read more about them on the Quarterly Exceptionals page. 

The nomination period for April to June, 2006 is now open. Nomination forms are available via the IT Services RRI page. Quarterly Exceptional awards are made to teams that make a significant contribution during the quarter. In addition, nominees should be a role model to others, be consistently effective in getting things done, and be able to demonstrate teamwork and collaboration.

Congratulations to this quarter's recipients!

- Nancy Ware
Planning, Metrics, and Communication

WebLogin Change is Coming June 22

WebLogin is changing. On June 22, 2006, the familiar yellow and red Stanford WebLogin page will have a new look that uses colors and graphic elements that were developed as part of Stanford's identity. It will also add, for some, additional functionality.

A growing number of web browsers and operating systems now support logging in to web sites using a faster and more convenient security feature (called HTTP Negotiate). This feature allows you to log in once, rather than repeatedly providing your SUNet ID and password each time you go to a protected site.

This feature will only be available at first for users on the following OS and browsers: Mac OS X using Safari or Firefox; Windows Internet Explorer users who have joined the Stanford Windows Infrastructure*; and Linux users with the Firefox browser. Note that browser configuration changes will be necessary. Information about using HTTP Negotiate will be available on June 22.

A preview of the new WebLogin page is available.

*To learn more about the Stanford Windows Infrastructure, see http://windows.stanford.edu

- Kathleen Baker
Client Support; Project Management Office

Net2Switch

In the past, local departments had two choices for managing their local area network: do it themselves or hand over total control to IT Services through the Net-to-Jack program. The new Net-to-Switch program offers the best of both worlds: centralized management, monitoring, and replacement of network equipment while retaining local departmental closet access for flexibility in data port activations.

Since clients are charged per switch, rather than per port, records tracking in Pinnacle is vastly simplified. Overall efficiency in providing networking services to end users is also improved as much of the procedure necessary for jack activation, deactivation, or moves as required by the older Net-to-Jack program, is simply not necessary.

However, the new Net-to-Switch program is not for everyone. Departments must have a Local Network Administrator (LNA) to sign up for this program. To find out more information on Net-to-Switch, visit the website.

- Alvin Chew
Shared Communication Services; Networking Systems

Trailblazing with Pathworks

Over the summer, Shared Communications Services will roll out a new product called Pathworks to manage the writing and execution of standard operating procedures. The Production Control Group (PCG), Order Management, and the Operator Services Center are the initial set of participating groups. They plan to use Pathworks to document their internal procedures and use Pathworks as a training and operational tool.

In addition, the PCG plans to leverage Pathworks to expand its portfolio of client services. Subject Matter expert groups are encouraged to write procedures in Pathworks for operational tasks they would like to farm out. Pathworks will be the primary supported mechanism for client groups (including internal clients) to push work to the PCG.

The Pathworks project will also bring in Ambient Software (the makers of Pathworks) to do training sessions for procedure authors and end-users. If you will be writing procedures for your group or for the PCG, please contact Jon Pilat to sign up.

If you're interested in getting a demo of Pathworks for your team (whether you want to use Pathworks for your group internally or will be working with the Production Control Group), please contact Jon Pilat or Erik Cummings for scheduling.

- Jon Pilat
Client Support; Project Management Office

Freeze Commences for Commencement

Commencement 2006 is upon us. Administrative Systems and the Registrar's Office have been preparing for the big date since early May. We are officially in Commencement mode now that the June 2 code freeze is in effect.

Beginning June 10, there will be elevated monitoring of PeopleSoft, Axess, and Help Desk tickets. The truly big date is Commencement Thursday (June 15) when the majority of students are cleared for graduation and diplomas can be prepared. There will be extended coverage that day until the Registrar's Office has completed their tasks (usually around 10 p.m.).

You can follow our commencement activities online via the "Commencement" link. Please contact Admissions/Records manager Javier Ruiz if you have any questions.

- Javier Ruiz
Administrative Systems; Student & HR Systems

Classical and Jazz Streaming Audio Available

Did you know that Stanford subscribes to five streaming audio databases, accessible to anyone with a SUNet ID? Three focus on Western Classical music (Naxos Music Library, Classical Music Library, and DRAM—the Database of Recorded American Music). In addition, Naxos Jazz streams many of the jazz greats on the Fantasy label including Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar
Peterson, and Thelonious Monk. Finally, African American Song provides access to a growing collection of blues, gospel, folk song, and narrative recordings. Quick links to these services, including information on off-campus access, may be found on the Music Library's web page.

We continually monitor usage statistics to gauge the appropriate number of simultaneous users for our subscriptions. If you have any problems accessing these services, please let us know.

- Ray Heigemeir
SULAIR

Town Hall Materials Available

The presentation slides from our May 23, 2006 Town Hall meeting are available on line.

The key topics for the meeting included:

  • Introduction of new staff
  • Results from the 2006 Client Satisfaction Survey
  • FY07 Planning
  • Quarterly Exceptional Awards

You can provide input or raise questions about any of this content with your Director or Executive Director.

- Nancy Ware
Planning, Metrics, and Communication

Marguerite Shuttle Speeds Up

Help is on the way for Alumni Center and Medical Center commuters who often board standing-room only Marguerite shuttles in the afternoon to the Palo Alto Transit Center. Parking and Transportation Services has added buses during the peak morning and afternoon commute hours.

New afternoon express buses will be added for the following popular routes, increasing frequency to the Palo Alto Transit Center to every seven minutes:

  • Line A, serving the Via Ortega and two Medical Center/Hospital stops, and terminating at the Palo Alto Transit Center.
  • Line B Counter-clockwise, serving all stops along Serra and Galvez streets, Town and Country Village, and terminating at the Palo Alto Transit Center.

Additional buses will also be on hand during peak morning hours, to ease overcrowding at the train station.

All Marguerite shuttle schedules, including express bus additions, are available to view and print on the Marguerite Schedule web page.

- Parking and Transportation Office

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 new subscription list itsinbits-subscribers@lists.stanford.edu. People outside of IT Services can self-subscribe via majordomo.

The next its in bits will be published on Wednesday, June 21, 2006