Central Michigan University

Adoption of a new operating system (OS) across a university is always a dicey affair. There are those who want to move immediately to the latest and greatest and those who would prefer to continue to use what they know and trust. Unfortunately, managing a software rollout is not as easy as allowing everyone to do as they prefer. Because classrooms and labs are shared resources, there's a need to balance everyone's needs and determine when we've reached the point that we can safely change things. There are two other significant considerations as well:

• We don't like to make changes in labs and classrooms in the middle of a term - too many bad experiences with this.
• We don't like to move forward to a new OS before all of our most common software tools and utilities are supported by the OS and until we understand what the impact of the new OS will be on the hardware we have in place. At present, for example, both Altiris (desktop backup) and SMS (software updates) are not fully supported by Windows 7, though we expect solutions to both before fall.

Our Distributed Computing Steering Committee (DCSC) has determined, though, that it's time to begin a deliberate transition to Windows 7, and we're going to step up efforts to have it in place across most of the campus by fall. Over the remainder of the spring and summer we'll be doing the following:

• Migrating lab and classroom computers to Windows 7
• Migrating faculty and staff computers on demand - as soon as backup and SMS issues are resolved
• Continuing to test strategic applications against Windows 7 to ensure compatibility
• Verifying that CMU websites work appropriately with Windows 7
• Confirming support for print drivers in use across campus
• Determining the extent of any hardware issues we may have
• Developing training and help materials as needed
• Exploring options regarding desktop backup

Migrations will proceed campus-wide, scheduled and managed within business and academic units by the technical staff that support these groups. Questions about the pace and schedule for this migration are best addressed to the appropriate staff.

The CMU Green IT initiative continues to move quietly forward. With the help of Facilities Management, we've purchased campus-wide licensing for Faronics PowerSave software - software that allows us to turn computers on and off on automated schedules and to monitor the resulting energy savings. We've divided the implementation of this software across campus into two roughly equal phases. Generally, Phase I - to be completed by the end of this fiscal year - will address lab and classroom computers across the Academic Division. Phase II will focus on faculty and staff computers campus-wide and will occupy us for much of next year.

To date, university technicians are approximately 25% of the way through Phase I. The data thus far, though very limited, are right on target with what we were expecting to see. A report from a single academic college in which the software installation is farther advanced than in others suggests a monthly savings of almost $2,000 per month or $24,000 annually. If we extend this estimate across all six colleges, we should easily see savings well in excess of $100,000 annually. Remember that this estimate only addresses Phase I - we hope to see similar savings in Phase II!

Our other initiatives are also on track. We've redesigned our review of equipment going to salvage to capture hundreds of flat screen monitors that we've used to replace the bulky and much less efficient CRT monitors. In our machine room, we've converted 108 physical servers to virtual ones - consolidating hardware and further reducing energy consumption. Across that portion of our hardware landscape, we're using only 27% of the electricity that we used just a year or so ago to run the very same servers!

It's really inspiring to see the level of commitment and effort that campus IT technicians have brought to this initiative, and I hope you'll take a moment to thank them for the work they're doing to further our sustainability efforts. We think we have some impressive results ahead, so please subscribe to this blog for future updates!

The Security Incident Response Team (SIRT) has completed its Fall 2009 report, and I've attached it to this post. The report notes an alarming increase in the level of "hostile" activity on the web - evidence of this can be found in the significant increases in both the number of domains we've had to actively block and the number of abuse complaints we've received. In both cases, the activity we saw in Fall '09 was comparable to the activity for the entire previous year - frightening!

OIT has also been a major participant in four significant audits over the past 18 months - an audit of the student information system, an audit of our financial systems, an audit of the campus wireless network, and a general audit of network access controls.

Over the next several months, I will be working closely with the Information Security Advisory Team in the construction of a network and systems security plan for the 2010-2011 fiscal year. Our planning will focus on implementing both the requirements/recommendations of our auditors and an appropriate response to the increased number of threats we've seen.

One thing is quite clear - the online threat to our network and systems security is neither random nor haphazard. It is systematic, well-planned, and - as recent news reporting has suggested - frequently backed, funded, and undertaken by professional and criminal enterprises. Even more than in previous years, we must look at online security as a responsibility of everyone in the CMU community - a plan that relies on IT alone to weather this storm is destined to failure.

I will report back on our planning in a later blog post. Stay tuned!

As we begin a new semester, I've provided an update below on progress towards significant campus technology goals for the 09-10 academic year. I reported those goals back on September 7 in this blog post.

• The network team was occupied for much of the fall on work surrounding the completion of a project to provide redundant networking connections from CMU to Merit (our internet service provider). I'm happy to report that this project is complete and that we now have four distinct circuits to two different attach points at Merit. As a part of this project, we've upgraded the campus core to faster speeds and we expect to upgrade the Merit connections from 1GB to 10GB this spring. Because of the work done on this project, we've not yet had an opportunity to replace the networking in Music, though we expect to have it complete by Spring Break. We also expect the Ronan remodeling project to pick up sometime in the next several months.
• We are right on schedule with the upgrade to Blackboard 9 for the Fall 2010 semester. Classes in the pilot group will be using Blackboard 9 in a test environment during the Spring 2010 semester.
• Over the holidays, our mediated classroom team addressed the growing demand for "lecture capture ready" classrooms by adding new computers, microphones, and (in some cases) cameras to 22 classrooms - see list attached below. While most of the classrooms planned for general update this year will wait until Summer 2010 to be updated, the team has completed updates in Pearce 327 and Rowe 212.
• The new portal, iCentral, is available right now in a beta environment, and I invite you to try it! iCentral is positioned to become the "front door" to CMU for members of the CMU community, and we've included a number of new services in its design. Tell us what you think - there's a feedback link on every page! We expect to refine the portal and to add more and better services over the coming months as we sift through the input we receive from the CMU community.
• Though we're a bit behind our earlier plans, we're making progress in our selection of a next-generation email and calendar solution. We're testing possible solutions now, and we still expect to determine a direction for these services later this spring.
• Immediately before the holidays, we purchased hardware and additional licenses to support the establishment of a campus-wide document imaging solution. The solution into which we're consolidating - ImageNow from Perceptive Software - allows for linkage of documents to administrative records in SAP and other CMU systems. The focus of our spring activities will be to enable the student admission process with this technology and also to convert and incorporate the other document imaging systems currently in use on campus into our new centrally-supported service.
• We've also made progress on the "Green IT Initiative" we announced last fall by completing a very successful pilot project using monitoring software to turn off computers when not in use. Based upon what we've learned, we've teamed with Facilities Management to purchase Faronics PowerSave software and are planning to install it on 3,800 mostly lab and classroom computers early this spring. Over the coming months, we expect to be monitoring and selectively enabling automatic shutdown on these machines. Given what we learned in our pilot, we believe widespread use of this software could quickly and easily save CMU over $90,000 annually in energy costs.

As you can see, Fall 2009 was a busy time for campus technology groups, and I don't expect Spring 2010 to be much different. Our responses to the state-wide budget crisis will require our IT groups to be both creative and flexible if we're to accomplish what CMU needs of us, and I suspect we'll be required to recalibrate and maybe reassess some of our short-term goals. I'll be sure to post any adjustments here, so stay tuned!