Division of Instructional and Information TechnologyThe mission of the Division of Instructional and Information Technology (I&IT) is to provide stewardship, leadership, and service to support the teaching and learning mission of the university. More..
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After many months of testing and training on Microsoft’s new Vista and Office 2007 software, an I&IT-led campus-wide group recommends users proceed with caution before upgrading.
“Although we’ve trained more than 50 campus technicians on how to install and support Vista, most early adopters will find bumps and bruises if they jump in early,” said Debra A. Brum, I&IT Vice President.
Anticipating the need to support numerous students with new computers with Vista, early training was prudent, Dr. Brum noted. End-user training for managers and staff is being arranged by a committee from Academic Affairs, I&IT, Student Affairs and Organizational Development & Training.
The latest campus recommended Vista position, developed by the multi-division team, has been published at Vista. This page also includes several training resources, including online options that may be useful for faculty training.
When new operating systems (such as Vista) are introduced, many universities and businesses wait until the first “Service Pack” is released. The first Vista service pack is reportedly in beta testing by Microsoft and is expected to be released in the first quarter of 2008. Service Packs correct bugs and crashes found after a software product during its initial, widespread, public usage.
Machine capability is an important consideration. Many campus computers will need major upgrades or replacements before they are Vista-ready. In one college, for example, it is estimated a budget of $600,000 will be required to make all of the college’s computers Vista-compatible.
“Another important consideration is end-user training,” Dr. Brum said. “Some of the worst experiences a user can have is to either be trained on something they cannot use or be given a new computer that they aren’t trained to use.”
Final plans for end-user training are in development. Classes are expected to start in late fall, 2007, and continue for more than one year. The first classes are intended to train users who have installed and used Vista and Office 2007. The training committee will then assess the training and modify it as needed following feedback from the first trainees.
Most users who have Vista installed are limited to the Vista technical testers unit, a group that developed the recommendations, and other campus technicians.
Although campus technicians will be able to configure Vista to appear similar to XP, the current campus standard, Office 2007’s interface is entirely new. Office 2007 includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access.
“Users’ training on the Office suite is a key to our productivity,” Dr. Brum observed. “If the users are suddenly faced with a new look and feel without training, they’ll be frustrated and unproductive.”
Another key issue in upgrading is licensing. Microsoft has drastically altered its licensing methods with Vista. Campus technicians are currently testing a central licensing server, which is one way of certifying licensing for each user. The second process, a connection directly to Microsoft, is also being tested by the team.
“These and other issues make it important that users do not go off on their own and upgrade,” Dr. Brum said. “It is the decision of each College or department as to when they are ready to go to Vista.”
The university’s Instructional & Information Technology (I&IT) division has determined that for the first time, key services were 99% reliable in the fiscal year from July 1, 2006, to June 30, 2007.
The 99% figure was determined based on measuring unplanned downtime against 24-hour, 365-day availability. Some services (such as authentication, authorization and accounting (AAA); BroncoDirect; voice mail; and packet shaping) had reliability measurements of 100%.
“We have worked long and hard in taking careful steps and implementing strategies to improve our reliability,” noted Dr. Debra A. Brum, I&IT vice president. “We made significant gains particularly in our Systems department, under the leadership of Joe Matsumoto, director, and several key technical staff including Paul Henson, Gabe Kuri, David Drivdahl, Luke Lanting, Chris Crudo, Heath Caldwell, Mike Fowler, James Schneider, Brian De Wolfe, Hari Sigh and Dave Lyon.”
Dr. Brum also thanked the Applications, Web Development, Learning, Support, Information Security and Operations teams who all contributed to the robust percentages. “It was a total team effort,” she said.
Reliability of at least “two 9s” is considered acceptable with “four or five 9s” ideal. Dr. Brum indicated that I&IT will continue to strive to achieve the five-nine level. “Our mission and values motivate us to achieve up times of 99.999%,” she added.
Especially significant, Dr. Brum pointed out, is that many key services (email, Blackboard and Intranet) are expected to be up 24/7 even though I&IT is not staffed for 24/7 services like corporations or even universities of a similar size.
The most noted improvement was in the Exchange mail server cluster, which achieved 99.3% up time. Last year, Exchange was available 98.8% of the time.
In addition to measuring up time, I&IT’s annual measurements project assesses such services as number of Help Desk queries, calls to the information telephone operators and the number of Blackboard courses.
Key Services Measured in Up Time against Total Time, Minus Planned Downtime
Service |
Up Time |
AAA (Authentication, Authorization, Accounting) |
100% |
BroncoDirect |
100% |
Firewall |
100% |
Long Distance Telephone Service |
100% |
Packet Shaping |
100% |
Streaming Video |
100% |
Viking Application Infrastructure for Advancement |
100% |
Voice Mail Service |
100% |
Work Order Application for Telecommunication Service Requests |
100% |
Telephone Switch |
99.9% |
Blackboard |
99.8% |
Data Network |
99.5% |
Data Warehouse |
99.5% |
www.csupomona.edu (university home page) |
99.4% |
Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP, our authentication service) |
99.4% |
Co-Location Server Services |
99.4% |
Intranet Email (phased out) |
99.4% |
Exchange email |
99.3% |
Intranet (file sharing, clustering, internal services) |
99.3% |
Virtual Private Network |
99.3% |
Win Domain |
99.2% |
Other Measurements
Help Desk Requests (measured September, 2006, through June, 2007) |
19,185 |
Number of Blackboard Classes |
2,177 |
Percentage Increase in Blackboard classes over previous year |
171% |
Number of Telephones Replaced |
150 |
Number of Calls Handled by Information Operations (869-POLY) |
225,000 |
HOW ARE WE DOING?
Has I&IT met your expectations?
How can we improve?
We want to know!
Please CONTACT US
We will respond to your email as soon as possible. Thank you for helping us to better serve the campus.
Debra Brum
Vice President for Instructional and Information Technology
+ phone: 909.979.6300
+ email: dabrum@csupomona.edu
This page was last updated on September 19, 2007.
