MEMBERS PRESENT: Craig Berry, Paul Hons, Tim Christian, Chris
Strauss, Maurice Leatherbury (Chair), Ginger Boone, Dallas
Newell, Kelly Wood, Richard Harris, Robert Pierce, Rich Anderson,
Abraham John, Bill Buntain, Cengiz Capan, Cyndie Harris, Sue
Ellen Richey (Recording Secretary)
MEMBERS ABSENT: Jim Curry, Eric DuChemin, Mike Hatch, Mike Wright
The minutes of the February 21, 1997 meeting were approved as
published.
Maurice Leatherbury reported for the Call Tracking System
committee that the group has looked at two different systems,
pricing for which range from $70,000-$140,000. The committee has
been working very hard, meeting frequently, but at present have
no recommendations to make. Discussion followed, during which
Cengiz asked if the committee plans to decide on one centralized
system for trouble calls. Tim Christian responded that the plan
is to provide a system that will integrate with the various
systems already in place and functioning. Tim further explained
that there seem to be two views being put forth in the committee;
one group seems to want an off-the-shelf package and the other
wants an off-the-shelf package if it's affordable, but would like
to produce an in-house system if it isn't affordable. Maurice
commented that whatever is decided upon by this committee will
test everyone's willingness to work together on a day-to-day
basis. Cengiz asked if there is a model for actually getting the
work done, rather than just looking at systems to record and
track the problems. Maurice responded that he believes that the
selection of a system, and decisions that will have to be made
about what package to buy or develop will require the committee
to look at work flow and procedures, as they look at the features
of the software. Cengiz stressed that it would be best to decide
first on how the distributed work will be done and then decide on
a software package that fits that model. Cyndie Harris commented
that the committee is looking at software packages that support
the distributed model UNT already has in place. Cengiz said that
it would be best to look at all the management models in
existence and decide what works best, then pick the software
product that fits that model best, keeping in mind that it is
more important that the work get done than to have a software
product that keeps track of it. Tim commented that one single
management scheme might not scale well from a small unit to a
larger unit. Tim also mentioned that there is a set of criteria
for evaluation of the various software packages the committee is
looking at, which has been approved by this Distributed Computing
Support Management Team. Maurice confirmed that the issues this
subcommittee is dealing with are difficult, but they are working
very hard on them.
Mike Hatch has resigned as Chair of the Desktop OS
Standardization Committee and Maurice said he has not appointed a
new Chair at this time.
Eric DuChemin was not present to make a report on the Desktop
Applications Standardization Committee, but Maurice stated that
he believes that committee has not yet met.
Maurice reported having met with Chris Strauss to discuss the
general issues involved with a system outage notification
process. He still needs to meet with Blair Copeland, and needs to
see what sort of backup system would be in effect if a primary
one failed. Chris Strauss commented that preliminary discussions
he has had with Blair revolved around establishing lists on the
paging server that contain all of the persons who wish to be
notified of a given system outage. A lot of notification is
taking place directly from Blair with an automatic paging set-up.
Chris said he needs to get the Help Desk set up on that automatic
paging set up. Chris said the biggest problem automatic paging
presents is overloading the paging company. If a message is sent
to 50-100 pagers at the same time, it may take several hours to
get the page to the last people on the list. In the discussion
that followed it was suggested that there may be a web-based
application available through which people could be notified of
outages. Mike Maner commented that if the list of people to be
paged doesn't get too long, he feels the paging company could
handle it. Tim suggested using ManageWise to monitor systems.
Several people mentioned having experienced delays in receiving
pages. Tim reported that when he sends a page he send the same
one to himself, at the same time, which enables him to see how
long it takes for the person to receive the page he sent. Maurice
said he is aware that the issue is not just how to get the
message out to people about an outage, but how to keep ourselves
informed. Tim suggested that in the interim it could be
determined what systems should be monitored.
Bill Buntain asked Mike Maner to speak to the group about recent
problems and their solutions. Mike reported that the Cisco 7000,
which has been the main campus internet router, is scheduled to
be taken out of service and used only as a back-up. At that time,
a 7513 will become the main campus router. Recent problem with a
card in the Cisco 7000 caused some downtime; even a replacement
card caused problems until it too was replaced. He explained that
what some users experienced was the inability to connect from off
campus, and even connecting on-campus looked very slow.
Connection through one of the University's T1 Internet links was
lost at one point, and the telephone company could not find the
problem. In addition, a Cisco AGS+ router located in GAB locked
up completely, which when fixed cleared up some strange problems
on the internet connection.
Bill Buntain reported that he had sent out a message to
distributed computing support personnel to the effect that a
department bringing up a DHCP server can cause problems in other
parts of campus if it is not properly configured. Blair Copeland
is working on a project that will revamp DNS services as well as
provide a unified DHCP and position the University to provide
Win-S and distributed paging services. This could solve some of
the issues relative to the current DNS and paging services. For
one thing, every server will have redundant connections.
Regarding Remote Access service, Bill explained that last
semester, there were two Ascend boxes in Denton, one in Ft.
Worth, and one in Dallas. The Ft. Worth one didn't have enough
demand to leave a box there so they got some call-forwarding
numbers from the 817 area code and call-forwarded them to the
Dallas box. They have been converting all of the Ascend boxes for
Digital Channel Service to Primary Rate Interface, which allows
use of the same channels for ISDN. Two additional boxes have been
brought up in Denton and ISDN is working on them. The boxes
support both single and dual channels. Pricing structure is
currently being considered in light of the characteristics of
ISDN service usage. Also, the boxes support data compression.
When the new system is stable the intention is to move the rotary
number over to the new boxes, and this will increase the number
of lines in Denton another 48 lines. With the other remaining
boxes, Data Communications will be replacing all the free service
so that there is only one technology supporting dial-in services.
It was noted that these changes will result in all of the free
lines becoming 33.6 capable. Bill invited committee members to
visit Steve Rowell's office if they want to see the new service
in operation. He stated that the work order is in to the phone
company to make the switch; when that happens they can make the
switch to the PRI service, hopefully right after Spring Break. In
response to a question from Tim, Mike said that they are not
ready to release IPX on the Ascend boxes yet, but that the Ascend
boxes do support it.
Tim Christian reported that they have been set back in their
roll-out because of a death in Sandy Burke's family, which has
caused her to cancel some of her training classes. He expects
this to extend the rollout to the first week of April.
Robert Pierce reported that Melanie Buchheit will be working on
remote access to the CD Rom system in the library, with the hope
of having it in production in the Fall. He explained that some of
the delay in making the CD Rom system accessible has been due to
legal issues with publishers. However, they do hope to have 600
CDs on line by December, 1997. Robert said that getting this
system on line is a high priority for the Library. His staff is
also working on database development and Robert said that with
the increased staff he has now, things should move along pretty
quickly.
Abraham Johns reported that Financial Aid is moving to the new
building and he is busy working on that at the moment.
Ginger Boone reported that she is almost finished with LIS
upgrades.
Paul Hons reported that he has brought up the first group of Win
95 users, and that it went fairly well. Paul discussed how he had
solved a problem with installing Acrobat viewer.
Cyndie Harris reported having a problem with some networked
printers. Several suggestions were offered to assist her with
this problem in the future. She also reported that since
upgrading to Win 95, it won't run with her January version of SAA
Win, but will only run with the May version, which causes printer
problems for her users.
Maurice announced that the Computing Center is close to having a
Microsoft Select agreement. Bill Buntain continued that they have
evaluated all the quotes and now just need to draft a purchase
order. They have tried to bundle training and support into the
agreement, training which would be available to Computing Center
staff as well as staff of other areas. He said he would inform
everyone when the contract is in place.
Bill also said he has been working on a web access product for
use with GroupWise. They are not sure about the security issues
involved with it, but it is accessible by GWW.UNT.edu and it
requires the use of a password, which you set in your GroupWise
mailbox.
There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at
3:30 p.m.
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