Information Technology Steering Committee
Minutes of the Meeting of Thursday, February 10, 2005
817 Cathedral of Learning
10:00 – 12:00 a.m

ATTENDING: D. Davis, T. Deliyannides, M. Gualtieri, R. Hoffman, G. Klinzing, R. Larsen, A. Levine, J. Maher (Chair), A. Ramicone, S. Sereika (for J. Close), J. Walton, M. Zemaitis

1. Approval of the Minutes

The minutes of the Meeting of November 9, 2004 were accepted.

2. Report From The Chair

Maher reported that since the last meeting, Oracle had acquired PeopleSoft. However, the impact of this merger for the University’s PeopleSoft student system is expected to be negligible. Oracle has committed to product support through the year 2013 and has retained PeopleSoft’s consulting and development staff. Maher added that implementation of the new student information system is proceeding well and should be completed on schedule by August, 2005.

Maher reported that upgrades to the University’s technology infrastructure have continued throughout the year. Although many of the changes are invisible, such as the ongoing upgrading of network electronics and server hardware, they are nonetheless crucial to maintaining a robust and reliable infrastructure.

3. Technology Update

Walton presented an overview of technology changes implemented by CSSD in recent months.

Walton reported that Internet bandwidth has been increased to 470Mbps. This represents nearly a twelvefold increase over the past five years. Student bandwidth continues to be segregated from faculty and staff use, and capacity is more than adequate for current use. Secure access to restricted resources is now being provided, primarily for access to licensed library electronic resources, but in future this service will be expanded to provide secure access to local systems behind firewalls from external locations on the Internet.

A number of other network improvements have been made recently. Port-level authentication is now in place in University residence halls, providing better security and usage information. Port-level authentication will eventually be extended to all University network ports. Uninterrupted power supplies have been added in many locations to boost uptime for network electronics in the event of power failures. Network-based firewalls have been installed for over 35 departments in order to secure access to sensitive data and reduce the number of compromised computers. Progress has been made for securing UPMC patient data, including the implementation of VPN solutions, VLAN solutions, and LAN-to-LAN VPN tunnels.

Walton reported on the National Lambda Rail (NLR), a high-speed optical network dedicated to research and experimentation. Currently, the University of Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center are the only member institutions in Pennsylvania. Maher added that the NLR will supersede Internet II, and that high-end users at Pitt are encouraged to plan for ways to exploit the power of the NLR.

Walton reported that the Network Operations Center (NOC) has been in full operation since August, 2004. The NOC provides tools and personnel for proactive network and application monitoring to avoid problems before they occur. The NOC provides monitoring and detection of power outages, performance bottlenecks, hardware failures, and gives tools to detect compromised systems and servers on the network. The NOC is staffed at all times 24/7, 365 days a year.

The University Data Warehouse continues to grow. The Data Warehouse now provides access to current and historical student data to 150 users. In Spring, 2005, the Data Warehouse will be extended to include financial data. The system currently supports 56 pre-defined reports and 1,879 custom user-developed reports.

Walton reported that the PRISM Disaster Recovery System has been implemented to provide business continuity for the University. A periodic testing schedule has been established. During the first test, full recovery of the system was achieved within 7 hours.

Walton reported on upgrades to the Blackboard courseware system. A major upgrade took place in August, 2004, during which the system software was upgraded, the production hardware was replaced, and redundant hardware was installed to ensure high availability.

A number of improvements have been implemented for the enterprise Web portal at my.pitt.edu. Students are now provided with secure access to grades, course rosters, schedules of classes, and online admissions information. 61 separate portal communities have been developed and requests for 15 additional portals are pending.

Walton reported on the changes to the Commuter Consulting Service. This walk-in service supports off-campus students and was moved from a campus computing lab to a location in OEH in December, 2004. Services include hardware troubleshooting, virus and spyware removal, network setup and software installation.

Several new services have been implemented to help the University community in dealing with the spread of viruses and SPAM e-mail. Virus filtering is now automatically applied to all incoming mail on the University’s mail server. SPAM filtering is an opt-in service offered to all users. The service is configurable to meet the users' preferences for filtering. Walton reported that the filtering software will soon be available for implementation on local departmental mail servers.

Walton reported that a new conference call system will soon be made available. University departments will be able to establish phone conferences directly. The system will allow multiple participants to join a call by dialing a toll-free number.

Walton reported on efforts to comply with HIPAA security rules. To date, five University responsibility centers have been identified as ‘covered entities’, meaning they have access to protected electronic health information. CSSD is currently providing technical assistance in resolving any deficiencies in access control before the April 21, 2005 deadline for compliance. Levine commented on the importance of training for anyone working on HIPAA compliance issues. Walton responded that training is being scheduled for staff who require it.

Walton reported on recent activity to reduce the occurrence of spyware on University computers. Such software, usually hidden along with freeware or shareware, typically monitors a user’s Internet activity and reports it to a third party via the Internet. Spyware presents data security risks in addition to contributing to PC and network performance problems. CSSD is mounting a user awareness campaign and is distributing tools for detection and removal of spyware.

Walton reported that critical Windows security patches and service packs are now offered through the Software Update Service. This is an opt-in service currently used by some 7,000 University users to download and install software updates.

Several new technology initiatives are forthcoming. Walton reported that in March, 2005, the IMAP mail system hardware and software will be upgraded to provide increased capacity.

4. Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 11:12 a.m.

Future Meetings:

Thursday, April 7, 2005 10:00-12:00 Network Operations Center
Thursday, June 9, 2005 10:00-12:00 826 Cathedral of Learning

TSD 3/31/05