Staff Happenings

I am pleased to announce that Sean Riordan has accepted the Windows Systems manager position. Sean has been acting in an interim role for the last several months, and has demonstrated a good balance of strong technical leadership and an understanding of process and strategy.

I would like to thank everyone who has provided feedback during the interview process for this position. Your input was critical in making this decision.

If there are any questions, please let me know!

- Heather Flanagan
System Administration

Comings and Goings

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

Tom Clements (Christine Soldahl)

Nicole Marshall (Carolyn Kane)

Fernando Diaz (Tom Goodrich)

its in bits welcomes more 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, August 22

Stanford Integrated Email and Calendar

Ammy Hill, IT Services, will give an update of the technology behind the Stanford Integrated Email & Calendar. Come see what the new system looks like right out of the box, and bring your questions.

Tech Express

Once a month
12:00–1:00 p.m.
Turing Auditorium

Thursday, August 21

Stanford Integrated Email and Calendar—First Look

Ammy Hill, IT Services, will give a quick demo geared toward day-to-day use of the new Stanford Email and Calendar. There will be a quick tour of the system with plenty of time for questions and answers.

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

Upcoming Tech Training classes of interest to IT Services staff:

Excel 2007 Tips and Tricks, Mon, Aug 25, 9:00–4:00, $325

Adobe Acrobat: The Basics of Using the Full Version, Mon, Aug 25, 9:00–12:00, $195

PowerPoint Transition from 2003 to 2007, Tues, Aug 26, 8:30–12:00, $195

Excel 2007 Level 1, Tues, Aug 26, 9:00–4:00, $325

Database Design and CPR, Tues, Aug 26, 9:00–12:00, $125

Access 2007 Level 2, Tues, Aug 26, 9:00–4:00, $325

PowerPoint 2007 Level 2, Wed, Aug 27, 9:00–4:00, $325

FileMaker Pro 9 Level 1, Wed, Aug 27, 9:00–4:00, $325

Photoshop Lite, Thurs, Aug 28, 9:00–12:00, $195

Project 2007 Level 2, Thurs, Aug 28, 9:00–4:00, $325

Access 2007 Tips and Tricks, Fri, Aug 29, 9:00–4:00, $325

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 was one new job posting for IT Services this week.

Req. #31599: Network Specialist, 100% FTE, Range 4P3, Alvin Chew, hiring manager.

The Departmental Network Engineer is responsible for planning, implementation, and 7X24 operation of the ResNet, N2J, N2S, MMR, Stanford West, and 802.11 wireless networks.

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

“If you enjoy the fragrance of a rose, you must accept the thorns which it bears.”

- Isaac Hayes

News

Cartel: It's Not a Cartel, It's a Club

This July, Stanford hosted the annual Cartel conference. Cartel is a group of higher-education IT groups who share similar infrastructure and practices. Originally, this meant institutions running AFS and Kerberos, but over the years, discussions have expanded to include e-mail systems, virtualization, calendaring, system provisioning and configuration management, and other technology and software that we use to keep our respective universities up and running.

This year, MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Iowa State, Columbia, and the University of Michigan sent their UNIX Systems leads and managers to participate in the conference. In addition, folks from all over Stanford, including IT Services (CRC, Windows, Storage, Integration), Administrative Systems, Libraries, and Clark Center attended the conference sessions.

Presenters from Stanford included Phil Reese (research computing), Minh Nguyen (identity management), Marco Wise (web and collaboration strategies), Digant Kasundra (Puppet), Sunia Yang (NetDB), Heather Flanagan (Zimbra), and Russ Allbery (authentication, authorization, and system administration best practices). We also had presenters from other Cartel participants in areas such as Virtualization, Data Centers, and OpenAFS. Thanks go out to all of those presenters and also to Lucrecia Kim-Boswell for assisting with the planning and setup of the conference. For a complete list of topics covered, see the Cartel conference web site. Detailed notes will be made available after editing and vetting by the attendees.

- Jon Pilat and Russ Allbery
Computing Services

Modem Pool Service Shuts Down August 31

After many years of service—and a steadily declining user base—the Stanford Modem Pool will be shut down on August 31.

In its heyday (remember acoustic couplers?) in the '80s and '90s, the modem pool served hundreds of concurrent users; now, the number is fewer than 20. Fortunately, as the modem pool equipment has aged, network access has become fairly inexpensive. IT Services began notifying the Stanford community of the modem pool service sunset in June of 2007, and has offered the client base suggestions for alternatives to the service.

- Carlos Zertuche
Service Consulting

Calendar Conversion Update

The Integrated Email and Calendar project continues to move ahead. So far, over 15,000 accounts — chiefly IT Services and students — have been migrated to the new Stanford Email and Calendar. In fact, the move is going so well that we expect the student migration to complete ahead of its scheduled target date of September 7.

This weekend marked the successful migration of IT Services from Sundial to the Stanford Calendar. Adam Lewenberg and Yue Lu worked tirelessly to refine the data migration and make the move as smooth as possible. The migration was a success and IT Services has been using the new calendar with only a few minor issues. To see the current list of known issues, go to the IT Services Checklist. To further support the transition, IT Services is offering an additional Open Lab session on Thursday, August 21, from 1:00-2:30 p.m. in Polya 155.

The new Stanford Calendar is now the system of record for IT Services meetings. Rooms must be reserved via Stanford Calendar and reservations for IT Services resources cannot be made in Sundial. Since the rest of campus is still using Sundial, it is important to keep your Sundial calendar up to date if you interact with campus staff outside of IT Services. Be sure to check Sundial daily to make sure you haven’t missed events that were scheduled with you and to copy meetings to Sundial that you scheduled via Stanford Calendar. We know this is an inconvenience, but this early adoption will provide valuable information, helping us to anticipate issues before they affect the rest of campus.

Please submit a HelpSU request every time you have a problem, question, complaint or suggestion. The IEC Project team would like to thank you for your patience and cooperation during this period.

- Ammy Hill
Campus Readiness

Order Management Governance (OMG) — Success Continues

When the OMR (Order Management Redesign) project finished up last year, we implemented a governance structure to support ongoing operations of the Order Management process and called it OMG. This group was made up of representatives from Order Processing, I&M, Facilities Engineering, Finance, Client Relations, and the Service Desk. We started off with a list of tasks compiled at the end of the project and worked diligently this last year to complete the list. Additionally, as issues surfaced, we worked collectively to resolve them and implement the updated process within each of our respective workgroups.

To continue our overall goal for continued process improvement, we have decided to review the governance structure and make some changes. Our data center order processes need some further focus and streamlining and our service bundling plans will need some focus. In addition, there are still opportunities for each of our workgroups to improve process in many other areas. In future, here is how the OMG will be convened:

  • 1st Tuesday of the month: the original OMG group will meet to continue our focus on cross-group issues. Membership: Suzanne Schiessler, Christine Soldahl, Nan McKenna, Chris Lundin, Vicki Hallett, Erich Snow, and Rocco Petrunti.
  • 2nd Tuesday of the month: this new group will focus on the data center ordering process and review opportunities to improve. Membership: Suzanne Schiessler, Meighan McWilliam, Jared Sanz-Freilich, Brenda Rehbein, Vicki Hallett, Judy Pincus, and Katherine Pappas-Kassaras. We will ask for representatives from the UNIX and Windows groups, Technical Facilities (TFAC), and Storage.
  • 3rd Tuesday of the month: this new group will focus on the strategic direction of Order Management and the ways that these initiatives can be worked through the governance structure. Membership: Suzanne Schiessler, Nan McKenna, Christine Soldahl, and Chris Lundin.
  • 4th Tuesday of the month: this new group will focus on voice and fiber orders.  Membership: Suzanne Schiessler, Rocco Petrunti, Vicki Hallett, and Katherine Pappas-Kassaras

If you'd like to know more about this, or come to one of our meetings, feel free to let me know!

- Suzanne Schiessler
Order Management

Parking and Transportation Services News

Parking and Transportation Services has announced 2008-09 parking permit rates. Current parking permits expire on August 31, and there will be no formal grace period, so permit holders will need to display their new stickers beginning September 1. You can apply online for your permit. Also, Thursday, August 28 is the deadline to enroll in the Commute Club for the full academic year. For more information, see the P&TS web site.

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, September 3, 2008.