Accomplishments 2013
These accomplishments are based on our IT Priorities for 2012-2013.
1. Campus Internet Bandwidth
| Project / Service | Notes | Completion Date |
|---|---|---|
| Upgrade to 650 Mb/s | One of the biggest complaints received by CIT is about our network. Although students complain about the "wireless" network, the root cause is probably our connection to the Internet. At the beginning of the year, we had a 400 Mbps connection. This is approximately the same as eight 50 Mbps RoadRunner Turbo connections, shared by over 3,000 residential students and thousands of off-campus students, staff, and faculty. To help relieve the pressure, we approached our ISP and negotiated a zero-cost upgrade to 650 Mbps. | January 2013 |
| Upgrade to 1 Gb/s | During our negotiations to upgrade our bandwidth to 650 Mbps, our ISP prepared a contract that would provide us with 1 Gbps of bandwidth. Unfortunately, the upgrade has been held up in contract negotiations with OGS and the Attorney General. | In process |
| 100 Mb/s link to Syracuse | To activate the disaster recovery site in Syracuse, we needed to reroute our Internet2 connection from Rochester. Originally, we had a 25 Mbps connection to the NYSERNet POP in Rochester. We upgraded the connection to 100 Mbps to accommodate the Internet2 traffic and off-site backups to the DR site. | December 2012 |
2. Physical Campus Infrastructure
| Project / Service | Notes | Completion Date |
|---|---|---|
| NetApp MetroCluster upgrade | The disks in our main storage array had been running non-stop for over five years. This year, we upgraded the entire disk array to replace the old disks, trays, and disk controllers. In this upgrade, we added some solid-state disks and flash cache which improved performance dramatically. | November 2012 |
| NetApp VDI Storage upgrade | In an effort to improve the virtual lab experience, we replaced the auxiliary storage array with a new one that is optimized for a virtual desktop infrastructure. The new VDI storage array has solid-state disks and flash cache which provides increased throughput for the virtual lab machines. | November 2012 |
| Core Network upgrade | Vendor support for our campus core switches ended and we replaced them with updated technology. The new core switches have improved controllers (supervisors) and chassis backplanes. We also upgraded the cores to handle more 10 Gbps Ethernet connections. | June 2013 (July 4th, 2013) |
| Data Center 10 Gb network | We upgraded the dedicated data center network to one that can support 10 Gbps. This provides faster access between virtual machines and the NetApp storage arrays. | January 2013 |
| Wireless Network upgrade | The wireless network in North Village buildings (Allegany, Erie, Genesee, Ontario, Wyoming) was deficient in some areas. We added a number of access points in these buildings to enhance the wireless network deployment. We also have replaced all of the old 802.11 a/b/g access points with 802.11n access points. | August 2012 |
| Additional memory for VM infrastructure | We added additional RAM to the virtual machine infrastructure. Each ESX host now has 192 GB of RAM, which allows for additional VM capacity. | September 2012 |
| Cisco Firewall Replacement | We replaced the firewall that resides in one of the core switches with an external firewall. This will provide better performance and enhanced features. | March 2013 |
| Cisco Internet Router | Due to the upgrade to our Internet connection, we needed to replace the campus Internet router. | August 2012 |
| Flooding in Brodie | Due to a water main break in Brodie, flooding damaged our network equipment. We had to replace the switches and UPS. | August 2012 |
| Flooding in Big Tree | Due to a flood in the Big Tree restaurant, we replaced network equipment. | February 2013 |
| SUNYnet router replacement | The router that handles network traffic with other SUNY sites was replaced. | October 2012 |
| Nexus 1000v VMware virtual switches | We installed Nexus 1000v virtual switches in our VMware cluster to provide a more resilient network infrastructure for the virtual machines. The Nexus 1000v switches virtualize the network connections for VMs and allows easier migrations between ESX hosts. | March 2013 |
| Network installation in Monroe Hall | New network equipment was installed in Monroe Hall, due to its renovation. | January 2013 |
| Network installation in Doty Hall | Network equipment has been installed in Doty for the upcoming move of departments. | June 2013 |
3. Teaching/Learning Environment (Instructional Design, Collaborative Tools, Digital Media, Lecture Capture, LMS)
| Project / Service | Notes | Completion Date |
|---|---|---|
| myCourses |
| |
| Digital Media Lab | DML check-out services running smoothly from the Library Circulation desk now. Close collaboration with service desk keeping things on track.
| |
| Gmail | Training for the campus community in classroom setting and one-on-one. | |
| BigBlueButton Video Conferencing System | We installed an open-source videoconferencing system called BigBlueButton. Similar to AdobeConnect and GotoMeeting, BigBlueButton provides a way for people to share multiple video streams. It has been used a few times to bring in outside speakers and online office hours. | July 2012 |
| Ensemble Cloud Video Streaming Service | In order to migrate from our aging streaming server, we selected a cloud solution to provide streaming media service. Ensemble was recommended by a couple of our colleagues at the SUNY Technical Conference. | August 2012 |
| Confluence upgrades | Over the past year, we have upgraded the Confluence wiki system (wiki.geneseo.edu). Through these upgrades, we have improved the stability and usability of the wiki. Some key enhancements are:
| 4.3 October 2012 5.0.2 March 2013 5.1 June 2013 |
4. Business Intelligence/Analytics/Data Warehouse
| Project / Service | Notes | Completion Date |
|---|---|---|
| APM 1.1.1 |
| July 2012 |
| Argos Reporting Evaluation | Evaluated and recommended purchase of Argos reporting tool from EVisions to provide campus with advance reporting and analytic capabilities. The tool comes with an enterprise license that is unlimited in terms of users and databases. | January 2013 |
| Provosts Staff Reports | Provided online access to Provost Staff members for various Banner production reports to enhance decision making. | Summer 2012 |
| SIRIS Upgrades | The SIRIS Institutional Reporting system requires many mandatory patches and releases to remain current with institutional, SUNY, federal, and state reporting requirements. | 2012-2013 |
5. Mobility/Mobile Development/BYOD
| Project / Service | Notes | Completion Date |
|---|---|---|
| Additional Wireless Deployment | The wireless network in North Village buildings (Allegany, Erie, Genesee, Ontario, Wyoming) was deficient in some areas. We added a number of access points in these buildings to enhance the wireless network deployment. | August 2012 |
| Make "Weeks of Welcome (WOW)" and Union more mobile friendly | Redesigned various aspects of websites to improve viewer experience from mobile devices. | |
| Mobile Website Strategy |
| Winter 2012 and ongoing |
| Upgrade to 300 Mbps wireless access points | In addition to adding access points in the North Village buildings, we were able to fund the replacement of old access points with new access points that are capable of up to 300 Mbps. (802.11n) | June 2013 |
| Directional Wireless antennae in Milne | We installed directional wireless antennae in Milne to reduce the crosstalk between access points and focus the wireless signals. | February 2013 |
| Wireless printing evaluation | In an effort to enable wireless printing from laptops and mobile devices, we have investigated a number of programs. Unfortunately, we have not found a 100% effective solution yet. | Spring 2013 |
| gPrint | We have installed a system that allows people to print to a "cloud printing" queue and release their print jobs at central print locations (South 225, Union COPA, Milne). | Spring 2013 |
6. Security (Assessment, Training, Solutions)
| Project / Service | Notes | Completion Date |
|---|---|---|
| Banner Account Audit | Creation, management, and control of Banner accounts for student workers | June 2013 |
| Banner Off-Hours Login Audit for Student Workers | Provide audit report showing student workers who login off-hours | Summer 2012 |
| Banner Security Class Audits | Audited, reviewed and updated Banner security class access for number of users including student workers, Admissions, Dean's Office, Registrar, Athletics, Dean of Students, and several others. | 2012-2013 |
| CAS SSO for Microsoft eAcademy | Improved authorization and usability for students, faculty and staff to the campus's Microsoft licensed products. | Summer 2012 |
| Password Policy Change | Implemented password syncing between Geneseo systems and Google. | October 2012 |
| Locked Unused Knightweb Self-Service Accounts | Implemented new policy and locked thousands of unused accounts. | May 2013 |
| Reduced PHP Access | Reduced PHP access by 50% from personal web sites where it was no longer required greatly reducing risk in events where accounts are compromised. | May 2013 |
7. Identity Management/Federation
| Project / Service | Notes | Completion Date |
|---|---|---|
| DegreeWorks SUNY-wide implementation | Provided Banner integration, Single Sign-On, and secure access for SUNY-wide implementation of Banner DegreeWorks | Spring 2013 |
| uid number migration | Moved people with low "uid" numbers to a higher range to reduce problems with logins and other services. | October 2012 |
| Google password synchronization | To simplify the migration of Geneseo email services to Google, we enabled password synchronization between Geneseo and Google. Password changes on our systems are automatically made on Google servers. | October 2012 |
| Forgot password/password reset application | To enhance our customer service, we created a Web application that allows people to reset their own password using private personal information. We also added a feature that helps people create more secure passwords that adhere to the new password complexity policy. | October 2012 |
8. Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity plan updates and testing/Remote off-site location
| Project / Service | Notes | Completion Date |
|---|---|---|
| Milne network gear connected to generator | To improve the resiliency of the network in Milne, we have connected key network switches to the building generator. | March 2013 |
| Improved backup/recovery procedures for Banner related production databases | Implemented significantly improved backup/recovery procedures utilizing Oracle and VMWare technologies | Winter 2013 |
| Fire suppression system installation | To improve the survivability of our critical IT infrastructure, we are in the process of installing a fire suppression system in Erwin 1 (phone switch room), Erwin 2 (fiber optic cable nexus), Erwin 11 (secondary data center), and South 130B (primary data center). | June 2013 |
| NetBackup upgrade/installation | We upgraded the backup system to NetBackup 7.5 and added NetBackup appliances. | July 2012 |
| Uninterruptible Power Supplies in all data closets | As we migrate phone service to VoIP, it is necessary for all network data closets to have emergency power during outages. Some buildings have generators while others require a battery-powered power supply to maintain network connections during brief outages. | June 2013 |
| NYSERNet disaster recovery site in Syracuse | To reduce the amount of manual intervention for off-site backups, we contracted with NYSERNet for a remote data center. We have a third of a rack in Syracuse where we have equipment that provides some DR/BC functionality and a remote data storage appliance for off-site backups. | Spring 2013 |
| "Lifeboat" VMware ESX servers | Installed two VMware ESX servers to consolidate critical services hosted on physical machines. | July 2012 |
9. Banner 9 Migration (Training, infrastructure)
| Project / Service | Notes | Completion Date |
|---|---|---|
| Banner Forms 11g | Upgraded to Forms11g running on WebLogic Application server | June 2013 |
| Migrate FMCalc Java Application to WebLogic server. | Required to maintain supported vendor configuration. | Spring 2013 |
| Picture Class Roster Photo Performance | Utilized Banner 9 Grails Technology to deliver new version with significantly improved performance. This also provided training opportunity with Grails technology. | October 2012 |
| University Police Student Information Page | Provide University Police staff a web based tool to access student information to aid in performing their duties. | October 2012 |
10. Compliance/Litigation Hold, Document Retention/Storage
| Project / Service | Notes | Completion Date |
|---|---|---|
| Banner Data Purges |
| 2012-2013 |
| BDM/Xtender Purge for Admissions Documents |
| June 2012 |
11. Other
| Project / Service | Notes | Completion Date |
|---|---|---|
| Puppet Installation and Configuration | ||
| Gmail @ Geneseo | On April 1, 2013 Gmail@Geneseo became the exclusive email service for Geneseo account holders. Users were able to claim their Gmail account beginning January 1, 2013. All remaining accounts were automatically directed to Gmail by CIT on April 1. Gmail@Geneseo takes advantage of Gmail’s gigabytes of storage, highly effective spam filtering and powerful search while still retaining an@geneseo.edu address. | April 1, 2013 |
| Admissions BDM Report Manager (Auto-indexing) for Common App documents |
| Winter 2013 |
| Admissions BDM Report Manager (Auto-indexing) for Financial Aid Award Letters. |
| May 2013 |
Admissions BDM Report Manager (Auto-indexing) for Loan Disbursement Letters |
| June 2013 |
| Advancement Services Annual Fund Solicitation | Campaign fund raising data analysis and management. | August 2012 |
| Advancement Services Prospect Groups | Campaign fund raising data analysis and management. | August 2012 |
| Advancement Services Reusable Data Views | Campaign fund raising data analysis and management. | Summer 2012 |
| Advancement Services Interests and Affinities | Campaign fund raising data analysis and management. | Summer 2012 |
| Advancement Services Constituent Segmentation Management | Campaign fund raising data analysis and management. | July 2012 |
| Advancement - Volunteer Network | Implemented and customized Banner module allowing Advancement to manage volunteers who recruit donors amongst fellow alumni. The component is implemented within Knightweb (Banner SSB) and allows volunteers to access constituent information and communicate results. | Spring 2012 |
| Alumni - Online Donor Wall | Honor Roll of donors to give recognition to those who have contributed to college campaign. | Winter 2012 |
| Banner Financial Aid 2013-2014 Aid Year Implementation and support |
| March 2013 |
| Banner Financial Aid 2013-2014 QA Processing | Mandatory Quality Assurance (required by Fed). | Spring 2013 |
| Banner SSB Knightweb Course Search Enhancements | Improved usability. | Fall 2012 |
| Banner SUNY Financial Aid Award Letter (Shopping Sheet) | Allows applicants to more accurately compare packages offered by different institutions. | June 2012 |
| Campus Auxiliary Services (CAS) Website updates. | Implemented new template pages and provided other website enhancements | Fall 2012 |
| Campus Events Page | Implemented campus events "splash" page integrated with EMS and Master Calendar products to give Geneseo community better visibility to events happening on campus. | Summer 2012 |
| Co-curricular Transcript Enhancements |
| 2012-2013 |
| Docuware Integration with HR Employee Data |
| Spring 2013 |
| Drupal security patches and core upgrades | Applied patches and releases on quarterly basis. | 2012-2013 |
| Emergency Notification Management | Modified my.geneseo.edu to utilize emergency notifications initiated within www via drupal. This allows emergency team to initiate notification in single location but have it displayed in both websites (www and my.geneseo). | Spring 2013 |
| EMS (Event Management System) Application and Database upgrade | Updates Dean Evans EMS and Master Calendar products to latest versions including upgrade of SQLServer database to SQLServer 2012. | Spring 2013 |
| Student Code of Conduct |
| July 2013 |
| Geneseo Insomnia Film Festival |
| Spring 2013 |
| GOLD Website Enhancements |
| Fall 2012 |
| GREAT Day |
| April 2013 |
| my.geneseo.edu usage statistics | Developed monthly usage statistics reports to help management of the service | Summer 2012 |
| NCATE Assessment | Provide programming and data analysis required to pass the NCATE assessment review. | Fall 2012 |
| Residence Life Batch Room Assigment | Provided program to import room assignments from spreadsheet | Summer 2012 |
| Senate Voting Enhancements |
| Winter 2013 |
| SOFI Enhancements |
| 2013-2013 |
| Symplicity Residence Banner Data Integration | Provided two-way data integration with Symplicity Residence hosted service. Symplicity significantly improved Residence Life efficiency and also provided enhanced service to students. | Spring 2013 |
| Time-Off Accurals - Furloughs | Implemented mandatory contract related changes associated with time-off accrual processing | Fall 2012 |
| Video Hosting Support |
| 2012-2013 |
| WeComply Integration with HR Employee Data |
| Spring 2013 |
| Point-n-Click installation for Lauderdale | Over the year, we have been working on an installation of Point-n-Click. Point-n-Click provides the Health Center with software that assists with student health record management. Due to HIPPA compliance, we have had to make changes in the way the network is configured. | 2012-2013 |
| ElasticSearch/Logstash installation | Due to the rising maintenance cost of Splunk, a logging system, we investigated open-source alternatives. We found a replacement and have successfully replaced Splunk with ElasticSearch and Kibana. | November 2012 |
| OpsView Enterprise System Monitoring | We have installed a new monitoring system which enables us to analyze trends and provide enhanced notification. | March 2013 |
| Voice over IP (VoIP) phone replacements | We have converted the following departments to VoIP:
| 2012-2013 |
| Cisco Call Manager upgrade | We upgraded the Call Manager system. | January 2013 |
| Cisco VoiceMail Manager upgrade | We upgraded the Voicemail system with larger hard drives and to a later version of the software. | June 2013 |
| VMware ESX/VCenter upgrade | We upgraded the ESX hosts to the latest version, as well as the vCenter management server. | Feb 2013 |
| Roundcube/Exim upgrade | We upgraded the local Geneseo mail system in the beginning of the academic year. | July 2012 |