IT@Brown: News & Resources

General Announcements – Chris Grossi

• Dell Rep Leaving
• Key Access 7 needs to be updated by summer
• Workday Compatible Scanner Recommendation coming
• Matlab License is update and new modules coming
• Standard image just uploaded to Dell

Remedy Service Desk Upgrade – Chris Grossi

• Replaced HD Ticket and other schemas
• All using one type of ticket
• Easier to use and pass tickets
• Updated all environment sot Remedy 8.1
• Redefined all services
• Created templates for tickets
• 3 Levels of ticket entry – Unauthenticated, Authenticated with some templates, and full remedy app.
• Looking for users to test and provide feedback (focus group)
• Go-Live tentative for week of June 24
  • Wants to be sure that everything is working properly before going live.

VIVO – Jean Rainwater

• vivo.brown.edu
• Developed by Cornell – Federated Program (20+ institutions have gone public with VIVO, 100+ others are in process)
• Replacing research directory
• Data is populated from faculty CV
• Faculty log in to update/edit profile
• Meeting with departments through the summer to update
  • Student helpers to provide training
• Hoping to go public this fall – currently need to log in to view
• Cannot host .pdf’s and other such files
  • Should use Brown Digital Repository instead
  • CV will be downloadable

Workday Financials Project

Scope and Timeline

• Go-Live July 8, 2013
• Financial Accounting and reporting
• Expense reimbursement
• Purchasing and Paying
• Post-Award Grant Accounting (Pre-Award still in Coeus)
• Effort Certification
• More functionality coming over time

Advantages and Chanllenges

• Better management info and analytics
• Unified admin system with HR, Payroll, and Financials
• Very strong “Pace of Innovation”
• New accounting structure and language
• New business processes
• Updated functionality and related tools
• Additional grants functionality coming with August update

What to do to get ready

• “Just in Time” – Communication and training ramps up as deployment gets closer
• Multiple formats for different training and info
  • Email, trainings, deployment kits, etc.
  • Targeted towards specific roles
• Key financial staff serving as financial partners and assisting with roll out/training
• Training will continue after go-live
  • Screencast, hands-on, Q&A, presentations, open labs
  • Offered for financial coordinators, cost center, grant managers, grant analysts
• Grants will be similar, but after initial rollout
• Workday moving to HTML5 (IE9, Firefox 3.6, Safari 5, Chrome 11)
• Workday production down the 2 weekends before and after go live and 7/2-7/7
• Internal go live 7/7; Community go live 7/8

Managing Expectations

• Initial roll-out may be unsettling
• Transition may be difficult for some staff
• Additional functionality will be rolled out over time
• Initial focus on functions to keep business moving

DCC Role

• Help with browser upgrades and password resets
• Troubleshoot problems and propose solutions

DCC Meeting Notes March 2013

Announcements—Chris Grossi

1) Keyserver should be updated to version 7 client on all computers by summer. CIS will be pushing to managed machines. Version 7 will not run on OS 10.4 and below

2) Print Server migration did not go as well as planned. Solutions have been found for problem conversions and they are currently working with departments to fix remaining printers

3) MatLab renewal is coming up. An email will be sent out about new toolboxes

4) Please remember to fill out the software survey.

5) Endnote no longer supports concurrent licenses. CIS is in negotiations for the latest version.

6) CIS is finalizing a new standard image. It will be sent to DELL soon. Major revisions are making Chrome the default web browser and making System Restore turned on by default

7) IE10 is out, no testing has been performed with it yet. CIS is blocking on their managed OU’s. Can be added to your managed OU’s by request.

Remedy—Chris Grossi

We have outgrown our current installation of Remedy and will be moving to Service Desk. We will be using the Out of Box install. There will not be as many customizations as the current remedy system. Hope to go live on June 23rd.

Highlights of new system

ITIL Compliant
Web Based, no installable client
Templates for standardized entries
End users will file tickets through forms
Can update tickets through email

There will be ITIL training on campus in April/May timeframe. Training in the new remedy systems should be available in May/early June time frame.

Notes by Peter Mello

Announcements: Teri Lynn Thayer leaving Brown University after 23 years. To see the video of the festivities please click here. The password is TLT.  Also, Mike Pickett will be retiring as Executive Vice president as if June 30, 2013. We wish them both the best and thank them for all their hard work.

David Sherry is now in his new office located at 169 Angell Street and invites you to come by and visit.  He also wanted you to be aware that January was Data Privacy month!  There was an event on the topic of Data Privacy on January 28^th. Hope most of you attended!

Chris Grossi  discussed about this month being Disaster Recovery month and that he wanted to send thanks to all of you out there helping on that project.  He also mentioned that they are working on a version of VPN that will be compatible with Windows 8. That will be coming soon.  Also, SEE for Macintosh clients is not yet ready for 10.8 ( Mountain Lion) Symantec is aware of the issue and they are working on a working version. No time frame for that just yet.

DELL was on board to talk about their new exciting product lines and to answer any questions we may have had. Aaron Sherman (account rep) and his hardware rep were there to hand out pizza and lots of Windows 8 love. They basically explained that  Windows 8 is really Windows 7 under the covers.  He spoke of Dell being a one stop shop for all our needs… not just for PC’s but software etc. He also showed us some of the new products coming out in 2013 and their views on Mobile Device Management . One of the new items shown was the Latitude 10- a tablet with some “oomph”.  The Latitude 10E was lower priced version of the same product with a sealed battery case, no HDMI and less ports. The XPS 10 was a consumer product with Windows RT as the OS. It does not have domain access.  Please note the XPS 10 has no legacy support. They also mentioned other computers in the XPS line, particularly the XPS 13, XPS 14 and XPS 15 and the new Dell 9010 all-in one.  The XPS 12 is a tablet/laptop hybrid with full HD and comes with either an  i5 or i7 processor.  Another item mentioned was the Latitude 6430 ultrabook.  Much thinner than most in its class and is 14” with Ethernet and VGA and weighs in at 3.3 lbs. The Dell Optiplex line was also discussed and it’s future. The 7010 will well be available into 2014. They also spoke of the replacement for the 7010 coming in Q3/4 of 2013.

There is no audio available this month due to the subject matter presented by Dell.

Thanks to all who attended.

Notes by Jesse Coutu

Audio can be found here.

Pat Kinghorn

• Showed the DCC presentations webpage
• Asked about the notes/audio – 10 people or so find them helpful
• No Chris Grossi
• Short list of announcements
• TechPlot 2008 shutting down on Christmas
• Nobody using it
• Software survey coming soon – will get email
• Going to convert responses to Qualtrix
• Windows 8
• Helpdesk reports getting questions about it
• Mostly works…VPN does NOT
• Huge backend upgrade to VPN, won’t be upgraded until at least winter break
• Printer Changes
• printserve.brown.edu to pprint – Scott can answer questions
• Sophos issues still
• Issue has been escalated
• Reinstalling client seems to fix the issue
• Sophos Home edition seems okay

Lea Snyder – DFS migration

• FilesA, FilesB, filesE, filesG all completed
• FilesC & FilesD everything is migrated, quotas updated, permissions haven’t been changed
• Scripts updated to point at DFS Root, not individual File Server
• Will allow to upgrade server in the future
• Normal permissions (NTFS) authenticated users – Full Control
• Quota options
• By the end of the week, project should be completed
• Identity Finder Scans – scans for personal identification information
• Testing to commence shortly
• Snapshot of LUN (backup)
• No action being taken, just to make everyone aware

BSRT – Brown Security Round Table – Paolo and Elvis

• Elvis – Network Technologies
• Group that meets to discuss information security
• Started by Bob Fletcher and Patrick Laverty
• Collaborate with ISG on Awareness and Issues
• David Sherry is the voice of security
• Group is like the Eyes and Ears for David
• Survey for Training Options
• http://brown.edu/go/bsrt
• bsrt@brown.edu
• Possible training for students – Securing UNIX
• Website has link to survey, security blog postings, resources for security
• Presenting at NERCOMP
• SELINUX?

Marc Doughty – Boot Services, Imaging, and the Utility Disk

• Provide tools to take care of windows
• Standardized images
• Single windows image runs on a number of different hardware types
• Eliminate third-party imaging tools (Ghost)
• Use Open Source software where possible
• Build now to enable better things later
• Boot Services
• PXE booting for PC’s
• Boots to iPXE
• Install Linux
• Install Windows
• Windows PE (utilities)
• Numerous Windows Images available
• Windows 7 Standard Image is Best
• Instructions are on Google at WDS
• Things in the Standard Image
• Win 7 x64
• Office 2010
• Firefox ESR
• CDBurnerXP
• 7-Zip
• Drivers
• Utilities
• Scripts
• Goal is to be less vendor dependent
• Inside C:
• Support folder
• Has a bunch of scipts to make creating your own image easier
• Machine will run installs/boot/reboot multiple times
• Machine can be added to lookup file to get it’s specific name
• AD binding has warning about having “string passwords” for local accounts
• There is no way around this
• Administrator account can’t be used
• Windows PE – Utilites
• File Manager
• Hard Drive Wipe
• Firefox
• Archive Utility
• MyDefrag
• Smart HD Test
• gimagex – allows you to create .wim file
• virusscan – downloads latest Forefront virus definitions and runs/cleans
• PXE only works on the New Networks

Geoffrey Greene – CIS – Service Incident Communications

• Incident is an outage or degradation of service.
• Want to have a defined process
• Duplicated effort
• Not reaching the right technical team
• What the customers want
• More and earlier communication
• More transparency
• Consistency
• The Process
• Incident is reported to Help Desk 3-4357 – email also
• The incident Manager is responsible for communication and the ticket
• Communications are automatically generated from templates
• Tech teams / service owner send updates by email
• For Service Owners
• If your service is down, call the help desk and let them know
• No need to reach out to tech teams
• For Tech Teams
• The tech teams will send an email with  subject “Internal CIS Service Alert”
• Reply-All with new information
• Request bridge line if desired
• If you are experiencing a problem, check the blog / CIS website before reporting it
• Overhauling entire CIS website
• Should the website be called CIS or IT@Brown
• Need someone to be part of the CIS Website renovation
• Overhauling Remedy System – ServiceDesk
• Two types of tickets
• Incident
• Service Request
• If you call helpdesk after hours, use option 0 to report incident.
• Problem ticket determines root cause
• Problems can cause many incidents
• Blogs.brown.edu/cis
• RSS reader picks up blog posts
• There is also a twitter feed

Mike Pickett next month

Notes from the August 2012 DCC Meeting

Notes submitted by Peter Mello

Announcements: Chris Grossi announced that the new Dell hardware will be out on their web page for us soon. They are also working on a new image for us as well. Apple’s 10.8 has been released and so far the testing CIS has done has been successful with most Brown used software. The exceptions so far being Symantec Endpoint Encryption and a slight issue with Sophos. The MyConnection database will be purged by the time you read this. Brown.edu/CIS will go to Shibboleth soon. Adobe CS 6 will be released in September.

Scott Martin mentioned a few FileMaker updates as well. The FileMaker server will go live on the 14th of August. There is also a Filemaker 12 release form if you want to get a copy of FileMaker 12. So far there are 500 licenses but we can go up to 750-1000 if needed.

Adobe: Adobe stopped by and discussed the desire to strengthen their relationship with Brown University. He took questions from the audience and talked about a few of the new features of Acrobat and how Adobe really is all over, between Smart devices, desktops etc. For more information about CS6 and all it offers as well as products for iPads, iPhones, Android devices and the like contact Adobe online for more direct questions on how Adobe can help you contact the Speaker at timothyp@adobe.com or call at 207-318-8302.

Audio for the meeting is available here.

DCC notes for 5/9/12

No audio notes are available for this meeting.

Pat Kinghorn announced that Bookstore orders using FY12 funding need to be placed by June 10th .
The DCC Steering Committee is also looking for some new members! If you would like to join the Steering Committee to share your ideas, thoughts, and anything else please contact Pat at DCC_Liaison@brown.edu.

Chris Grossi spoke about Recycling day- it was a success!!! Two full trailers, 55 pallets and 16.5 tons of surplus goodies! It saved Brown $15,000. Good going team!! He also spoke of Matlab license removal- there will be more info on this on a Blog post including the renewal information. Adobe CS6 was released and we should be seeing that come to campus for download in the summer.

Scott Martin – gave a presentation on the new Filemaker Server project!! It is here!! Finally! The launch date for the project is projected to be July 2012. The Server will be able to host Filemaker databases for the university using the Filemaker Pro 12 Advanced Server. Please note that all previous versions of Filemaker files will need to be converted to version 12 as this is a new file format. Files will be accessible via Ethernet, Brown Secure and VPN. There will be levels of access from Admin down to standard user. Scott also discussed the new ITSC a la carte program where departments that do not have a DCC or ITSC person for their group can get services from ITSC for a fee. The limit is 10 hours a month. There will be a list of fees and services provided for on the website soon. Scott can be reached at Scott_Martin@brown.edu for questions. His presentation can be found at: http://www.brown.edu/cis/support/dcc/.

Bill Bordac – Brownsites/Web services. Bill gave an up to date look at Brownsites.
Bill spoke of the latest version of BrownSites as it is an evolving product. WebServices usually releases three upgrades a year. Version 1.3 will be coming in June. They are working on a plan to make it easier to update older versions of BrownSites by deploying modules. He also spoke about Go Service which is a way to create short URL’s. WebServices also offers monthly training for BrownSites. Please note that the training is not hands on. There are now 85 live BrownSites. You can read all about it here .

Thanks!

Notes taken by Peter Mello

DCC Meeting 4/11/12

You can listen to the Audio of the DCC meeting.

http://www.brown.edu/cis/support/dcc/audio/audioarchive/DCC%20mtg%204-11-12.mp3

Announcements

Chris Grossi spoke of the Dell recycling day. There will be a tractor trailor in the CIT parking lot from 8am until 2pm on April 20th to collect Brown owned surplus equipment and personal machines. More information about the event can be found at the below address

http://blogs.brown.edu/cis/2012/04/05/dell-recycling-day-april-20th/

On Wednesday April 18th, there will be a hands on Tech Forum. The topic of this forum is the Brown standard images. There will be laptops there that will be imaged from the deploy server during the meeting.

On June 5th the new Dell desktops will be available for order. They will be the 9010’s. They will not have a Brown std image on them until CIS can get one in to build the image. One should be available on the the deploy server shortly after CIS receives their machine.

The Matlab renewal is approaching. The is the possibility of some new toolboxes being added to our license. No toolboxes will be removed. Preferred method for getting a copy of Matlab is through the Matlab TAH license. If you are going to image a cluster with Matlab, please do not use this license. There will be a package from CIS to use in these instances. More information will be coming.

Brown only saw about a ½ dozen infections of the recent Mac Vulnerability according to the Sopohs server.

Starting this month Microsoft patches will be delivered to managed ITSC and managed Biomed computers through SCCM.

John Spadaro

John spoke of the new IT Governance at Brown and went through the process of getting projects funded through CIS. The new process was put in place to try to get the decision making into the hands of the people that run the University. You can read about the new IT Governance here:

http://www.brown.edu/it/governance/home

As always, if you have any questions about IT Governance please send them to John.

Academic Technology Services(AT)

Carrie Saarinen and Kelly Egan came to talk about what ATS can do for you.

Academic Technologies helps professors with course related technologies for teaching and learning. They have funds available to help faculty with new ideas they may have in teaching their courses. The have the resources to put ideas into actual teaching.

AT has 4 multimedia labs available for teaching and student lab use when there are no classes going on. The facilities are equipped with Video production equipment. There are consultants available to help guide Faculty during classes and students during lab use.

AT has funding to try out new ideas in the classroom. An example was using both ipads and kindles in a class to determine which would work best in that setting.

AT offers services as well as innovation. They will help develop new technologies but once they become mainstream, they will then become a service supported by AT.

Canvas is the new learning management system. They have been very active talking to other schools about how they are using it.

They would be happy to come to your faculty meetings to do a presentation on What AT Can Do For You. Pat Kinghorn said it was very beneficial and successful for her Faculty.

You can find out more about Academic Technologies at  brown.edu/go/teachwithtech