A Note From Bill...
Happy New Year!
I know, that's a strange greeting for the early days of September. Yet, as many of you know, September marks the beginning of a new academic and fiscal year on campus. Hopefully during the summer months you were able to enjoy time with your families as well as some much deserved down time. I have just returned from some time away as well.
The last activity I participated in prior to my vacation was hanging out with many of you at our annual picnic. It was a refreshing change of pace to meet so many of your families and to hear the sounds of laughter from the youngsters as they played games, collected balloon figures, or had their faces painted. I want to thank Prescilla Young for all her work behind the scenes to make each detail of the event seamless and enjoyable. Hopefully you were able to come by to hear Danzband, featuring our own Chris Lundin. Prescilla is reminding me to also thank Jai Suengsumpathan, Crystal Ayala, and Gail Delia for all their help during and after the picnic.
As the new year gets underway, I want to extend my deep appreciation to all of you who contributed to a successful end for FY08. I also want to provide my thanks, in advance, to those of you who will make sure we're ready for the return of faculty and students in the coming days and weeks.
In thinking about FY09, I continue to see two key growth opportunities: Research Computing and the Medical Center, including the two hospitals. Phil Reese is dedicated to developing our Research Computing opportunities. I am pleased to announce that Jay Kohn has accepted my offer to be our Medical Center Liaison. The change in Jay's role took effect at the end of August.
The Medical Center Liaison position responds to requests I have received from both hospitals, as well as the School of Medicine, to provide dedicated support and linkages to their strategic planning efforts. The introduction of the North Campus facilities (in support of the adult hospital) as well as long range plans to construct a new campus for the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital heighten the opportunities to increase our service profile and presence. The hospitals are looking at innovative ways to integrate technology with patient care services. This type of role allows us to participate fully in their planning efforts. Jay's experience with the hospitals, her broad understanding of our organization and its services, and her relationships across campus provide the needed mix of experience and expertise.
Welcome to the new year.
- Bill Clebsch
IT Services
News from Business Services
Most of this summer has been spent getting our new Business Services organization up and running. We have completed the bulk of our hiring and updated our organization chart. I'm thrilled that John Freshwaters and Liz Goesseringer have accepted positions as Business Partners. In addition, I'm delighted to announce that Kathy Pappas-Kassaras (KPK) will be taking on the new role of Manager of the Project and Process Office. We are actively recruiting for two new Service Managers and one new Business Analyst.
We have also been working on our projects and priorities. Business Services' purpose is to support IT Services' technical and client support groups in achieving their goals and objectives. To begin to make this happen, on August 27, our directors, managers, and other senior members of the Business Services organization retreated to gain a shared sense of direction and priorities.
As we set our initial priorities, we're looking to tackle some of the biggest challenges facing IT Services, including improving some of our more troublesome processes such as the end-to-end process for data center fulfillment, continuing to rationalize and be clear about priorities in our service portfolio, and raising the bar on financial reporting to include profitability reporting for services.
We will be providing updates in its in bits on these issues at least monthly going forward. In the meantime, don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions, concerns, or ideas.
- Sam Steinhardt
Business Services
SharePoint Service Now Official
In spring 2007, staff from the Graduate School of Business (GSB) and the Department of Athletics, Physical Education, and Recreation (DAPER) asked the Windows System Team (WST) to provision an instance of Microsoft's SharePoint service that they could test as a platform for providing local intranets and collaboration services for their departments. SharePoint is a browser-based tool that can be used to host web sites that access shared workspaces, documents, and specialized applications such as wikis and blogs. WST quickly accommodated that request, and GSB and DAPER began several months of evaluation. Along the way, Radiation Physics and even some parts of IT Services jumped on board.
After the brief evaluation period, the three client departments were eager to move forward with a production offering. In February 2008, WST began a project to pull together the hardware, software, storage, and staff resources necessary to meet this request, and just days ago IT Services SharePoint Service offering became official.
SharePoint is now available to new clients. While WST provides the "backend" infrastructure and some troubleshooting assistance, using the service does require that the department have an adequate level of local technical support similar to what it would take to provide most well-executed web sites. SharePoint is a rate-based service, with monthly charges intended to recover its costs through monthly charges. For more information on the service, see the service summary.
Thanks go out to everyone who supported the project, particularly Sean Riordan and Sean Hoffman, who provided technical implementation and coordination support, and Steve Loving, who project-managed the tasks forward. Campus Readiness support was provided by Ammy Hill and Jo-Ann Cuevas; documentation support was provided by Linda Pilkin and Melissa Wibom.
- Jim Knox
Client Support
Porter Drive — Serra Project
Wahoo!! We have successfully completed the Porter Drive and Serra moves!!
At first glance it looked like a call to Tom Cruise would be needed; IT Services had a "mission impossible" challenge. It took IT Services little time to make a decision, as they looked through the cast of stars already on board, to create a team equal to the task at hand. IT Services worked diligently with a myriad of clients spearheaded by Noel Hirst of Business Affairs, and Margaret Dyer-Chamberlain of Land, Buildings & Real Estate. We worked closely with AS, the Controller's Office, and Land, Buildings & Real Estate to stage a mass exodus from 651 and 655 Serra Street to six newly renovated building sites at 3145 Porter Drive. We also worked with a variety of clients to renovate the following campus locations: Birch, Poplar, Juniper, Polya, Bambi, and Godzilla, as well as Encina Basement and Modular A. You can find a map and the move locations at the Porter web site: porterdrive.stanford.edu.
Two IT Services workgroups moved, and their new locations are as follows: Computer Resource Consulting (CRC) staff located in 651 Serra and in Bambi moved to Encina Hall, lower level. Software Licensing staff moved to space in Polya down the hall from the Polya Conference Room, 162.
Starting in the fall of 2007 and gaining momentum during the spring of 2008, IT Services worked to define client needs, design communication facilities for required technologies, and gather activation scripts for VoIP/Net-to-Switch services for more than 550 University staff at the 13 buildings involved. Despite delays encountered on the construction side of the overall project, IT Services was positioned to respond and deliver our services as requested by the client project management team to meet critical time lines.
As we approach September 2008, this production has reached its final curtain call and is about to close for the season. There were dozens of IT Services staff who contributed to this effort, with principal roles played by: Greg Steiger in Service Consulting, Bill MacIntosh and Gary Gutfeld in Facilities Engineering, Jeff Kasson and Frank Sadigh in Installation & Maintenance, Christina Zuffinetti in Order Processing, and Alvin Chew in Networking. The collective staff in Facilities Engineering, Installation and Maintenance, Networking, Order Processing, Card Office, Campus Readiness, and Service Consulting all played key roles throughout the production and share in the overall success of this project.
This award of excellence goes to the entire team of dedicated IT Services staff who danced across this stage.
- Jan Cicero
Client Support
Software Licensing Moves to Polya
Just a note to let you know that the Software Licensing office and staff (Pat Box, Debbi Barley, Robin Cohen, Edith Marsiske, Jane Tansuwan) have moved from the Bambi modular to Polya Hall—in the hallway between the conference rooms 155 and 162. As we approach Fall Quarter, you may see signs that we have placed in, on, or around Polya to direct faculty, staff, and students who may be trying to find us. If you see someone wandering around and looking for Software Licensing, please direct them to Polya 165. I would like to thank our IT Services colleagues who helped us with this move!
- Pat Box
Software Licensing
IEC Report: Student Email Migration Complete
The student email migration is complete. We have migrated a total of 19,875 accounts, including current students and post-docs. The Integrated Email and Calendar team reached this milestone on August 25, nearly two weeks ahead of schedule.
Meanwhile, IT Services continues to exercise the new calendar. The Tip of the Day email has been well received. If you have suggestions for a tip of the day, please contact Ammy with your idea. Additionally, these tips can always be found on the IT Services checklist, which is now linked from the IT Services Internal page.
We'd like to remind you to please report any issues you have via HelpSU. If you're puzzled, confused, or frustrated, then please let the team know to help us to more efficiently verify, categorize, and follow up on your issues and observations.
- Ammy Hill
Campus Readiness
Streaming Media Sunsetted
After almost ten years of outstanding service, the Streaming Media servers fell silent this Sunday August 31st. This service provided web surfers with access to Stanford material in all three major media: Real Player, QuickTime, and Windows Media Player. Now with the relative ease of creating video in many formats, IT Services has discontinued this service.
- Carlos Zertuche
Service Consulting