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Meeeting: December 17, 1998
Minutes
The meeting was called to order at 3:30 p.m. in Room 206 of the K-State Student Union. In attendance were: Dan Bernardo, Ken Brooks, Mel Chastain, Paul Ciccantell, Janelle Esau, Brice Hobrock, Jay Holt, Faye Kennedy, Doug King, Cynthia McCahon, Diane McGrath, Judy Miller, Tom Schellhardt, Ron Semarge, Bradley Shaw, chair, Gail Simmonds, John Streeter, Harvard Townsend, Roger Trenary, and Beth Unger.
The purpose of the meeting was to receive reports by Harvard Townsend, Interim Director, Computing and Network Services.
Update on Novell Site license. Harvard informed us that the University of Kansas, the University of Kansas Medical School, and Emporia State University had already signed site license agreements with Novell and that KSU was prepared to do the same. It was necessary to do a thorough audit of all Novell products currently owned by individual departments and offices. The node counts would be due in January, 1999. This information is essential in order to determine the use of new products in the future. Although new products and all upgrades are included in the license agreement, should the license be canceled, all new products since the start of the contract would thenhave to be purchased by the departments that added them to their inventory. All current users of Novell products/LANS are required by this site license agreement to participate in the program and to share in the cost of subsequent license agreements. The purchase price of maintenance on Novell products made in FY99 prior to the site license agreement will be credited toward the total university-wide license fee for the site license. This reduces the total costs of the contract for this fiscal year. The savings will be passed on to participating departments that purchased Novell maintenance in FY99.
Final report of calendaring and scheduling software committee. Townsend's committee recommended Netscape Calendar as its choice for a university-wide calendar/scheduler software program. The original plan is to purchase a site license for 1000 users. For this reason the program will be limited to faculty and staff at this time, and may not include students. The committee recognized the need for user training. The proposed plan of implementation would be to target certain user groups, plus selected departments, to begin working with the calendar program. Hopefully, it will be possible to have full implementation campus-wide by Fall, 1999. Townsend acknowledged that some campus groups favor GroupWise. Netscape Calendar was chosen primarily because it can be used by various platforms, its cost projections are favorable, and it will require less staff support and maintenance. The major drawback of implementing GroupWise is that it requires substantial support. He said that the University of Kansas plans to deploy twelve servers and several staff members dedicated solely to support and maintenance of their campus-wide GroupWise system. He suggested that it should be possible to convert GroupWise data to the Netscape Calendar system. A copy of the committee's report and recommendations is attached. By a voice vote, CITAC received the committee's report with favor and encouraged an implementation plan that would be as comprehensive as possible for the campus community.
Plan for campus network upgrade. This is a new proposal, one that is quite different from the one that was submitted to the CITAC Campus Network Committee in November. The plan proposed to establish a switched Gigabit Ethernet backbone network for the campus to replace the existing routed subnets. This would increase the backbone bandwidth from 100 to 2000 Mbps (20 times more bandwidth). The plan also calls for new core Cisco switches with Gigabit EtherChannel technology for greater backbone bandwidth and fault tolerance. According to Townsend, the plan, which is outlined in Attachment B, represents improved capacity and functionality at less cost than the proposal that was presented in November. In the draft proposal, Harvard cites the reason for the campus upgrade: "...with the introduction of mediated instruction, the need for distributing video on and off campus, strategic use of the World Wide Web, participation in Internet2, a growing number of computational scientists, and the approaching year 2000, K-State is in serious need of replacing its outdated campus network." Funding for the campus network upgrade is in place (it includes a $100,000 grant from Cisco) and it will be installed during the spring semester (1999).
John Streeter, Chair of the CITAC Campus Network Subcommittee distributed a memo regarding the November and December drafts of the proposed campus network improvement plan. The subcommittee agreed with the recommendation that the Gigabit Ethernet proposal appeared to provide "a better basis for incremental improvement of the existing environment at lower cost." Because of the very technical nature of planning materials, the subcommittee suggested that a summary statement of the underlying goals and principles of the Gigabit Ethernet plan would be helpful. The purpose of such documentation would be to help guide administrative units in defining their needs "for networking within the overall framework of the Campus Network." The subcommittee expressed the desire that the proposed upgrade be achieved successfully as soon as possible.
Recent security attacks and required password changes. Harvard reported that a recent spate of security breaks are of major concern. Requiring KSU faculty, staff and students to change their passwords is one of several measures needed to reduce the university's vulnerability to attacks on the integrity of our information and data systems. Based on an analysis done by CNS of the most vulnerable passwords, letters were sent to faculty and staff who were asked to change their passwords immediately. A general letter is being prepared to send to all staff with the requirement that they change their passwords by January 31, 1999. Students will be required to change their passwords by the beginning of the Fall 1999 semester.
With no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 4:45 p.m.
For CITAC,
Bradley Shaw
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