JOG Report, September 1998
Last updated
September 8, 2009 11:38:31 AM PDT
This UCSD report to the UC-wide Joint Operations Group (JOG) and to the Communications Planning Group (CPG) summarizes key computing and communications issues for the past four months. For more information please refer to the Blink Technology pages.
Organizational and General Issues
- The CBT training courses are very popular. Since campuswide deployment in March 1998 we had 487,208 hits with a total of 3,489 course retrievals (821 via LivePlay, 2,668 via Download.) A total of 2,789 unique computers visited the Web site, 583 of which retrieved one or more courses.
Administrative Computing
- Summer upgrades to the ACT Data Center delivered better and faster equipment, resulting in much improved system performance and reliability. Specifically, we installed two Sun Ultra 4000s, an IBM R25 Enterprise System (a.k.a. mainframe), and a state-of-the-art 800GB mirrored EMC storage system (total of 1.6TB), which replaced all our MVS and UNIX disk drives.
- FinancialLink is now used by many campus departments. New features include the ability to enter local departmental transactions and have payroll projections.
- EmployeeLink is also used by many campus units. Enhancements provide query capability across many data elements.
- TravelLink is in production and departmental users can process numerous transactions which were previously only available on 3270 screens.
- Work on the authentication project is progressing in coordination with the UC-wide project.
- A campus-wide Year 2000 committee, recently established, will address all relevant issues, including impacts on utilities, embedded chips, ships at sea, and medical instruments. The Chancellor will be sending a message to the campus community to that effect.
- UCSD won NACUBO's national second prize award for the Online Merit Entry system, which is a joint Human Resources and ACT effort.
Communications
- Central support for cc:Mail was successfully discontinued on July 1, 1998.
- Spam and attempted security attacks continued to plague the campus, with an increase in the number of break ins to UNIX systems during the spring quarter. As a result, there has been a lot of discussion and information sharing about individual break ins. A policy crafted in 1993, which allows cutting off network access where serious (or repeated) breaches have occurred, was used a few times. We decided to fund a new staff position to do proactive monitoring for breaches.
- ATM deployment is proceeding and a cost recovery model will, hopefully, be discussed and adopted before the next budget cycle.
- All dial-in modems were upgraded to 56KB. We are receiving V.90 firmware upgrades but the early versions have various problems.
- By the end of spring quarter we had 3,300 users out of a possible 5,500 in our residence hall networking operation. We expect more this fall.
