Dan Reed

Dan_Reed@unc.edu

Chancellor’s Eminent Professor

Vice Chancellor for Information Technology and CIO

Robyn East

robyn_east@unc.edu

Associate Vice Chancellor for Information Technology and Deputy CIO

IT Update

ITS Is …

• Security and privacy services• Computer laboratories • IT Response Center (ITRC)• Campus licensed software• Carolina Computing Initiative (CCI)• Blackboard and distance education• Electronic classrooms• On-campus telephony• Campus network and email• Administrative applications• Research computing support• and many more things …

What Is ITS Today?

ITS Services

ITS Organization

Ten Strategic Areas• Communications

– Audrey Ward

• Teaching and learning

– Charles Green

• Research computing

– Ruth Marinshaw (acting)

– in interview process

• Telecommunications

– John Streck

• Security and Policy

– recruiting in progress

• ITS Business Office and HR– John Gallagher

• IT infrastructure and operations– Judd Knott

• Enterprise data management– Steve Cornelison (acting)

• Enterprise applications– Stephanie Szakal

• User support and engagement– Priscilla Alden

Mission- Support, empower and enrich faculty, staff and students- Advance UNC Chapel Hill institutional missions

Campus Advisory Committees

• Technical advisory groups– user support and communications– teaching and learning/academic computing– research computing– enterprise applications and data– telecommunications and networking– security– IT business processes

• Other campus IT committees– Faculty IT Advisory Committee (FITAC)– IT Directors Group– Institutional Data Group

Carolina Computing Initiative (CCI)

• Undergraduate student laptop requirement– begun fall semester 2000– must meet or exceed minimum

specifications• see http://www.unc.edu/cci for details

– currently an IBM (Lenovo) ThinkPad• via contract to be rebid this year

– financial aid, where needed, is part of the process

• On site hardware and software support– ITS Response Center (ITRC)

ITS Teaching and Learning

Instructional Support

• Center for Instructional Technology (CIT)– advice, assistance, accessibility– community building and support

• Ongoing training and education– staff, faculty and student training

• Blackboard electronic course support– online communication, assessment and administration

• currently hosting over 2500 sites

• see https://blackboard.unc.edu

ITS Teaching and Learning

Classroom Services

• Learning Space Design• Classroom Support

– equipment maintenance

• Classroom Hotline– pick up the “red phone” for

technical support

• Classroom status– 195 general purpose

– 143 multimedia equipped

• ~600 Hotline requests/month

Technology vs. Non-Technology Classrooms by Year

12 13 13 13 19 22 3141

5375

90110114

127136144

-10

40

90

140

190

Year

Nu

mb

er o

f R

oo

ms

Technology

Non-Technology

ITS Teaching and Learning

ITS Computer Laboratories

• Eight laboratories– laser printers– Desktop PCs– courseware

• Laboratory support– student fees

Buildings with labs are in Green

ITS Teaching and Learning

Research Computing Upgrades

• Dell Linux Cluster– deployment in progress

– 520 Intel Xeon blades• 1040 processors

– high-speed Infiniband interconnect

– 35 terabytes of scratch storage

– will enable new research and discovery

• Secure domain for statistical computing– pilot with two research projects

– access to standard set of applications

ITS Research Computing

Research Computing Resources

• Computing– IBM P690, Sun E15K, SGI Origin 3800– IBM Blade Center Linux cluster– NEW: SGI Altix, Dell Linux cluster

• Storage– 30 TB local or network-attached disk– 120 TB capacity archival mass storage

• Software– >100 scientific and statistical applications

• Staff scientists– research project collaboration and code optimization

ITS Research Computing

ITS Infrastructure and Operations

• Data center operation

• 7x365 monitoring

• Systems administration

• Server hosting

• Backup and recovery

ITS User Support and Engagement

• Computer repair center• ITS Response Center/Help Desk• Remedy services• On-site support• Walk-in support• ResNet

Response Center (ITRC)

Multiple support modes

ITS User Support and Engagement

ITS Communications

• New ITS News web page

• Web support

• Content management

• Technical and user help documentation

• Carolina Technology Consultants

ITS Enterprise Data Management

• Enterprise database administration• Shared dataspace (AFS)• Data warehouse• Data access and reporting

ITS Enterprise Applications

• Development and support of systems– enabling campus business processes

• Support for campus email and calendaring• Online directory• Identity management

Enterprise Administrative Systems

• Today’s realities– UNC-CH’s core administrative systems must be replaced– the average age of applications is 14 years– all are built atop outdated technology– student system was implemented in 1988

• will be desupported in less than three years

– financial system was also implemented in 1988– HR was implemented in 2000, but the vendor no longer exists– payroll system was implemented in 1968, making it 38 years old!

ITS Enterprise Applications

Alumni Records System

Development Office Contributor Records System

Office of the President Financial System

UNC Television Contributor Records System

Environmental Health and Safety Management Information System

Training and Development System

Campus Directory

Computer Repair Center System

Other State Agencies

Investments Management

Budget System

Cash Receipts

Purchasing System

ONE Card System

Student Stores Retail Management System

Employment System

Finance and AdministrationPayroll

Accounts Payable System

Coeus

Asset Accounting

Travel Accounting

Materials Management Inventory Control

System

Printing Services Management System

Campus Police System

Person ID (PID) Management System

Employee RecordsTarheel Temps

Position Management

Benefits System

InPower Human Resources Information System

AdmissionsStudent Web Services -

Student Central

Student Records - Grades,

Transcripts, etc.

Billing for Tuition and Fees

Student Aid

Student Housing

Academic Advising

Institutional Reporting

External Agencies Online Interfaces

Degree Audit

Student Information Services

Student Web Services – Applicant Central

Insite Space Management System

Motor Vehicle Tracking

Capital Improvements Facility Planning & Design

MAXIMO Cogeneration Facility System

Facilities Maintenance Enterprise

Utilities Billing System

Work Order Tracking

Equipment Tracking

Mailing Services System

Inventory Tracking

Job TrackingInventory

Time & Material Tracking

Facilities Procurement

Facilities Personnel System

Information Technology Purchases System

Finance Central

UNC Physicians & Associates Medical

Billing System

Continuing Education Management System

Other University ApplicationsTelecommunications Billing System

Enterprise Applications Today

AdmissionsStudent Web Services -

Student Central

Student Records - Grades,

Transcripts, etc.

Billing for Tuition and Fees

Student Aid

Student Housing

Academic Advising

Institutional Reporting

External Agencies Online Interfaces

Degree Audit

Student Information Services

Student Web Services – Applicant Central

Employment System

Payroll

Person ID (PID) Management System

Employee Records

Position Management

Benefits System

InPower Human Resources Information System

Facilities Personnel System

Alumni Records System

Development Office Contributor Records System

Office of the President Financial System

UNC Television Contributor Records System

Environmental Health and Safety Management Information System

Training and Development System

Other University Applications

Systems Targeted for Replacement

Investments Management

Budget System

Cash Receipts

Purchasing System

Finance and AdministrationAccounts Payable System

Asset Accounting

Travel Accounting

Materials Management Inventory Control System

Equipment Tracking

Inventory Tracking

Inventory

Facilities Procurement

Information Technology Purchases System

Finance Central

ITS Telecommunications

• Campus network – wired and wireless – design, engineering, maintenance and upgrades

• Telephony• Cable TV services

• Research & Development– Voice over IP– Convergence of voice and data

ITS Security

• Intrusion prevention and detection– email SPAM, viruses and worms

• campus anti-virus software (Symantec AntiVirus) • campus SPAM filtering

– ITS scans systems and networks regularly• 375,000+ instances per month of malicious traffic stopped with intrusion

prevention appliances• 100,000,000+ suspicious scans detected per month• infected systems are “sandboxed” to protect campus

• Federal privacy and security requirements– Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act (HIPAA)

• medical record privacy

– Gramm-Leach-Bliley (GLB)• financial privacy

Technology Planning and Special Projects

• evaluation of new and emerging technologies

• comprehensive technology test and evaluation lab

• collaboration with units across ITS and the University

From RFID to Smart Dust

• Smart dust (pixie dust)– wireless environmental sensors

• perhaps as small as 1 mm

– commodity hardware and MEMS

– flora and fauna measurements• an IP address for every frog

– see www.dustnetworks.com

• RFID tags– secure, inexpensive and disposable

– passive and active versions

– contents: identity, state, location

– logistics management and tracking• Walmart leadership and EU Euro tracking

UCB COTS Smart Dust

Smart Infrastructure

• Buildings– energy adaptation based on behavior– location-specific scheduling

• Offices– occupant and behavior recognition

• footfall and chair usage patterns

– context-sensitive response

• Homes– biometric measurements

• health monitoring and independence

Mobility Changes Everything

• Wireless revolution– explosive growth of wireless access points

• airport lounges, Starbucks™, …

– growing community supporting public access

– “War Driving” – identifying public access points

• Microsoft Smart Personal Objects Technology– FM subcarrier transmission (top 1000 markets)

– news, traffic, stock quotes, weather, messages

• Ubiquitous biometric monitoring– VivoMetrics “Lifeshirt” monitors 40 features

– saves data to a PDA

Network Convergence

• Voice and data convergence– Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) enables Internet conferencing,

telephony, presence, events notification and instant messaging – Support for roaming across multiple networks

• Single device with multiple capabilities– Desk telephone, cellular and campus Wi-FI

Travel (mobile)Work (Wi-Fi) Home (Wi-Fi)

Web and Social Processes

• Google– it’s a search engine, it’s a verb, …

• Blogs– published self-expression

• Instant Messenger– social networks

• Wireless messaging– semi-synchronous

• Internet commerce– the dot.com boom/bust– EBay, Amazon

• Spam, phishing, …– anti-social behavior

Education: A Look Back …

Source: Marc Prensky

And a Look Forward …

• Today’s students have– 10,000 hours of video games– 250,000 email messages– 10,000 hours on cell phones– 20,000 hours of television– 500,000 of commercials– <5000 hours reading books

• Implications– different life experiences

Social Computing and UNC

• FaceBookTM

– 90% of UNC undergraduates use it

• Social network communities– 74% of campus use a social network

• The identity information being disclosed is stunning– deep social and privacy implications

Friendster Network (UC Berkeley

Computing Pervades Critical Infrastructure

University Data Challenges

• Multiple cultures– arts, humanities and social sciences– sciences and engineering

• Many scholarly communication approaches– books, monographs, journals, conferences

• access time, priority and intellectual property

– multiple media and expression• text, audio, video, artifacts, performances, …

– primary and secondary source materials– professional societies and private publishers

• Institutional repositories– multiple visions and roles

• digital archives and/or alternative publication venues

– research and education• access modes and goals, not just articles or books• longitudinal access and lifelong learning

– what and how much to save• declining cost of storage and simplicity of deposit

Digital Reality: The Exponentials

• Megabyte– a small novel

• Gigabyte– a pickup truck filled with paper or a DVD

• Terabyte: one thousand gigabytes – ~$1000 today– the text in one million books

– entire U.S. Library of Congress is ~ten terabytes of text

• Petabyte: one thousand terabytes– 1-2 petabytes equals all academic research library holdings

• coming soon to a pocket near you!

– soon routinely generated annually by many scientific instruments

• Exabyte: one thousand petabytes– 5 exabytes of words spoken in the history of humanity

• See www.sims.berkeley.edu/research/projects/how-much-info-2003/Source: Hal Varian, UC-Berkeley

Web Services and Business Processes

• From browser-centric to service-centric– from human-computer to computer-computer– structured negotiation and response

• Workflow creation and management– end-to-end service negotiation– inter-organizational interaction

• Prerequisites– metadata standard for service descriptions– standard communication mechanisms– resource discovery and registration

Technology Push and Business Pull

Source: Gartner Group

The Opportunity Ahead

“I have also asked Vice Chancellor Reed to lead a major strategic planning effort for information technology, encompassing everything from high-speed computing to what we know will be necessary major investments in administrative computing to replace systems that are increasingly obsolete. We have not fully tapped leading-edge information technology as an intellectual lever to help advance the University’s mission. And we have not yet fully realized the potential of the Carolina Computing Initiative. This will be a major effort. The leading public university must lead in technology.”

Carolina’s Institutional Priorities

• Strengthen faculty recruitment, retention, development• Create richest possible learning environment for

undergraduate, graduate and professional students• Invest in centers of excellence in research and creativity• Enhance Carolina’s engagement with North Carolina and

the world• Successfully complete campus development plan; begin

Carolina North• Determine strategies to direct resources to highest priorities• Define Carolina’s role as a leader

Strategic IT Planning

• Committee objectives– build a University-wide commitment to a shared strategic IT vision– identify or assist with articulating major IT issues– identify significant obstacles and risk to the attainment of IT goals

• recommend methods for overcoming them

– enable necessary communication with deans and other administrators• regarding the potential of IT to advance the University’s mission

– encourage coordination of University-wide technology efforts– establish and communicate strategic priorities

• the enhancement and use of technology

– engage and build relationships with stakeholders– foster innovation and creativity via application of information technology

• Committee outcome– five year plan, with strategic goals

Campus Strategic IT Planning

• Tied to campus strategic plan– becoming America’s best public university

• Coordinated planning groups– overall strategic IT plan

Research &ScholarshipCommittee

Research &ScholarshipCommittee

CoordinatingCommittee

CoordinatingCommittee

Communication& Networking

Committee

Communication& Networking

Committee

EnterpriseApplicationsCommittee

EnterpriseApplicationsCommittee

Education& LearningCommittee

Education& LearningCommittee

Education and Learning Areas of Focus

• Novel educational approaches– How can computing technology foster innovative approaches to

classroom, small group and independent education? What role should the Carolina Computing Initiative (CCI) play?

• Distance and continuing education– How should technology be used to supplement the traditional

instructional model? – Given continuing economic dislocation, how and should Carolina extend

its continuing and just in time educational reach across North Carolina?

• Pedagogical assistance– What technical services do instructors need?– How do we identify and evaluate technical strategies for academic

instruction?– How do we assist non-technical academic instructors in understanding

and applying appropriate technology to instruction?

Research & Scholarship Areas of Focus

• Digital data management– With the explosive growth of “born digital” data, what strategies

should Carolina pursue to establish a leadership role in digital data management?

• Scholarly publication and curation– ownership, distribution, review, …

• Information security and privacy– Accessibility and protection

• Research computing infrastructure– scientific data management– digital scholarship and curation

Communications & Networking Areas of Focus

• Next generation telephony– How will convergence of voice and data impact how we work?

• Local, state, national and international networking– End-to-end optical control plane switching– WiMaX and regional coverage– Telematics and logistics management

• Management of web presence and online content– Branding and marketing– Standards and tools for managing content

• Web usability and access– Consistent look and feel– Easy-to-find information and services

Enterprise Applications Areas of Focus

• Enterprise administrative systems– What business process changes are required to improve

administrative efficiency and effectiveness?– How can we use technology to manage the amount of resources

devoted to administrative tasks at the university?

• Messaging– Digital convergence

• Institutional data management– What issues related to data acquisition, access, usage,

stewardship and management exist and how should they be addressed?

• Identity management– How do we enter the world of federated identity?

Information Technology Services (ITS)

is the central organization providing all members of the

Carolina community with computing services for

academic and administrative endeavors.

http://its.unc.edu