TO: GOVERNING BOARD AGENDA ITEM BACKGROUND DATE FROM: PRESIDENT SUBJECT: Information Technology Update April 11, 2011 ENCLOSURE(S) REASON FOR BOARD CONSIDERATION INFORMATION Storage Area Network (SAN) Update ITEM NUMBER E.11 Page 1 of 5 Identified as a campus-wide critical need, the college SAN supports Datatel, the campus network drives, email storage, numerous virtual servers, and several college databases. IT Staff have been working with the vendor EMC to develop and design a replacement SAN. The current SAN is 4.5 years old and is running on a good faith extension of support from EMC. Accounting for planned short term growth and potential future expansion (e.g., Softdocs, Blackboard 9.1, virtual labs, etc.) has resulted in a design that should carry us through the next four years. Research has included: Other vendors and products Industry trends Contacting and consulting Cabrillo CIS Faculty Reviewing what CSUMB, UCSC, and other community colleges are using Analysis of the current SAN and how applications are using the storage space and backup The final product design features the following benefits: Ability to support thin client deployment (i.e., virtual labs) Support for growth of current applications by tripling total storage space Ability to react and shift resources across servers as needed Reduced power consumption over current SAN Training for staff on new features and resources Cabrillo College Purchasing and IT have finished accepting pricing for a replacement EMC Storage Area Network (SAN). IT staff are reviewing the parts lists, specifications, and pricing received from the bidding vendors as of March 16, 2011. The list of parts and the pricing summary is based upon the EMC California WSCA/NASPO Contract #B27161. Initial bids are coming in under $400,000. IT is attempting to negotiate further reductions in price. SAN Timeline March: Receive quotes from Vendors and approve one. April: Process order and confirm delivery date May: Begin training and planning for install, prepare power in 1300 June/July: Receive and install new SAN (Continued on next page ) Administrator Initiating Item: Brian King Craig Hayward Academic and Professional Matter Yes No Final Disposition If yes, Faculty Senate Agreement Yes No Senate President Signature
Data Center Upgrade and Server Consolidation On November 29, 2010 the computer room AC unit for the 1300 building data center failed. While a plan to consolidate data centers and provide redundant cooling for the 1300 data center was already under development, the AC failure clearly increased the importance of moving quickly from planning to implementation. IT staff have worked with M&O staff and an air conditioning engineer to develop a plan that will provide a stable, adequately cooled environment that safeguards our mission critical servers, switches and data. The plan involves some modifications to the 1300 building to improve energy efficiency and to allow for the inclusion of the servers and equipment that is currently housed in the 1200 building. The plan calls for the installation of two enterprise-level data center air conditioners, providing failover protection in the eventuality that one unit fails. Additionally, the project includes planning for greater cooling capacity as more equipment is added and cooling needs exceed the capacity of one unit. By including ducting for a third unit, we will have the option in the future to increase total cooling capacity by running two units at once while still having n+1 failover protection. Improved ducting and the enforcement of hot/cold zones are expected to provide improved cooling and a reduction in energy usage over the former system. The project activities and milestones are being tracked by IT and M&O in Smartsheet; the project is on time and on track to be completed by early summer 2011. Datatel/Technical Applications update A significant upgrade to of the database backend of the Datatel system to Unidata 7.2 was scheduled for Spring Break. Staff were notified via email on March 30 th that Web Advisor and Colleague (two user interfaces for Datatel) would be unavailable on April 7 th from 5 am to 1 pm. Subsequent to the acquisition of Sun by Oracle, we switched support for the Sun server that runs Datatel (aka Brain) to Oracle. Our current Sunfire server reaches end-of-support in April, 2014. Planning for replacement has begun and is included in the Tech Plan. Tech Plan Tech Plan development has moved online in order to increase the ability of stakeholders and constituents to participate in its development. Currently there are 42 editors/reviewers on the Smartsheet, including member of the Tech Committee and other college stakeholders. The development process to date has involved the Tech Plan Development Committee (a subcommittee of the Tech Committee) developing the general direction and outline of the plan. Then IT staff and other content experts created statements describing each content area. These documents are then attached to the Tech Plan outline hosted in Smartsheet. Stakeholders can then engage in threaded conversations about the content, making edits and suggestions which are incorporated in subsequent drafts. In May, all the content, edits and suggestions will be combined into the final document which will be shared with CPC and the component councils for review and input. That draft will be presented to the Board at the May Board meeting for review and input. A status update exported from Smartsheet is provided on the following three pages. (Continued on next page ) - 2 -
Tech Plan Summary Done Tech Plan Section Name Status Comments 1 Introduction: Challenges and opportunities 2 3 Enterprise Software - Datatel, Colleague, WebAdvisor, & Blackboard 4 Initial narrative 5 Datatel 6 Datatel Action Plan review 7 New Datatel modules and enhancements 8 Prospects 9 Cohorts 10 MOX 11 WebAdvisor 12 Colleague upgrades 13 Unidata 14 e-commerce 15 User Interface 16 SQL Migration 17 Business case 18 Timeline 19 Blackboard 20 Upgrade to version 9.1 21 Business case for moving to Bb hosted services 22 23 Analytics & Reporting 24 SQL Data Warehouse 25 Business case 26 Timeline 27 Informer 28 Database overview 29 MS SQL Reporting Services 30 31 IT Operations 32 Technology requests and prioritization process 33 Narrative 34 Diagram 35 List of projects 36 Project Management 37 Smartsheet 38 Communication cycle 39 Purchasing 40 Narrative 41 42 Instructional technology Page 1 of 3
Done Tech Plan Section Name Status Comments 43 Smart classrooms 44 New room rollout plan 45 Networking projectors and smart classroom equipment 46 Satisfaction survey and analysis 47 The Computer Technology Center 48 Student computer labs 49 Aptos 50 Watsonville 51 Virtual Desktop Initiative 52 Business case 53 Refresh cycle 54 Maintenance 55 Pilot in Spring 2012 56 57 Web strategy 58 Harnessing the Cloud 59 Google calendar 60 Google docs 61 Online orientation 62 Web page ownership and editing 63 Content Management System 64 Faculty web pages 65 Department web pages 66 67 Supporting Infrastructure 68 Wireless network 69 Secure vs. Open 70 Description & coverage map 71 Storage Area Network (SAN) 72 Business case 73 Data centers 74 1300 Data center 75 Watsonville Data Center 76 Facilities support & upgrades 77 Unified Communications 78 79 Security 80 Disaster recovery and business continuity planning 81 Virus and malware protection 82 Employee email and spam filtering 83 Acceptable use policy 84 Communications 85 Emergency Texts: AlertU vs. Twitter 86 87 Training and support 88 Security awareness training Page 2 of 3
Done Tech Plan Section Name Status Comments 89 Faculty and staff technology training 90 The Teaching and Learning Center (TLC) 91 IT Personnel Training 92 Help Desk 93 Staff computers and technology 94 95 Staffing 96 97 Emerging trends 98 Electronic textbooks - will 2012 be their year? 99 Consumerization of technology 100 Resource challenges 101 Course management systems 102 Analytics for everyone 103 Identity management 104 Growth in distance education 105 The connected communication paradox Page 3 of 3