Engineering Computer Committee Meeting
December 15, 2005
Attending: Bob Koretsky, Matt Kuhn, Sig Lillevik, Peter Chamberlain, Joe Hoffbeck
MSDNAA Administrator
Sig sent out an email to CS faculty asking if anyone would be interesting in taking over for Bobk’s responsibility for maintaining the MSDNA program that we have with Microsoft. No real takers at this point.
Bobk suggested that this task be given to IS, however the license requires that MSDNA administration resides within Engineering. Bob said he tried to distribute the software via a server to make it easier for him and our students. However, this way would have required to have all the CD’s on engineering servers and not IS servers. 95% of the work is keeping the CD’s that Microsoft ships to us sorted, archived, current and making copies for students to use in their various class applications.
Question was asked how many CD’s are we talking about? Bobk said about 300. What currently takes place is that students request and receive the particular software CD they require, burn it themselves, and Bobk gives them the license key to be able to use it legally on their computers. Microsoft has a whole system of requesting and checking out keys.
Bobk indicated that Roxio CD Creator is a program where we can use to burn an ISO image from a CD, which makes a complete copy of that CD.
Question was asked how much this MSDNA license costs UP each year? $399.00, which is being provided from the IS budget.
Bobk indicated he can get volume as well as individual license keys from Microsoft. He indicated that all ISO servers are up at Microsoft, so you can manage that from here to give student’s their copies as a possible option as well.
Matthew will inform Bryon that we’re still working on the best plan of action for this program.
Sig will meet with Bobk to test on online service for this program for students to access.
Bobk will email to Sig a sample compiler for him to test it online
Answers to questions from Paul / IS and Discussion about these responses with Zia
See responses below…
From: Erdmann, Paul
Sent: Mon 12/12/2005 3:03 PM
To: Kuhn, Matthew
Subject: RE: Questions
Matthew,
Here's the answers to your questions:
1)I mentioned that we would be having a cabling contractor come out to assess what it would take to rewire the EngineeringBuilding. The first problem we need to overcome is the lack of IDFs (wiring closets) that are not out of distance for cabling runs. The distance from corner to corner is too far for twisted pair wiring. We have come up with a plan to locate a new closet in the center of the building, on each floor. A work order has been submitted to the Physical Plant to perform the work, and they should be starting in the near future. We also wanted to find out about reusing some of the wiring that Kent ran, and to get an idea of the breadth of the project. We found that we could not use any of the wiring that Kent installed because it is not the correct kind of wire, and it isn't up to code in the way it was run. The preliminary rough estimate for wiring the entire building was $250K-$300K. There is currently no money budgeted for the project, and we aren't sure where we would get the money.
Matthew indicated that the UP budget cycle is June through May. All department heads are to turn in their annual budget request this week, so by mid-December. This would probably include is monies for the proposed wiring issue within Engineering.
As for getting the servers connected into the campus network, we will be moving into a planning stage when we return from Xmas break. We have hired Internetwork Experts to do the system engineering on the design of a new campus network. It will probably take them at least a couple of months to do discovery, including talking to your group to determine your needs.
Matthew said the committee has requested that they have opportunities to meet with Internetwork Experts while they are here on campus doing their assessments so we can discuss our requirements and how that will fit into the overall plan.
2) When the network redesign has been completed, and we move into next summer, Internetwork Experts will be coming back to install all the network equipment and do the configurations. We will be running in a parallel mode until they complete their testing and deem the network ready to use.
This is our request of “make before break” and we’ll want to be sure and include this statement in our 5 year plan.
3) We will seek Kent's (and everyone else over their) as needed.
4) There are currently 4 ways to get things purchased. The first is to request an individual piece of software or hardware for an office. Requests from on campus would go through Janice Lundborg (Technology Procurement Coordinator working for me), and gets funded at Bryon's discretion. The second way is to submit a capital budget request that contains computer equipment. This is done through Zia each fall, and gets rolled into a pool of requests from across campus. These get sent to Bryon and he tries to obtain money for next fiscal year through negotiation at the officer level. The 3rd way is to request a software package be installed in a computer lab/classroom. These would have to be paid through your school's funding, and any money required for annual maintenance would need to be transferred to Bryon's budget permanently. The last way to receive new computer equipment is through "tech refresh". This is determined through the use of a campus-wide inventory. This is based on a predetermined refresh cycle (currently 5 yrs for offices/3 yrs for labs), and is funded by Bryon. Having your tech committee decide where you wanted the computers placed is an anomaly that was a one-time deal. From this point forward we will be using the inventory to make the determination.
Several issues were discussed on this response:
Zia’s budget includes costs for various software that we will need and IS is responsible for maintaining this software. Bryon indicated to Zia that if the new computing plan is submitted to Bryon by early spring, then he’ll try to honor our requests, even though the budgets are required by mid-December. Our 5 year plan timeline needs to be revised to be in sync with current budget requirements and timelines.
Suggestion was made to ask that the tech refresh for office computers be the same as for labs – 3 years for each. General consensus was having office computers 2 years behind lab computers would create problems and disarray with coursework, grading and expectations from students. This will be so noted in the updated 5 year plan.
Also to be added into the 5 year plan is that the PC’s in Engineering 314 will need to be upgraded, since they are now 3 years old.
5 year plan
Matthew asked Zia if we really need to continuing working on a 5 year plan. Yes.
Matt’s goal is to make the 5 year plan as short, concise and direct as possible. The plan was initially devised as an ABET requirement.
Sig suggested that the report should reflect what we have, what we want, and what our vision is for the future.
Specific notations to be added to the report:
Role of computing facility – we need good computing facilities to maintain accreditation.
Should include statement(s) indicating recent achievements as well as a statement that we were involved in preparing the charter and the charter was never implemented by IS.
Include notation(s) on ensuring the customer service level of IS be maintained as promised, logging calls and feedback to their customer base.
Be sure to include Peter’s spreadsheet of current Engineering services and level of service.
Matthew asked what we need over the next year to include in the report?
3 year tech refresh for office and lab computers
Big plotter
Common network and office printers – support and maintenance
Wireless plans and support – including classrooms
Network drops in labs in Table 2
Software table – modify to updating twice per year
Transition
Conference room – make multi-media and/or wireless
Matthew will begin revising the 5 year plan to incorporate changes as well as more specific format.
Next meeting will be January 23, 2006 at 10:20 am
Respectfully submitted
Jamie Strohecker
Engineering Faculty Secretary
S:\office\faculty\kuhn\OCIO-EGR Computer Committee\MeetingMinutes_Dec15.05.doc