Information Technology Strategic Plan /13/2012

Transcription

1 Information Technology Strategic Plan /13/2012

2 Unit Mission Statement: Information Technology Shared Services is dedicated to providing unparalleled service and support to the UC Davis College of Engineering community. To accomplish this mission, we strive to meet the current and future technological needs of faculty, students, and staff; actively research and incorporate new technologies; and provide the highest level of support to our clients, while conducting ourselves in a manner consistent with the highest standards of professionalism. Unit Self-Assessment The College of Engineering has historically delivered IT through a distributed, heterogeneous service model. Deep budget cuts and staff reductions have forced the College to rethink how IT services should be delivered to meet the needs of the faculty, staff, and students. Aging infrastructure, lack of coordination, and reduced funding have created some serious technology-related issues for the College. Significant change is on the horizon which must be embraced and managed. Although not centrally coordinated, many faculty view the desktop services they receive as extremely effective. However, reductions in departmental IT staff make delivering comprehensive desktop support more challenging and unsustainable. IT must coordinate service delivery across the entire college to continue providing an unparalleled level of support to our clients. The aging network infrastructure poses a significant challenge for research across the college. Faculty working with large data sets encounter issues moving information between facilities. Mobile users have difficulty connecting to the network reliably without comprehensive wireless network coverage. Networking upgrades are essential to providing an effective environment for research and learning. Furthermore, network management is typically delivered as an extremely robust and reliable service through IET Communications Resources and should not be duplicated by college IT staff. IT staff within the College are highly competent and dedicated professionals. Today, all IT services for a department are typically provided by an individual or small group of staff. Given the breadth of responsibilities they individuals support it is difficult to develop the depth of expertise that is needed. They currently provide everything from server administration to printer repair. Often, these individuals are performing tasks that would better be served by less expensive technicians or even student workers. Transitioning the entire College over to a Shared Services Model will create efficiencies across all departments while improving services. College-wide IT staff met recently to develop a comprehensive list of strengths and weaknesses. The resulting SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats), attached as Appendix A, informed all of the recommendations contained in this report. 1 of 8

3 Standards of Excellence Information Technology Shared Services will measure its success through a variety of qualitative metrics such as the use of client surveys, analysis of our aspirational peer schools, and performance of our achieved short-term and long-term objectives. Faculty and staff feedback will be extremely important as we identify and address critical college-wide issues. IT Shared Services Goals Information Technology continues to play a transformative role in education and research. Prospective and current students, faculty, staff, and alumni expect that universities perform at a high level of technological competence. It is important to improve the technological performance of the college on behalf of these constituencies. To affect the changes necessary to propel the college forward, Information Technology Shared Services must achieve the following goals: Enhance the overall service to our clients Strive to promote positive interoffice collaboration throughout the College of Engineering by leveraging existing and new technologies Research and implement new technologies in teaching and research Facilitate positive interactions with students to assist with recruitment and retention efforts The unit proposes to accomplish these goals by implementing a variety of immediate (6- month), short-term (18-month), and long-term (3-year) projects. Each project will address a weakness or threat that has been identified in the attached SWOT analysis. Projects phases may span multiple years depending on scope and complexity. The following list represents a prioritized list of projects that the IT Shared Services will strive to achieve. Immediate Projects (target completion date: 6 months) Helpdesk and Tier 0 Support System - Helpdesk systems funnel all IT support requests through a common platform. This helps improve IT service delivery across the college and allows for a comprehensive analysis into common trends and themes. Through a single system that is used college-wide, the IT can easily coordinate the appropriate level of service and dispatch the corresponding personnel. Most newer Helpdesk systems also include the ability to capture user requests and convert them into a searchable knowledge base. This, combined with a Service Catalog, streamlines Helpdesk support while reducing staff training and empowering users to find some solutions on their own (Tier 0). 2 of 8

4 CMS - Content Management Systems allow non-it personnel to easily edit website content through a standard interface. These systems allow the content experts (faculty, department heads, and marketing personnel) to develop and maintain content for websites as easily as editing a simple document. Since content experts have greater access to their data, the information can be readily updated without the delay of relaying requests through a Webmaster. Overall, this creates a much better end-user experience as the information that is delivered on our institutional websites is timely and relevant. IT will work with faculty and staff to determine the most appropriate CMS for use college-wide and work to develop a standard suite of templates that can be used by each unit. CoE Computing Cloud - Aging hardware and distributed management pose a significant problem for computing services across the college. Many production systems such as departmental webservers, file servers, and application servers are running on hardware that is no longer supported by the manufacturer. Additionally, many of the critical systems lack redundancy with automated failover. If a hardware failure were to occur, services would be impacted. The resulting outage might affect only a small portion of the college, while a webserver failure could potentially damage the college's reputation. A private cloud would provide centralized hardware for rapidly deploying and consolidating all servers across the college. Storage within the private cloud would also address a number of faculty data storage issues, reducing or even eliminating the risk of institutional data loss. Consolidated Firewall - A number of networks within the college do not currently have a VLAN firewall configured. Furthermore, many other networks have firewalls that are configured in such a way that reduces their effectiveness. Campus policy requires that every VLAN have a firewall in place to protect the computers from network based attacks. With more than 40 VLANS across the college, it is imperative that a consolidated approach be taken to reduce the management burden and increase the overall security level for the college. Patch Management / Software Distribution - Every computer across the college should be integrated with the campus-wide Tivoli Endpoint Manager (formerly BigFix). Tivoli allows IT to rapidly, and with a fair degree of certainty, deploy software patches to all workstations. These patches are applied for all software applications much like Microsoft and Apple deliver operating system patches. This yields more reliable and secure workstations with lower IT staff time and brings the College into campus policy compliance for patching of all systems within 7 days of release. Tivoli also allows IT to easily make new software packages available to our community through a centralized distribution methodology. Short-Term Projects (target completion date: 18 months) CMS Phase 2 After the initial deployment of a college-wide content management system, IT will work to transition existing websites into the central CMS. In addition, IT will work with faculty and staff to ensure appropriate training is available through a mix of online and in-person training methods. Furthermore, IT will develop a common set of 3 of 8

5 templates to facilitate rapid website deployment. This will allow faculty and research groups to quickly deploy new websites while incorporating best practices for web development such as ADA compliance and standards compliant coding. Network Enhancements - Old wiring, unmanaged wireless, and aging networking equipment together reduce the network performance across the college. Some buildings have newer wiring/equipment while others still have category 3 wiring (limiting network performance to 10 Mbit/s). Network wiring in older buildings should be upgraded to the latest standard of category 5e or even category 6/6a. IET has consistently delivered a reliable and well received wireless network called MoobileNet. This wireless network should be deployed across all of the college to enable all members of the community to reliably access the network from mobile devices. Comprehensive Security Assessment Network and computer security is essential to ensuring all technology operations of the College continue unimpeded. Security vulnerabilities create potential risks to institutions information, reputation, and ability to deliver programs. A comprehensive security assessment is needed to identify potential weaknesses and risk mitigation strategies. The outcome of this assessment will inform future investments in hardware and staff time. Document Collaboration - Community members need a robust solution to easily store and share documents with collaborators inside and outside of the college. Many free solutions exist today, such as DropBox, Google Drive, and Microsoft SkyDrive, that may or may not meet the needs of the community. IT will work to identify the best solution for the entire college and provide assistance to faculty and staff as we migrate data and begin utilizing the new service. Server Consolidation Old server hardware and duplicative systems across different departments create a significant management issue for IT. These disparate systems will be consolidated and virtualized into the College s private computing cloud. Redundancy will already be part of the cloud, so all of these services will immediately benefit from increased reliability and stability. As duplicate systems are transitioned and ultimately eliminated, the College will see significant savings in terms of hardware costs and staff support time. Consolidate Instructional Labs Computing staff have a tremendous amount of expertise running instructional labs across the college. IT will leverage this expertise and develop standards for running labs. These standards will include hardware life-cycle management, authentication, authorization, software distribution, and student staffing. Remote Access --- Departments currently use a variety of methods for connecting into Engineering networks and services from outside of the physical college. This is an area that is a target for security breaches and is difficult to administer. However, it is important to find a secure solution so the customer population has easy access to resources from outside the physical college. IT will determine the best-of-breed Virtual Private Network or other remote technology and implement college-wide. 4 of 8

6 Research Support Efficiencies gained in all other areas will enable IT staff to focus on more complex issues that have direct or indirect benefit to faculty research. In addition to infrastructure improvements such as data storage and network, IT will be available for support of programming, specialized webs sites, version control systems, cluster support, etc. IT will work with faculty to define specific services and rates appropriate for direct charge, and assist faculty with including these in grant proposals while remaining competitive. In all, this effort will provide faculty with more responsive expertise, rather than inconsistent support or outsourcing and losing the revenue potential. Long-Term Projects (target completion date: 3 years) Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Understanding who our customers are and their relationships with the College and each other is critical to the success of the organization. A CRM will allow the College to begin tracking and understanding these relationships so that critical business decisions can be made. A CRM system will enable the College to connect prospective students with alumni in their area of interest. It can also provide insight into the faculty research areas for external affiliates. The CRM system becomes a central tool for building relationships with our constituents. Video Conferencing / Distance Education Distance education introduces new opportunities to extend the exciting research and learning happening here at UC Davis beyond the traditional classroom. New advancements in technology make providing electronic access to our courses affordable. Service Catalog IT must clearly identify the services which are provided either internally or externally to the College. A catalog will not only articulate which services are provided, but also clarify which services are beyond scope and should be delivered elsewhere. Database Cleanup The College maintains several shadow databases using nonstandard database tools. A comprehensive analysis will need to be completed in order to determine the best migration strategy for each of these systems, especially focusing on the availability of outside services that meet the information needs. Next Steps This strategic plan represents a framework for future college-wide IT efforts. While not specifically a work plan, it does provide an outline for projects that IT will focus on. Additional planning will be needed for each project to determine the scope of work, impact to stakeholders, and project budget. Many of these individual projects will be multi-year/multi-phased as necessary to successfully deliver new services, while ensuring 5 of 8

7 continuity of service to existing systems. IT will continue to engage the community throughout the implementation of this plan to re-evaluate college-wide priorities ensuring IT continues to meet the needs of faculty, staff, and students. 6 of 8

8 Appendix A Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) Analysis STRENGTHS Desktop support is generally well received Computer classrooms are generally run really well Student assistant management Unix/Linux system administration IT Staff are extremely technically competent IT Staff enhance faculty research IT Staff have a good understanding and use of OpenSource Systems WEAKNESSES Reduced IT staff Expensive Tier 1 support model No inventory Poor inventory management Old networks and self-management of networks Poor wireless networks No formal training program No auditing Inconsistent auditing Inconsistent patching / no patch automation Poor application development No website consistency Systems have single points of failure Poor interdepartmental communication Helpdesk software isn t great Many duplicated services across different departments Old databases that are not maintained or poorly maintained Poor equipment lifecycle management Cybersafety compliance is poor Poor firewall management OPPORTUNITIES Consolidation of computer classrooms Application Virtualization Simplify licensing COE Undergraduate labor Standardize/Outsource Printing Partner with faculty research (deliver services internally) Develop website content management system (potentially use BME WordPress) Develop an IT Knowledgebase for user self-service Consolidate database access Consolidate data storage and archiving for administrative and research data Consolidate server rooms across college (repurpose space) 7 of 8

9 THREATS Old applications (no support/poor support) Data loss from single copies of data with no backup Equipment without vendor support could fail Service outages due to old hardware / non-redundant hardware Unauthorized access to systems due to poor firewalls 8 of 8