« July 2005 | Main | September 2005 »
August 30, 2005
How do we do what we do?
I thought I'd throw out a little bit about our staff, who we are and what we do.
UCS is comprised of 17 full time staff members. Yes, you read that number correctly, there are 17 of us.
We have 2 banner support/programmers in Brian and Mike S. All the banner needs for campus are pretty much handled soley by these 2 people. There used to be 3 of them, but Jeremy Hickerson left, however we were not able to re-hire this position.
There is 1 full-time desktop support person Joe Crowe. Joe and his staff of students he manages, are responsible for maintaining the health of the desktops for the entire campus, as well as managing the windows servers.
Joan Guralnick ( 3/4 time ) manages the 24x7 100% student staffed service request desk. She is responsible for the online jukebox.
We have 1 person responsible for the day to day operation, upgrade and rollout of new networking equipment. Paul Lambert works closely with the Telecommunications department to install new networking devices, ( switches, wireless etc.. ) Paul also monitors the network health for any issues. Paul is also the "application operator." He creates and maintains accounts for the various applications offered to the WOU community. ( blog, forums, wiki to name a couple )
There are 2 fulltime programmers in UCS. Dale Goodell ( a new addition to UCS ) and Summer Runyan. Dale is currently working as an interface between the Library and UCS, however he is transitioning into his new role as a programmer. Summer Runyan is the other programmer. In addition to the many programming tasks assigned to her, Summer is also responsible for the development of the WOU Portal. The WOU Portal is soon to be a "One Stop Shop" for whatever :)
Auxilary Support Staff, inlude 3 people. Mike Ross handles computing support for the physical plant and bookstore. As well as DBA duties on the Oracle Database. Mike Ellis and John Rushing work in the Residence area. They handle all Residence Hall related computing as well as support the University Residences / Campus Dining computing needs.
Ron Swartzendruber is the web operation and systems programmer. All web related requests go through Ron. Ron also provides scripting support for the systems staff.
Rick Thompson, is the lab manager. He manages all the labs, the machines in the lab. Including creating the image to be deployed to each computer for use in the labs.
Nathan Sauer is responsible for classroom media support and smart classroom buildouts.
Shaun Gatherum another new addition to computing services, is currently managing support for Teaching Research as he transitions into his position as security officer.
Troy Knabe provides systems support, desktop support, dba support, manages the backup and recovery system and thin client software.
Tricia Flaherty maintains inventory for hardware and software. She also specs out and maintains the computer and monitor standards.
Joanie Kinnaman is responsible for purchasing all computer related hardware and software, and all smart classroom purchasing.
Now for me - My primary task is to manage the unix servers and all the software running on them, and the Storage Area Network. I also manage the Desktop Support staff, network staff, and programmers. Because our staff is so good my management duties are generally helping facilitate coverage, and doing reviews. I also provide backup to anything computing. If the primary contact isn't there, then I get the call.
Bill Kernan: Director of Computing Services.
You'll have to read on to see the soap box speech.
I want to thank our staff for all the hard work they do. Many may say its their/our job to do the work we do, and you would be correct to a point. The point where you are no longer correct is the expectation to provide the level of service and beyond we provide with the limited size of staff we have.
Posted by knabet at 09:34 AM | Comments (0)
August 29, 2005
Data Archiving
I have decided how to archive "stuff" on the old system. All students who are not registered for fall term will have their data moved from the old system to "cheap" ( yeah right ) storage attached to our backup server. This data will be available for an undetermined amount of time.
There is no possible way to save all the data forever. But I don't want to remove data for people who are coming back to WOU at some time down the road.
Posted by knabet at 09:21 AM | Comments (0)
August 23, 2005
Server Performance
The migration process has been going very well. A major part of the migration is to move user's to our new Server and SAN.
One of my tasks during the migration is to monitor the performance of the new systems. I have to say, I am more than thrilled with what I've seen. Our E6900 is handling the added load quite well. The Hitachi San was definately a _GREAT_ investment. Its very easy to scale, and the performance has been absolutely stellar.
Posted by knabet at 10:09 PM | Comments (0)
August 19, 2005
Blogs and Policy
While I'll post just about anything to my blog, and discuss just about anything. However things I post are _NOT_ policy. I may discuss policies, and may even decide on policy and post about it, however check with "real" sources ( whatever that means ) don't take my word for it.
Posted by knabet at 03:50 PM | Comments (0)
August 18, 2005
SSL
SSL is a means of transferring data securely. From the start with the new mail sever's web client I've had ssl running on the login portion.
Since we are supporting Outlook now; ( which uses the imap protocol ) I've also installed an SSL certificate on the mail server to secure imap mail.
LDAP is the other peice of the puzzle here which needed to be secured with SSL which is done now too.
Why is all of this important you may ask? Well because we're supporting Outlook. That's the answer. Many people asked why it was such a big deal to use other applications other than Messenger Express, and now Communications Express for your email? Well with Communications Express your logins are secure. The connection to the ldap server for address book lookups etc.. were all done on the protected server network so traffic was safe. But now that users are using Outlook the only way to make life secure is to use SSL.
This is quite important because of the single sign on. Same passwords for network, mail, portal, web etc..
Posted by knabet at 08:42 AM | Comments (2)
August 17, 2005
Fall 2005 Student Info
To all Students registered for class in Fall 2005:
As part of our migration to a new mail server and windows 2003 domain ( http://www.wou.edu/~kernanb/blogs/archives/infrastructure/migration/index.html ) we have newly created accounts for all new students, as well as returning students.
Prior to using computers in the lab, or accessing your new email you will need to go to http://www.wou.edu/accountlookup to find your userid and set your password.
1. Click on "Retrieve email address or change password"
2. Fill the 4 form fields.
a) SSN
b) Last Name
c) the characters you see in the box ( once you're there you'll see what I mean )
d) And finally answer "Yes" to the question "Have you been migrated to the new email system?"
3. Agree to the Acceptable Use of Technology Resources Policy
Once you've aggred to the Acceptable Use of Technology Resources Policy you'll be shown your WOU email address. You will also need to click on the button to reset your password.
On the password reset page, please read the complexity requirements. At the bottom of the page there is a place to enter your password.
This password will be used for accessing the computers in all the labs, library etc.. as well as your email account, which can be found here: http://www.wou.edu/newmail
If at anytime you forget your password, you can come back to this site ( http://www.wou.edu/accountlookup ) to reset it.
To All Returning Students:
All of your data on your h:\ drive will be moved over as well as all of your emails.
To All Alumni:
We are currently getting ready for fall term to start, so if you are not registered for fall term, none of this applies to you for now, but be ready.... changes for you are coming too. Probably mid October.
If you have any questions please feel free to reply to this message or contact the Service Request Desk: 503-838-8925
Posted by knabet at 04:26 PM | Comments (0)
August 10, 2005
Samba on Sundown
Getting samba setup on Sundown is a major step in the big "migration" picture. Sundown is the new webserver. When we pick up the website and move it over to Sundown then users will need the ability to map drives on Sundown to edit their webpages. Samba allows this to happen.
I've had a heck of a time getting Samba installed and working properly so I'm quite pleased the latest version was "install bug free"
Posted by knabet at 01:27 PM | Comments (0)
August 09, 2005
PHP MySQL
I have installed MySQL, and PHP on the new web server. The purpose was for a software application called Copper Project Management Software.
However PHP and MySQL will be able to be used for much more than just this project. This will allow UCS to provide a means for the "masses" to create database applications. Now all we need to do is find the man-power to support the "masses" on this application.
Posted by knabet at 08:26 AM | Comments (0)