UW Oshkosh IT Plan Submission January, 2014 Information Technology & University Strategic Objectives 1. How the plan was developed. The University s administrative team drafted seven Key Operational Plans. A web site was created for the Key Operational Plans to engage as many diverse segments of the campus community as possible in providing feedback on the draft plans and to provide an opportunity for a meaningful exchange of ideas among participants. Executive summaries, complete drafts and Feedback Questions for the Key Operational Plans were posted at http://www.uwosh.edu/strategicplan. The IT plan was available for feedback. Comments and suggestions from the campus community were received and analyzed. Thematic analyses of feedback were prepared for the campus community. University Division, College, and Governance feedback was then completed. The second draft was available for comment before the final plan was completed. The IT plan is updated annually. 2. Information Technology Plan Principles. The following principles are used when acquiring and implementing hardware, software applications, databases, academic and administrative systems. Academic program needs and Administrative requirements drive Information Technology activities. This plan focuses on using technology to (1) improve the teaching and learning experience at UW Oshkosh and (2) improve the administrative systems needed to support the University s mission and goals. Information Technology resources are implemented in a manner that will serve the overall campus. Hardware and software resources are implemented in a manner that will serve the maximum number of campus constituents. Information Technology resources will be as open as possible while protecting the integrity and security of personally identifiable data and the privacy of individuals to whom the data pertains. The use of IT resources is guided by the Acceptable Use of Computing Resources Policy that addresses privacy, intellectual property rights, relevant laws, and individual responsibilities to avoid infringing on the rights of other users of the University s technology resources. 3. How the plan is measured. Standardized survey instruments are used for Information Technology (IT) assessments across institutions. Where feasible, hard data (timing and measurements) are used to assess the performance of computer systems and the overall network.
Customer services such as the Help Desk and Office Productivity Training use a continuous improvement assessment instrument. Learning Technology in the classroom is based on usage data. General IT surveys are randomly distributed in General Computer Access (GCA) labs each semester. Annually, the plan is presented to the Chancellor s Administrative Staff for review. 4. How the plan is tied to the University s strategic objectives. The IT plan is aligned with the University s strategic objectives through the IT plan goals. The University s seven key operational plans are integrated to facilitate the achievement of strategic objectives. The key operational plans are reviewed annually by the Chancellor s administrative staff to ensure alignment with strategic objectives. Usage data are used to measure and tie learning technologies (lecture capture, interactive response systems, etc.) to strategic objectives. 5. Format and accessibility of the IT plan. Format. Executive Summary Vision Mission IT Planning Principles Current Technology Environment Funding for Information Technology Current trends and future directions in Higher Education IT Department Operational Plans Network Operational Plan (Addendum: Network Security Plan) UW-Oshkosh e-services IT Assessment Plan Networking Group Risk Assessment Inclusive Excellence and Technology Telecommunications Master Planning The complete IT Plan is available online. 6. How critical objectives are identified. Critical objectives are identified by the IT unit directors based on input from the SIS Working Group, Secure Storage of Sensitive Data Group, Academic Computing Users Group, IT Staff recommendations and interaction with campus users, and submitted to the Enterprise Executive Committee for approval or re-prioritization. Based on executive perspectives and recommendations, the Enterprise Executive Committee establishes critical objectives and reassigns priorities as needed.
7. Timeline. Critical objectives identified in the IT plan have associated timelines for completion. Complex strategic objectives use milestones to manage project timelines. 8. IT Plan Governance. The IT plan is reviewed with the Academic Computing Users Group (ACUG) and the SIS Working Group. Major changes are reviewed and approved by the Enterprise Executive Committee. The Chancellor s administrative staff reviews the IT Plan annually. 9. Major Themes of the IT Plan. Faculty and learning technologies Technology infrastructure New technology initiatives UW Oshkosh IT Plan does not have any IT projects exceeding $1,000,000 or projects that are vital to the functions of the institution such that failure to complete the project on time or on budget would prevent the campus from running any of its enterprise-wide systems or fulfilling any of its essential missions of instruction, research, extended training or public service for 30 days. Projects in progress Network Performance - increase bandwidth Wireless Upgrade The original goal for Campus Wireless was merely coverage - be able to find a signal from anywhere on campus. Usage has exploded since that early plan so IT has been working on understanding the needs for campus wireless and fulfilling them. This year we secured funding of $120,000 from the Student Technology Fee to improve the quality and quantity of campus wireless by replacing old wireless access points, adding more wireless access points and installing them to meet expressed academic needs. Costs: $120,000 covered by STF and 120 hours Telecommunications and Networking staff Core Network Switch Upgrade WiscNet Delivers 10Gb networking to campus, but our campus core switches can only handle 1Gb. We need to start an RFP to determine our needs and determine a solution. According to preliminary work by Brian Trost, prices could be anywhere from under $100,000 to $250,000 depending on the solution. Last year we enhanced the campus firewall to increase our
available bandwidth from 650Mb/sec to 1Gb/sec and currently aren t exceeding that limit, but based on historical trends, we will reach that limit within two years. Costs: $200,000 and 240 hours Directors, Network and Server Support staff VMWare Server Upgrade We currently have five servers connected together as a cluster to provide shared memory and processors for virtual servers. These five physical servers support about 50 virtual servers. The physical servers are now approaching 5 years of service and will no longer be under warranty, so they need to be replaced. While some applications are now hosted on the web, there is still considerable demand for campus servers. IT would also like to move PeopleSoft from separate physical servers to the campus Enterprise Virtual Server cluster. We plan to replace the three oldest this year and decide on the rest after infrastructure planning is complete. Costs: $20,000 and 30 hours of Server Support and VMWare Administrator WiscNet Replacement WiscNet Delivers 10Gb networking to campus, but UW System is ending it s cooperative contract with WiscNet. The costs are unknown at this time. Web Infrastructure Replacement We need new servers to run our growing Plone web site installed base, currently almost at 300 web sites. The current set of servers was purchased in 2006 and have been in need of replacement since last year as they age in terms of performance and warranty coverage. New servers purchased today would be far more capable of supporting our needs. The Intranet has been rapidly growing, with dozens of workflow applications each having many users logged in to fill out forms and move them through business process workflows, and with more units planning to deploy their own workflows. Intranet users see customized dashboards, live reports, and integrated data feeds from other campus systems such as PeopleSoft, and these features require more computing power. The public face of the University, in particular the home site and all the college sites, will benefit by being served on the much faster servers available today. Every day, content creators from across the University will see faster response and load times in their web browsers, encouraging them to maintain current web content. Cost: $20,000 and 30 hours of Intranet and Server management staff. Enterprise Storage Solution Consolidate from three SANs to one, set standards for what is stored on the SAN, consider cloud storage. Costs: $200,000 and 240 hours Directors, Network and Server Support staff Enterprise Virtual Server Infrastructure Separate from the upgrade to handle the current load. Costs: $100,000 and 240 hours Directors, Network and Server Support staff
Customer Service - improve customer access to IT support Deployment Web App IT is working on a project to standardize computer names, which would allow us to more easily track hardware through its lifetime on campus. The web app also decreases the time it takes to setup a computer. Costs: $5,000 and 120 hours for Deployment staff WC Online The Writing Center used an application called Tutor Trac to schedule appointments. Tutor Trac was found to have major security problems and had to be taken offline. WC Online is a hosted service that will provide the functionality in a web 2.0 environment. IT will facilitate the project management and implementation. Less than 40 hours of IT time will be required to integrate with the campus directory for standardized login (NetID/LDAP). Implementation will begin this summer and should take only a few weeks. Costs: Approximately $800 and 20 hours Network staff 25 Live 25 Live is an event and room scheduling application that will be used to reserve conference and academic spaces. It is championed by Sara Ann Suwalski and will initially be rolled out for Reeve Union with the rest of campus to follow. IT will be involved with facilitating project management and in establishing the interfaces between PeopleSoft. At least 160 hours of IT time will be required, 80 of it going to application development. Planning has already begun, and implementation should start later this summer. The initial implementation should take 4 to 6 months. Costs: $80,000 covered by STF and 120 hours PS Developers and Administrators Managed Print Services IT staff have been working with HP to quantify the cost of printer service on campus. The majority of the printing and costs are from the 17 printers in the student General Access Labs and Library. Printer repair and downtime affect all of the student computer labs as well as most business offices on campus. The time staff spend on printer repair is considerable. Rather than pay for extended warranties and the time and cost to have existing staff certified in printer repair, we are proposing to follow Madison and Milwaukee in contracting for Managed Print Services. We have a proposal that would cover 50 campus printers for $9,000 per month. The cost is per page printed, not per printer, and it includes provision of toner, but not paper. The majority of the pages (91%) are from the 17 printers mentioned above. There are approximately 280 network printers on campus. We have extrapolated the HP report to estimate $13,000 per month to cover all of the network printers on campus. Approximately $8,000 of that would be covered by Student Technology Fee as part of their continuing support for free printing for students. The remaining $5,000 per month would be split among the units with network printers based on the number of pages they print.
Costs: $156,000 and 40 hours of staff time to work out the process After Hours Help Desk The current Help Desk operates in Dempsey Hall from 7:45am to 4:30pm Monday through Friday. The first week of the semester we extend hours to 6:00pm. Volume of calls, walk-ins and emails do not really support full-time staffing of the Help Desk beyond regular hours, yet there is a need for support beyond 4:30pm. We will explore ways to use the Halsey Lab Consultants for Help Desk support after 4:30pm. Halsey is our 24-hour computer lab, so it is already staffed. We need to plan what service will be offered and how to offer it without disturbing the students using the Halsey lab after 4:30pm. Costs: $10,000 additional, continuing Student Assistant funding and 30 hours for Director, Help Desk Manager, and Lab Manager FootPrints Self Service/Knowledge Base FootPrints is the Help Desk issue tracking application that IT recently implemented. The Knowledge Base will provide basic technology answers to the campus to search and resolve their own issues, if possible. If not, the Self Service feature will make it easier for them to submit their requests for service and check on progress of that request. Costs: $5,000 and 40 hours for Director, Help Desk managers, and FootPrints Team members PeopleSoft Mobile Application With the new tools release, Oracle will be including a delivered mobile application designed to be used with smartphones and other mobile devices. This will allow us to integrate directly with PeopleSoft, giving us functionality that would have been difficult, if not impossible, for us to do on our own. IT will begin working with IMC and MIO later this fall to kick off a mobile computing project that will make use of this new application. Costs: $5,000 and 400 hours PS Developers Security - reduce risk of data loss Palo Alto Edge Firewall Palo Alto is the new campus edge firewall, the first line of defense for campus security. To complete the work begun last year, IT will add the second Palo Alto 5050 to the configuration to provide redundant failover and remove the old Cisco firewall to increase bandwidth capabilities. In addition to the hardware work will be done on the firewall rules, reversing the old philosophy of allow everything/block known risks to the new standard of deny everything/create exceptions for known needs. Costs: $10,000 and 80 hours of Networking and Security staff Two-Factor Authentication
HRS will require use of this technology to increase and improve data security. It will be furnished and installed by UW System. Costs: $5,000 and 20 hours Network, Server, and/or Desktop Support, depending on UW System s needs Security Training and Awareness About half of the data security exploits are based on user behavior, so training users to recognize and avoid these threats is part of IT s plan to protect campus data. IT Security staff have presented to campus governance groups and created a video to show how their web surfing behavior can put campus data at risk. IT is also working with key data providers to create a dynamic website that will help campus users keep their data safer. Costs: $5,000 and 320 hours Security Team, Trainers, Web Content Network Intrusion Detection Security staff have been building this tool for the past year. It is monitoring network traffic on Dempsey first and second floor. We recently able to spotted an intrusion on a Financial Aid computer that could have cost the University thousands of dollars in liability if it had gone unchecked. The Network Intrusion system gave warning about the virus and was responded to in about 10 minutes. As it passes the beta testing IT will need to plan for how to extend the coverage of this system across campus. Costs: $5,000 and 40 hours Security staff Enterprise Log Search and Archive (ELSA) Computer servers and systems log activity and errors. The logs are generally large text files. Rather than searching through all of these different text files to find or detect problems, ELSA allows us to more easily organize and search all of this information. Today we are using an old server to test and develop ELSA. We need to purchase a new server, standardize data storage formats, and add more of the server and system logs for review. The information provided helps us prevent and track potential data loss. Costs: $15,000 and 30 hours Network and Security staff Identity Finder Identity Finder finds sensitive data, cleans or destroys the data, but if users need it and object to storing it on S: we need to encrypt the data. We ran a pilot implementation of Identity Finder on Academic Computing last month. We are still waiting for the final report on that pilot before we proceed with further implementation. We would like to implement data encryption on the servers but can t until the software vendor creates a Mac OS client so Mac computers can access the S: drive. We can, however, proceed with encrypting individual hard drives. We will review the final report the week of July 1. Costs: $10,000 and 240 hours Security and Directors Encryption
Once we identify where sensitive data is being stored, we will take appropriate action to protect it. One option for protection is data or disk encryption. We are currently waiting for the encryption software vendor, Sophos, to produce a client that will work on Macintosh OS. Without that we cannot encrypt the central campus storage. Laptops and other areas requiring further security will be looked at for further data encryption. Costs: $30,000 and 240 hours Security and Directors Disaster Recovery - minimize risk of downtime and productivity loss Service Catalog We have begun the process of developing an IT business continuity plan based around a standard service framework. IT has been meeting with MIO to create a service library of functions that we offer to create a disaster preparedness plan. We hope to have the initial planning completed by this fall. The service library will also be used to provide a catalog of services for our customers. Costs: 100 hours Directors PeopleSoft Backups - Oracle RMan As the PeopleSoft upgrade ends, we will begin the process of moving our backups to the Oracle delivered RMAN product. This will allow us to greatly reduce the downtime of PeopleSoft and improve our disaster recovery abilities. We will also create a standby database that will be used for disaster recovery should the primary database fail. This project will take 2-3 months and will require a consultant. I am budgeting $15,000 for new hardware, $70,000 for consulting time (12 weeks). Costs: $85,000 and 20 hours PS Administrators Faster/Off Site Backups Current data backups rely on data tapes, which are slow and present a greater risk of failure. We transport a set of tapes off-site to a bank vault once a week. Backing up to another hard drive is faster and if the other hard drive is located in another building or city, we have an automatic off-site backup. IT will research this type of disk drive backup along with partnership opportunities with other UWs for off-site storage. A group of CIO s from the eastern side of the state have begun preliminary discussions. Cost: $50,000 and 80 hours Directors, Server and Network staff