Survey

Did you leave the Bay Area over Labor Day weekend?

Yes
No

Results from last issue's survey question: Did you find this year's IPP process better than last year's?

There were 35 responses. 15 said "Yes," and 20 said "No."

Tips From Your Admin

Did you know that supervisors are responsible for assuring that cart operators have a valid driver's license and that they sign the Departmental Golf Cart-Type Vehicle Operator's Agreement each year?

The Agreement is available on the Environmental Health & Safety web site.

Staff Profile

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Brian Wankel started working at Stanford in 1999.

How would you describe your current job responsibilities?

I work in Computer Resource Consulting (CRC) and help manage desktop and server support services across the University. The clients my team and I support are the fine folks of IT Services, Dean of Research, Office of Development, Geballe Laboratory for Advanced Materials, and Internal Audit.

Which aspects of your job do you enjoy the most?

Without question it is being part of, and contributing to, this incredible institute. To consider what Stanford’s mission is, and what the University’s historical contributions have been locally, nationally, and world-wide, is pretty awesome. My contribution may be nominal comparatively, but it’s a contribution nonetheless. I work hard and it feels good to be part of the “big picture.”

I know everyone says it, but the people; from the clients I work with to the incredible talent and great folks in IT Services. Two years ago, I was attending a speech President Hennessy was giving to Business Affairs and he was talking about how the faculty is encouraged to be innovators and think outside the box with respect to research and teaching, and to use technology accordingly. Welcome to the Wild West of IT and personally, I think we all have one or two screws loose.

What did you do before you came to Stanford?

Before Stanford? Well, I graduated UCLA studying Biology and Psychology and I had an internship with IBM while I was in school. Using my scholastic and internship experience wisely, I went into the fire service for a couple years working as a reserve fire fighter with Santa Barbara County Fire Department. Family and friends were like, "You’re doing what?"

With no full time opportunities in sight with the fire department, I came up to Northern California and started my career in IT connecting some of the dots from internship experience and career. After all, I had student loans to pay and my father said Northern California is the place to be. I then worked at Franklin Templeton as a computer analyst for a couple of years, joined the consulting bandwagon for a bit, and landed at Stanford in 1999.

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

I have a wonderful wife and two boys, one and three years old. Life outside of work is crazy busy right now with two young boys. Most if not all my spare time is filled with taking care of or playing with my boys and trying to be a good husband to the woman who blessed me with the two most incredible joys of my life. BC (Before Children), I enjoyed training for triathlons, playing acoustic guitar once in a while, or just hanging out. Those days seem far in the past, but I do get my guitar out once in a while and play for my boys until the older one says “Papa play something else like Twinkle Little Star or Old McDonald."

What is your favorite movie, book, song?

I still remember being totally blown away when Star Wars first came out. I think I was about seven years old and to this day if I see anything that resembles a light saber I want to pick it up and go to town on anyone or anything near.

I don’t get a chance to read much anymore, but I love autobiographies and have read almost every book about, or by, Coach John Wooden. I do get to read children books every night and have read Curious George at least 300 times.

For music, my interests span the board, but I am a huge Dave Matthews Band fan. I have never missed a concert when they’re in town. Their music is a unique blend of rock and jazz. Got my tickets for the September concert at Shoreline. ...

Staff Happenings

Comings and Goings

I am very pleased to announce Shared Application Services has a new Senior Windows Systems Administrator joining the Windows Systems Team (WST).

Nelly Chien is an alumna of Stanford's Civil Engineering Ph.D. program and returns to us after spending the past eleven years providing Windows systems design and support expertise for the New York and Pacific Stock Exchanges, Matson Navigation Company, Pets.com, and Omnicell, Inc.

Nelly's expertise in Microsoft Exchange Messaging, Active Directory, and SQL Clustering make her a great addition to the Windows Team.

Additionally, Nelly enjoys international travel and cuisine, can converse with you in three spoken languages, and already loves the community atmosphere and casual "dress code" of IT Services.

Please join us in welcoming Nelly to IT Services and drop by her office in Polya Hall 261 to introduce yourself.

- Barry Magsanay
Shared Application Services; Windows Systems

The Departmental Network Engineering group is pleased to announce that Jack Liggett has joined our team. Jack started at Stanford in 1993 as part of the Installation and Maintenance (I&M) team of IT Services. He briefly left the University from 1999 to 2001, returning to work as a contractor in the I&M group until 2004 (when he accepted a full time position in I&M).

In recent years, Jack has worked closely with the Networking team on the campus wireless service and the CardNet network. We're excited to continue to leverage his experience in those areas and provide further growth for a fellow IT Services employee.

- Alvin Chew
Shared Communication Services; Networking Systems

The following people recently joined Information Technology Services. Welcome!

  • Adam Lewenberg (Donna Cummings)

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

  • Kathy Lucas (Anne Pinkowski)
  • Mason Rove (Maria Maravilla)
  • Andrew May (Jon Pilat)

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
2–3:30 p.m.

Turing Auditorium

September 7: iPhone at Stanford

Apple released the highly-anticipated iPhone on June 29, 2007 to unprecedented demand. Part cell phone, part personal computer, and part iPod, the iPhone includes an email client, a web browser, and a wireless capability that enables users to connect to many popular Stanford services. This Tech Briefing will discuss how the iPhone works in the Stanford environment. Mark Branom will demonstrate.

September 14: Introduction to Networking

This class will give a brief overview of some of the concepts of computer networking. The class will provide a very basic introduction to common networking technology and terminology, and how it applies to Stanford. Topics will include networking models and protocols, ethernet, wireless ethernet, Internet Protocol (IP), and networking equipment. Drew Saunders will present.

Check the Tech Briefings home page for future sessions and to subscribe to the mailing list.

Technology Training Courses

Upcoming Tech Training classes of interest to IT Services staff.

Word Merge, Thu, Sep 6, 8:30–12:00, $150

Excel for Finance Level 1, Mon, Sep 10, 9:00–4:00, $275

PowerPoint Level 1, Mon, Sep 10, 9:00–4:00, $275

Excel Tips and Tricks, Tue, Sep 11, 8:30–12:00, $150

Excel Pivot Tables, Tue, Sep 11, 1:00–4:30, $150

Dreamweaver Lite, Tue, Sep 11, 1:00–4:30, $510

Techport Open Lab, Wed, Sep 12, 9:00–12:00, Free

Web Design: Forms and Basic CGI Scripting, Wed, Sep 12, 1:00–4:30, $150

XML Introduction, Wed, Sep 12, 9:00–4:00, $275

ReportMart1 Introduction, Thu, Sep 13, 1:30–4:30, Free

FileMaker Pro Level 2, Fri, Sep 14, 9:00–4:00, $275

Sundial Tips and Tricks, Tue, Sep 18, 1:00–4:30, Free

OrderIT Site Training (formerly IT Services Site Training), Tue, Sep 18, 1:00–4:30, Free

Excel Level 1, Wed, Sep 19, 9:00–4:00, $275

FileMaker Pro Level 1, Thu, Sep 20, 9:00–4:00, $275

Web Design: Protecting Documents on the Web and a Bonus Lesson on JavaScript, Thu, Sep 20, 1:00–4:30, $150

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 postings for IT Services this week.

Req. #26743 : IT Services Counter Lead, Range 4P2, 100% FTE, Suzanne Schiessler, hiring manager.

The Counter Lead will have the responsibility to manage the workload of the ID Card Office and cell phone support personnel; both Stanford employees and temporary employees. This position will interact with the lead of Order Processing, as well as the leads for the Service Desk and Billing Services groups.

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 all the cars in the United States were placed end to end, it would probably be Labor Day weekend."

- Doug Larson

News

A Note From Bill...

Although it seems that every year I'm surprised at how quickly September and the new fiscal year arrive, this remains a favorite time of the year as I reflect on the accomplishments of the past months, finish up a few leftover tasks, and dive into a host of new and exciting projects and initiatives. More important, it provides another opportunity for me to pause and thank all of you for your tremendous contribution to advancing IT Services and Stanford over the past year.

During the past year, our client and employee surveys revealed significant gains in satisfaction with our services and our organization. We established important momentum through our annual initiatives and made essential progress implementing our multi-year strategic plan. Our financial performance and budget planning for the year went well. Staff continue to develop the skills and knowledge needed to help lead IT at Stanford. I am extremely proud of all of this and much more. I strongly believe these accomplishments improve the confidence our clients have in our organization and the role we fill.

Moving forward, we must continually review our plans, measure our progress, and make whatever course corrections become necessary. Our strategic plan is focused on three major responsibilities:

  • Support University and Research Computing
  • Provide Communications and Collaboration Infrastructure
  • Deliver Services and Organizational Excellence 

To benefit Stanford, we need to deliver on several key initiatives in each of these areas. However, you may also recall that our plan states clearly that all of our initiatives are built squarely upon our primary responsibility, which remains:

  • Keep IT Up and Running

It was gratifying that our clients recognized us this year for keeping systems up and running; that measure gained the highest score on the Client Satisfaction survey. However, because of some periodic system security issues, I believe an even greater emphasis on system security is necessary. We must effectively secure all of our systems to meet the expectations of the University community and maintain the trust it has afforded us. We must continue to increase system security by regularly testing, improving, and retesting all of our systems.

To meet this goal, I have created a significant, multi-faceted project that begins immediately. This project is the organization's top priority and will likely affect most workgroups within IT Services. The objective is to do everything possible to secure our systems within the next three months and to implement policies and procedures that allow us to maintain and improve security continually. This will impact all of the systems and storage managed by IT Services—from the Forsythe Data Center to machines in satellite offices. I ask that you do whatever you can to help this important effort, even if it affects other projects or priorities.

To further address this effort, we have created a Quality Assurance position and program to ensure that we fully test and secure systems before we place them into production. We are also re-establishing production acceptance guidelines for all new systems and services. If you have additional ideas that will help promote "Keep IT Up and Running" to the next level, I encourage you to contribute those ideas right away.

Again, I thank you for your efforts to providing quality IT at Stanford, both during the past year and in the exciting year ahead!

- Bill Clebsch
IT Services

Forsythe Data Center Capacity Expansion

As you may have noticed, there's construction going on in Forsythe Hall. IT Services is increasing the infrastructure capacity to meet our clients’ growing needs.

Construction activities will take place inside and outside Forsythe Hall. The project will run from August 2007 through March 2008.

The IT Services staff who work in Forsythe Hall will be impacted by the construction. Neighboring buildings—especially Polya (including the PHIL instructional lab in Polya 170B) and Turing Auditorium—will also experience an increase in noise level.

Throughout the course of construction, the project team will make every effort to provide as much advanced notice as possible regarding scheduled activities. Please work with your manager to determine the best work alternative on days when the noise level is high.

We appreciate your understanding and support. If you have any questions, please contact your manager. You can also contact Chai Ho, the cognizant IT Services project manager (725-9347) or Tom Prussing, the Forsythe Building Manager (725-6168).

For more information, visit the project page.

- Chai Ho
Client Support; Project Management Office

Contact Center Goes Live

The Contact Center (aka the ACD) went live in mid-July with resounding success. The Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) project is part of a larger support effort for the hospitals (adult and children's), and is a critical component of the IT Services initiative for the Stanford adult hospital's Customer Response Transformation efforts. The rollout included the IT Services Help Desk and Service Desk as a new, consolidated group.

Yes, we experimented on ourselves again. Next came the Stanford Hospital Dermatology Clinic and then the LPCH Medical Specialities Clinic. The individual go-lives were done across a three-week period from July 17 through August 7th. The three groups were considered the pilot groups because they were the first to use the new tools, but there is nothing of a "pilot" nature about the service. The Contact Center provides the production service that supports the critical call answering functions for IT Services' Help Desk Services, as well as patient support for Dermatology and the Medical Specialties clinics.

ACD is the process of routing calls to an assigned agent and queuing any call that must wait for an available agent. This new tool allows customized control of the call flow within each group, as well as specialized routing to the ACD agents based on specialized skill sets. Examples of skill sets are Help Desk functions vs Service Desk functions or English vs Spanish as in the Medical Specialities clinic. Agents can belong to multiple skill sets and can answer calls at a wide variety of priority levels.

The new tool also allows client management full access to all call history for their group for both real time and historical reporting. This is achieved with a network-based client/server configuration of twelve Windows servers that have a variety of Nortel-provided applications. These applications are tightly coupled back to the CS2100 PBX. The applications provide instructions to the PBX for call routing to announcements, to voice mail, or to an individual telephone at an agent's desk. All of this is in preparation for an enhanced service offering for ACD-style services, which will be orderable in a few months.

The installation and set of go-lives is the culmination of over a full year's effort by a large team from IT Services who partnered with Shared Technologies and Nortel. The IT Services team included Susan Arsenault, Gary Buchanan, Gayle Delia, Jim Hsu, Stacy Lee, Pat Luma, Christine Moe, Ron Otero, Paul Pavelko, Ryan Quintos, Sean Riordan, Lea Roberts, Brian Spyksma, and Dominga Zepeda. Additional support came from many, many other IT Services folks as well as efforts from the Hospital and LPCH networking groups. And, last but not least, our own Help Desk and Service Desk groups who agreed to be the very first client using the new system and functions.

Of course, reporting on a large project is never complete without a set of statistics. This project consolidated a total of seven ACD groups into three, with a total of 35 agents and 15 skill sets. During the first month of operation, these groups processed over 21,000 calls and there were only six trouble tickets opened. Best of all, the Hospital rated the new system and service as 9.7 out of 10!

Congratulations and thank you to all who made this a success for IT Services!

- Christine Moe
Shared Communication Services; Operations

Demand Manager in Forsythe

It is no surprise that growing IT demands have resulted in more servers and IT service infrastructure for Stanford’s data center facilities. In turn, the increased hardware forces more heat to be generated. This, in turn, requires more cooling, which generates more heat, and so on. This cycle has resulted in severe space and power constraints in all IT Services' data center facilities.

The role of Demand Manager was created to manage allocation of the remaining space and power given the critical short-term constraints. Liz Goesseringer assumed the Demand Management role in May of 2007 and will function in that capacity until the Forsythe Remediation project is complete. The Data Center Strategy team has been busy identifying potential solutions and preparing proposals for both a Business Continuity/Disaster Preparedness site and a new data center facility to address Stanford’s future computing needs.

Essential to the immediate and long term planning efforts are accurate hardware demand projections for all client and internal projects/initiatives, along with corresponding supporting infrastructure services. Worksheets were provided to clients and IT Services teams to assist in collecting those forecasts. The additional work performed to accurately predict the data center power and cooling load should pay for itself in reduced capital and operational expense. Additionally, as part of the Demand Management effort, a governance group consisting of John Freshwaters, Bob Moya, Barry Magsanay, Bernadette Drechsler, and Liz Goesseringer meets twice a month to set priorities against projections.

There are some ongoing practices we can execute now to assist in establishing data center efficiencies during this crucial time:

  1. Continue to send updates for any changes to the demand projections to its-demand-manager@lists.stanford.edu. This includes any equipment additions or removals, as well as changes to infrastructure requirements, such as storage.
  2. Power-off and submit orders to dispose of any unused hardware.
  3. Adhere to new server replacement policies as space/power permits. Newer devices typically have lower power requirements.
  4. If it is necessary to run a replacement in parallel, plan to run in parallel for the minimum amount of time required to verify the new system.
  5. With the advent of virtualization, begin planning workload consolidation.
  6. Plan to consolidate servers where feasible.
  7. When planning for new hardware and growth is not predictable, “rightsize.” Many servers are oversized and underutilized.
  8. When making new purchases, think "energy-efficient” and buy equipment certified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's "Energy Star" program when possible. Energy Star is a program helping businesses and individuals protect the environment through superior energy efficiency. Energy Star-rated equipment will improve the University's energy and financial performance.
  9. Where feasible, select power economizer modes when configuring servers.

Working together, I am confident we can continue to meet internal and client needs with minimal impact.

- Liz Goesseringer
Client Support; Client Relations

Techport

The new year of TechPort registrations started on 09/01/07. The earlier you sign up for access to online IT courses and books, the longer you will be able use them (through 8/31/08). The fee is $195 for unlimited use at home, at work, on vacation, from a Mac or a PC, around the clock. The license belongs to you, not your computer.

With TechPort's courses and books you get to: improve your on-the-job skills, train for future positions, prepare for IT certifications (like MCSE, MCSA, MCTS, MCAD, LPIC, Oracle, PMI), try out new applications before investing in the software, and more. TechPort allows you to learn in your own way (methodically go through a course or search for nuggets of knowledge), bookmark what you have located, or dabble in new topics you might want to pursue—all without waiting for classmates to catch up or having them slow down for you. In addition, online mentoring is available 24x7.

To find out more about TechPort, drop in at one of the free monthly TechPort open labs to learn how to get the most from this valuable resource, invite someone from Technology Training Services to your staff meeting for a demo, or take the sample course in Excel.

To sign up, go to http://axess.stanford.edu, click on the Training tab, Search Catalog for "techport online," and click on the name when it appears: TechPort-Online Technology Training for Stanford (ITS-0611). Click on Enroll, and continue with registration online. Your 07-08 STAP funds will be billed for $195.

- Leni Silberman
Client Support; Technical Training Services

Enhanced Organizational Chart

Have you noticed anything new about IT Services' Organization Chart? It's clickable.

That is, when you look up a person on the Org Chart, you are now able to click on their name and open their StanfordWho information directly. Note that this opens the authenticated (Stanford Only) version of StanfordWho, not the public version.

Give the enhanced Org Chart a try the next time you are searching for someone in IT Services.

- Brian Young
Client Support; Documentation

IT Professional Development

Tech Training Services is planning to provide professional development courses on-site for IT professional staff on a regular basis. This fall we're offering XML Introduction (Sep 12 and Oct 25), SQL Basics (Nov 7), MySQL Workshop (Nov 14) and JavaScript (Nov 5). We'll also be bringing Ruby on Rails in October (exact date to be determined) to our upgraded POST "flagship" classroom in Redwood Hall.

Let us know what other courses you need. If we have enough staff to hold a class, we'll find the right training provider with the expertise you need. Please contact me if you have any suggestions.

- Nancy Baumann
Client Support; Technical Training Services

New Executive Director in Administrative Systems

I am pleased to announce that Ganesh Karkala has been appointed Executive Director of Administrative Systems, effective September 1.

Ganesh joined Stanford about one year ago after a distinguished ten-year career at Oracle Corporation. Ganesh started as Director of Financial Systems last August, was promoted to Director of ERP Systems in March, and has been serving as interim executive director since Bob O'Leary's departure in June. In each role, Ganesh has made important contributions towards improving our administrative systems.

Please join me in offering Ganesh your support as he is promoted into this important new role.

- Randy Livingston
Vice President for Business Affairs

Secure Your Electronic Equipment

Several laptops have been reported stolen around campus. This might be a good time to do a quick review and make sure your electronic devices are secure. The Stanford Report has a short summary.

- The Editors

IT Services Cart Parade Cancelled

In light of the recent focus on training staff in the regulations and proper use of electric carts at Stanford, I have decided to cancel the IT Services Cart Parade, scheduled for September 14. If you have any questions, please contact me.

- Jan Cicero
Client Support

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 19, 2007.