Manage/Enable the University
Operator Services Stats
During April 2012, Operator Services received 151,535 calls, with a 99 % answer rate. There were 5,200 requests to page physicians and other medical personnel. The team completed 19,932 pager modifications supporting patient care, 7,317 directory updates and 1,026 changes made to the On-Call schedules. A total of 875 conference calls were requested and processed and 435 Emergency Calls/Alerts were facilitated through the call center.
Vanderbilt Software Store WINS
The Vanderbilt Software Store has negotiated a contract with Qoppa Software for selling PDF Studio Pro to the Vanderbilt community. You can use PDF Studio to edit PDFs on Windows, Mac, and Linux systems. The Software Store will offer PDF Studio to the Vanderbilt community for 63% less than the cost of Adobe Acrobat Professional. If all departments convert to PDF Studio, Vanderbilt can expect to save over $60,000 per year.
The Vanderbilt Software Store has negotiated two new contracts with SAS Institute: The first contract upgrades our JMP site license to JMP Professional. JMP Professional is a product bundle that includes JMP, JMP Professional and SAS Simulation Studio.
The second contract converts our 1,000 user SAS licenses into an unlimited SAS site license for the same price. In addition, under the new contract, Vanderbilt gains access to SAS for Windows Server in addition to SAS for Windows and Linux desktops. Departments can save an estimated $4,815 per server in licensing costs during the first year and $3,823 in annual maintenance during subsequent years. Finally, researchers may use SAS on the ACCRE computing cluster for just $32 per user per year.
Training WIN
The month of April saw another successful SharePoint 2010 class which ‘graduated’ a total of eight individuals!
Crestron Fusion Room View – WIN
ITS system administrators supported the Division of Finance by deploying a software and hardware solution to manage conference rooms in their new space at Baker Building. The software integrates tablets deployed in the hallways with Vmail (powered by Microsoft Exchange) to allow real time scheduling and validation for conference room resources.
Network Services and Infrastructure Success
The Monroe Carell, Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt 33 bed expansion was completed during the month of April. This included five patient care floors, with voice installation of approximately 125 telephones.
The month of April saw ITS complete work on the new Shelbyville Clinic. This included a new ACD split and virtual forwards to point to local numbers.
ITS provided voice services for the Ronald McDonald Telethon.
ITS moved Creative Services from Baker Building to 3401 West End Avenue. This included a total of 18 moves.
ITS successfully completed 1,908 work order tasks during the month of April.
Security WINS
The ITS Firewall team installed new Facilities Firewalls, lifecycled the Scada Firewall, and decommissioned the AEA Firewall.
A new set of IPS malware prevention rules was implemented to protect the Medical Center in response to Flashback BOTs.
Virtual Private Network (VPN) service was enhanced with a new site to site tunnel for Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center, a new site to site tunnel for Acusis , and a decommission of the Medical Center 3030 VPN.
Exchange 2010 Upgrade WIN
ITS messaging administrators deployed two major technologies that the Exchange 2010 deployment project required; Blackberry Enterprise Server and Exchange 2010 Client Access Server (CAS). The Blackberry Enterprise Servers (BES) upgrade primarily provides compatibility to Exchange 2010, but will also provide new functionality to the community. The team also deployed the new Exchange 2010 CAS infrastructure. The new CAS infrastructure provides connectivity enhancements to the community in Exchange 2010 for non-traditional connection methods and opens the door for migrations away from the legacy Exchange system. ITS successfully facilitated 763 Blackberry users as they migrated to the new BES (Blackberry Enterprise Server). Two hundred eighty-three BES accounts were deleted.
Nextel Outage – a WIN
The Nextel outage precipitated issues, actions and resolutions that were addressed by a Debrief Committee organized by Pam Hoffner. Sprint provided a very prepared group of staff resources to respond and create an action plan for redundancy in the event of future problems. Sprint has assigned an Escalation Manager, Joy Snyder, to assist in any network changes or any other issues that may arrive in Sprint operations.
Tags: 2012
Manage/Enable the University
Operator Services Stats
During March 2012, Operator Services received 158,984 calls, with a 99 % answer rate. There were 5,140 requests to page physicians and other medical personnel. The team completed 19,951 pager modifications supporting patient care, 6,540 directory updates and 867 changes made to the On-Call schedules. A total of 860 conference calls were requested and processed and 570 Emergency Calls/Alerts were facilitated through the call center.
Vanderbilt Software Store WINS
The Vanderbilt Software Store is partnering with Microsoft to participate in Microsoft’s Service Provider License Agreement (SPLA) Program. Vanderbilt’s participation in SPLA will enable the university and medical center to use software licensed through Vanderbilt’s Microsoft Campus and Select contracts for commercial purposes. SPLA allows us to develop applications that use Microsoft software and host the applications for commercial use. In addition, SPLA provides a ‘pay-as-you-go’ licensing model that lets service providers pay for licenses based o monthly usage rates. SPLA permits Vanderbilt to host the commercial applications or software services it develops, or use third party hosting companies. The Software Store is working with Microsoft to enroll Vanderbilt in SPLA so that Vanderbilt may develop and sell software services that interact with Microsoft products.
Microsoft has launched a new program, Office University, for higher education. The program offers faculty and students discounted pricing ($99.95) for Office 2010 and Office for MAC 2011 for non-commercial use.
ITS has purchased and institutional subscription to Dreamspark for the campus community. Benefits will include: campus-wide access by students, faculty and IT staff; perpetual use rights to: Windows Server, Visual Studio Profession, Expression, etc. Faculty, Students and IT staff may use the software: to develop, support, conduct or take courses, labs or programs offered by Vanderbilt; for non-commercial research on behalf of Vanderbilt; to design, develop, test and demonstrate software programs.
VUnetID WIN
ITS worked with the Graduate School of Medicine to create VUnetID’s for the 250 new medical residents.
Training WINServiceNow, a 3rd party vendor, offered free ITIL training and certification. After negotiations, three ITS staff were scheduled for the training and certification. This training was valued at $1,399. In total, Vanderbilt sent five staff; three representing ITS and two from the Medical Center. This added to a total cost-saving of $6,995.
Directory Services WIN
ITS completed the RSA SecurID migration and deployment. Over 5,000 StarPanel users were migrated. Their tokens from the old Solaris 6.1 instance were upgraded to the Windows server managed by Directory Services. This deployment opens opportunities for other groups, University and Medical Center, to use dual-authentication service.
Network Services and Infrastructure Success
The month of March saw ITS complete the IP voice installation of Lebanon Eye Clinic. The facility went live with 12 ACD phones and 42 IP D-terms.
ITS completed the IP voice installation of Mt. Juliet Orthopedics. This consisted of 10 IP D-terms.
During the month of March, ITS completed the upgrade and improvements to the wireless at Jesup Hall. These AP’s are now on the Cisco wireless controller, expanding our test for the controller functionality.
ITS successfully completed the lifecycle of the Olin 6509 router.
eProcurement Win
The month of March saw a total of 97 items now displaying in the ITS Online Catalog in eProcurement.
University Management Desktop Program Win
ITS desktop support staff assisted Cynthia Cyrus, Assoc. Provost, with setting up a treadmill computer work station. The workstation allows the operator to see the computer screen on a wall mounted TV and use a wireless keyboard and mouse.
Security Win
The ITS Security team deployed Communication Firewalls in VUH Data Center. This is currently being used with Lync, but will have other uses in the future.
VUMC Cellular Support Win
ITS assisted the VUMC emergency coordination team with the 48 hour Nextel outage. ITS staff coordinated all communications, conference calls, and updates with the Sprint technical and support teams until the issue was resolved.
Tags: 2012
Manage/Enable the University
Operator Services Stats
During February 2012, Operator Services received 191,334 calls, with a 99.1 % answer rate. There were 6,198 requests to page physicians and other medical personnel. The team completed 24,466 pager modifications supporting patient care, 6,763 directory updates and 1,269 changes made to the On-Call schedules. A total of 1,089 conference calls were requested and processed and 445 Emergency Calls/Alerts were facilitated through the call center.
ITS Conferencing WIN
February saw a WIN with ITS hosting a successful video conference between Ft. Knox personnel and 20 participants from Vanderbilt’s ROTC. This event was held at Hill Center, Rm. 221, using the ITS Mobile unit. The purpose of the video conference was an inspection follow-up, thus saving Ft. Knox personnel the need of a physical inspection to peruse inspection findings. Vanderbilt ROTC presented PowerPoint slides, in addition to seeing and conversing with their counterparts at Ft. Knox.
VSG Election WIN
ITS was alerted by Vanderbilt Student Government (VSG) representatives of errors in their home-grown student voting system. ITS discovered data formatting errors in the VUnet database and collaborated with the Housing Office to correct and insert data into LDAP for use in voting and other ITS-provided services (e.g., mailing lists). The VSG voting system was modified by ITS personnel to use LDAP instead of the legacy VUnet database.
eProcurement Win
ITS has 93 items in the ITS catalog on eProcurement. Over 41% of all ITS orders were processed in eProcurement in February.
Domain Name Policy WIN
ITS, in partnership with Public Affairs, Office of General Counsel, and Trademark Licensing, has developed a domain name policy for the university and medical center. Benefits of the new policy include: Centralized domain name tracking; proper use of Vanderbilt’s trademarks; cost savings for the enterprise; and protection of Vanderbilt-related websites against third party control. In support of this effort, ITS negotiated a Vanderbilt discount for registering domains through Network Solutions, a top rated domain registrar. Vanderbilt expects to reduce domain related costs by 80% under the new contract. Finally, as part of the new policy, the Software Store will track domain expiration dates and send renewal alerts to domain stakeholders. This will ensure Vanderbilt does not unintentionally lose control of its domains to third parties.
Vanderbilt Software Store WIN
Within the last several months, the Software Store conducted a customer satisfaction survey which asked how service could be improved; the most popular recommendations were to consolidate our two storefronts and to provide asset tracking capabilities. In response, the Software Store, in partnership with e-academy, placed a new store in production during January 2012. Benefits of the new store include: Vanderbilt students, faculty, staff, and departments can buy software at discount through a single storefront; departments may use the store to track software assets by computer name, end user, or both; the Software Store can provide the community with a more secure and dependable software download service; and the Software Store can leverage its relationship with e-academy to offer new products and services through e-academy’s partnerships with software manufacturers.
Network Services and Infrastructure Success
ITS completed the move of the telephone PBX previously servicing 1114 19th Avenue South to the Vanderbilt University Hospital (VUH). By moving this PBX to VUH, ITS was able to increase the PBX capacity for the Bryan Building switch room; where additional telephone resources were needed. The results of this move provided an additional 768 ports to the buildings being fed out of the Bryan switch room.
The month of February saw ITS complete the installation of a secondary data connection to Loews/Vanderbilt office building. This connection is accomplished over a wireless technology and provides a 1 GB per-second connection rate. The addition of this will allow ITS to continue a rollout of IP telephony at this location.
During the month of February, ITS installed UPS’s (back-up power) to the network equipment throughout Buttrick Hall. This will prevent any network outages during power interruptions when the normal power switches over to generator power. This provides a higher available network in Buttrick Hall.
ITS successfully completed approximately 3,579 work order tasks for voice and data services during the month of February.
ITS coordinated the conversation of Lebanon Eye Associates to Vanderbilt’s voice network. This included 50 telephones and four Automatic Call Distribution splits.
ITS Security Wins
In February, ITS Security lifecycled the Research firewalls, installed new Sungard firewalls. Security also completed two Medical Center network address translation (NAT) moves. They also consolidated and improved firewall infrastructure back-up processes.
Application Hosting Win
All Application Hosting servers have been upgraded to SCOM R2. This software upgrade keeps our monitoring software current and gives us access to new monitoring features.
Tags: 2012
Manage/Enable the University
Operator Services Stats
During January 2012, Operator Services received 152,271 calls, with a 98.5 % answer rate. There were 5,113 requests to page physicians and other medical personnel. The team completed 19,869 pager modifications supporting patient care, 14,629 directory updates and 821 changes made to the On-Call schedules. A total of 767 conference calls were requested and processed and 370 Emergency Calls/Alerts were facilitated through the call center.
ITS Educational WIN
January saw a WIN with ITS hosting two SharePoint classes. Each class successfully trained 10 participants.
AIMWorX WIN
ITS has released the RFP to three possible suppliers for proposals to replace the AIMWorX system. Proposals are due back by mid-March, after which an evaluation will be conducted by ITS management.
ITS Online Procurement Improvement WIN
By the end of January, there are 92 items in the ITS catalog in eProcurement. Over 40% of ITS orders were processed in eProcurement for the month of January.
Enterprise Network Security WINS
All Vanderbilt University Enterprise Firewalls are now being monitored by MRTG. This creates notification redundancy of real-time issues, allows for additional statistics collection, and decreases trouble-shooting times by reducing the necessary steps to view traffic for the interfaces of the Firewalls.
Next Generation Client Access WIN
The month of January saw Next Generation Client Access (NGCA) surpass the 200 mark on deployed desktops and laptops. This progress has been made since the program’s inception in August of 2011.
Network Services and Infrastructure Success
ITS facilitated and completed the Monroe Caroll, Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt Doctor’s Office Tower 10th floor move and installation. This installation included 50 D-term telephones, 39 moves and three ACDs.
The month of January saw TS successfully complete a two-phase installation of 20 telephones at The Vanderbilt Clinic Stem Cell Center.
ITS facilitated the move of the Franklin Cardiology group. This installation included 37 installs, 22 moves, 20 ACD telephones, two E911 systems and an EKG machine.
ITS repurposed an IPX system (voice system) to be used for patient phones recovering approximately 300 ports in the Admin voice network.
During the month of January, ITS decommissioned the auto attendant system that was solely used for AT&T 411 information calls by moving this function to the new AVST voice mail system.
Security camera data activations went well in January; as eight were installed in Gillette Hall and seven in West Hall.
ITS successfully completed approximately 4,816 work order tasks for the month of January.
Tags: 2012
Manage/Enable the University
Streaming WINS
The College of Arts and Science, Development and Alumni Relations, and ITS conducted an interactive webinar in which Dean Carolyn Dever spoke to the “College Cabinet” (select friends of the College nationwide) from her Kirkland Hall office and took their questions by email. The one-hour event was streamed using ITS’ Polycom RealPresence Capture Station. ITS was responsible for the lion’s share of the coordination and production work for this event. “Cabinet” members saw the Dean speaking in one resizable Silverlight pane inside their browsers and watched her PowerPoint presentation in another such pane. This was the first such event conducted at Vanderbilt with the Polycom device and is reported to have been a solid success for all involved.
A researcher in VUMC has videos of human heart activity that support one of his research hypotheses. He needed to make those videos available to persons at the National Institute of Health (NIH) in a secure fashion, for a limited time, while controlling the videos (not allowing download or further distribution). ITS facilitated the researcher with a folder on ITS’ streaming media storage, transcoded the original videos into a streaming format, then coached the researcher’s technical staff in setting up a password-protected web page on which NIH staff can watch the videos.
Operator Services Stats
During December 2011, Operator Services received 143,619 calls, with a 99 % answer rate. There were 5,021 requests to page physicians and other medical personnel. The team completed 20,078 pager modifications supporting patient care, 13,230 directory updates and 564 changes made to the On-Call schedules. A total of 673 conference calls were requested and processed and 405 Emergency Calls/Alerts were facilitated through the call center.
Exchange 2010 Success
December saw a WIN with the Exchange 2010 project. The assessment of Outlook 2003 Clients was completed and the information was provided to Dr. Stead. In addition, the Mailbox server has been installed.
Web WIN
ITS successfully completed the final step in the upgrade and launch of the new and improved ITS website. The upgraded site now utilizes Drupal 6 and is themed to match the main Vanderbilt website.
ITS Online Procurement Improvement WIN
An additional 10 items have been added to the ITS eProcurement catalog. Over 35% of ITS orders are now being processed in eProcurement.
Enterprise Network Security WINS
ITS successfully facilitated the consolidation of all firewall contracts for Vanderbilt. This resulted in enhanced management of Medical Center contracts and the clean-up of unused licensing and the addition of unsupported devices. The end result was an $80,000 savings for 1 year.
Next Generation Client Access WIN
During the month of December ITS successfully deployed 32 systems. This allowed NGCA to remain on track.
Network Services and Infrastructure Success
ITS facilitated and completed the upgrade of the Dean of Students Master Calendar. The calendar now resides on ITS MS SQL server.
ITS successfully migrated all copper connections from the Hill-6513 router to the new Nexus router. Five 48 port ethernet boards were vacated to allow their being returned at the end of their lease window. ITS framed this migration as an opportunity to remove older patch panels from the Hill Data Center and connect servers directly to in-rack distribution switches.
ITS facilitated the move of the Murfreesboro Cardiology group. This installation included 14 ACD telephones, 24 IP D-Term telephones, AT&T Metro E, PRI and training of staff.
Tags: 2011
Manage/Enable the University
Vanderbilt Student Government (VSG) WIN
Earlier in the month of November, ITS representatives met with a group of Vanderbilt Student Government’s (VSG) Technology Committee. Issues disclosed included: VU Gmail and Google Apps for Education, ITS Help Desk contact information and hours, antivirus software availability, Wi-Fi network coverage on campus, Vanderbilt Software Store, and wireless phone coverage and providers. As a result of this meeting an email was sent to all students with information regarding many ITS services and how to get them. ITS will meet with the Technology Committee members regularly.
Operator Services Stats
During November 2011, Operator Services received 189,810 calls, with a 99 % answer rate. There were 6,601 requests to page physicians and other medical personnel. The team completed 25,129 pager modifications supporting patient care, 16,054 directory updates and 1,306 changes made to the On-Call schedules. A total of 932 conference calls were requested and processed and 602 Emergency Calls/Alerts were facilitated through the call center.
Exchange 2010 Success
November saw a WIN with the Exchange 2010 HUB and CAS servers being installed. Currently, there is an on-going assessment of clients still using Outlook 2003.
Web Refactoring WIN
ITS successfully deleted 145 outdated and/or unused web sites.
Application Hosting WIN
The Vanderbilt email antivirus and anti-spam services have been fully migrated from ProofPoint to Microsoft Forefront Online Protection for Exchange (FOPE). The ProofPoint servers have been powered off and retired. The FOPE service is a cloud-based service which frees-up valuable data center resources, and leverages the Vanderbilt Microsoft Agreement.
Enterprise Network Security WINS
ITS successfully configured VU firewalls to allow the Network Operations Center (NOC) to monitor in a standard format. ITS added a PAT overflow IP address to resolve the issue of running out of ports. The Medical Center edge firewall was dropping packets due to not having enough ports to perform proper port translation.
ITS successfully facilitated the distribution of the new Secure Remote client to end users. The new client is supported by checkpoint and is compatible with the upgraded software of the firewalls. This client has fixed many of the issues that Division of Administration (DOA) has been running into with users, and can also allow the Network Security team to deploy more advanced encryption methods to protect user’s valuable data.
During November there was a launch of a pilot Check Point extender SSL VPN Client. This provides ITS Network Design and Engineering (NDE) and Network Security a secure, reliable means of remotely accessing the many critical components required for network operations using only a web browser. Prior to this change, they needed a separate VPN client installed on each machine. This will enable NDE and Network Security to respond and administer the equipment from any machine as long as it has a web browser, thus, lowering response times.
Network Services and Infrastructure Success
During the month of November, Development and Alumni Relations relocated from Loews Vanderbilt Plaza to 2525 West End Avenue. The successful event encompassed 59 moves and six installations.
The Office of Strategy and Planning transitioned from 2525 West End Avenue to the Baker Building. This move included four OCS installations and five IP phone moves.
ITS successfully assisted in the move of Finance within the Baker Building. The event included 36 moves and 19 data activations.
ITS successfully assisted in the move of the Otolaryngology Call Center to the Green Hills Office Building. This move included the installation of 35 phones with Automatic Call Distribution.
ITS Website Win
The server that hosts the ITS website was migrated to a new version of PHP. This paves the way for the upgrade of the content management system (Drupal) to the latest release.
AT&T Cellular Win
The AT&T cell-site and in-building contracts were signed, and returned for execution to AT&T. This will provide extended AT&T coverage to some of the Medical Center and University buildings.
OCS Training Win
End User Services provided a class for Human Resources Service Delivery staff on Communicator/Live Meeting. The class was held at 2525 West End Ave., at the department’s request. Approximately 22 people were trained.
Tags: 2011
Manage/Enable the University
Streaming WINS
During the month of October, Streaming Media Services captured 34 separate events, tying the monthly record set in October 2010. Highlights included: 12 hours of continuous live streaming of the Vanderbilt Marching Invitational; archival recordings of the Naval ROTC National Security Symposium, featuring former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers; Infectious Disease Grand Rounds; the Divinity School-Cole Lectures, guest speakers John Seigenthaler, Van Jones, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons; six sessions each of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute classes; and “DigitalVU month” presentations.
Operator Services Stats
During October 2011, Operator Services received 158,749 calls, with a 98.6% answer rate. There were 5,186 requests to page physicians and other medical personnel. The team completed 20,307 pager modifications supporting patient care, 14,461 directory updates and 827 changes made to the On-Call schedules. A total of 757 conference calls were requested and processed and 513 Emergency Calls/Alerts were facilitated through the call center.
WIN for Verizon In-Building System
October saw the Verizon In-Building System Project successfully completed. It is now fully operational. The areas covered are Medical Center North, Vanderbilt University Hospital, The Vanderbilt Clinic, Preston Research Building, Medical Center East and Medical Research Building 4.
Success Regarding Individual VUSpace
Vanderbilt’s existing service for hosting individual websites, VUSpace, was retired on October 1, 2011. In order to continue to provide Vanderbilt faculty, staff, and students a service and tools to build and maintain their individual web pages My.Vanderbilt.edu was launched. Built and supported by University Web Communications and Information Technology Services using the open source content management system WordPress, my.vanderbilt.edu gives students an attractive and well-functioning space in which they can build a portfolio of their work at Vanderbilt, a place for faculty individual or laboratory websites, and staff websites relevant to their expertise and job. Because my.vanderbilt.edu is powered by WordPress, no Web programming knowledge is needed on the part of the user to use it.
Service Delivery and Project Management Win
ITS Service Delivery and Project Management successfully migrated data capture and reporting for projects, community happenings, unit profiles and capacity planning to SharePoint 2010. By leveraging SharePoint, ITS can eliminate the OWL server and the Quickbase licensing.
Arts and Science WINS
The Vanderbilt Institute for Clinical and Translational Research has won a five-year $20 million federal grant to coordinate a national consortium that aims to advance biomedical research nationwide. This is the Clinical and Translational Science Awards Coordinating Center grant. In support of VICTR’s implementation of the coordinating center, ITS has helped to secure a new Internet domain (CTSAC4.org). In addition, ITS has made changes to Vanderbilt’s email system to enable it to host mailboxes and to transport mail for CTSAC4.org, and has created 25 Shared Exchange Mailboxes on that domain for the Institute’s use.
The Arts and Science Administrative Officer runs a number of applications in Microsoft Access as part of his financial work for the school. They have a need to share these applications with others, not just in Kirkland Hall, but in France and Spain, as well. In working with the school’s technical support service and the Dean’s Office, ITS has given them a SharePoint site under which they can publish Access applications, and has identified online training materials (courseware and e-books) to help with the project.
The Sociology Department, has developed models, to be run in SAS (statistical software), for projecting the health benefits to imprisoned populations in the US by virtue of access to health care in prison. They won two small grants to help make the statistical models available online for use by other researchers, public policy groups, and governmental agencies. ITS has helped in the specification of requirements for the project and in the determination of which SAS products are needed for the web-facing application. The ITS Software Store is presently in negotiations with SAS regarding changes to the Vanderbilt contract, including terms that would reduce software costs. When implemented, Sociology’s application will probably be hosted on a grant-funded virtual server from ITS.
Application Hosting WINS
As part of the work effort to decommission the Hill 6513 router, all of the departmental routers in the Hill Data Center have been moved to the new Nexus router. The Colo, Research, and Law/Owen firewalls have been migrated. This effort enables ITS to remove aging hardware from the data center.
The new my.vanderbilt.edu website was placed behind the ITS load balancers. The new load balanced site provides an extra level of redundancy to a growing website and protects the site against a server failure.
ITS has freed-up Surgical Sciences staff and computing resources. Surgical Sciences was hosting their own SharePoint 2007 farm. ITS has taken the two site collections from their farm, and upgraded them to SharePoint 2010. ITS then converted their two site collections to sub-sites on the ITS SharePoint 2010 farm. ITS has added CTSAC4.org as an accepted domain in Vmail and FOPE in support of a VUMC research project. This enabled customized email addresses for the project.
Network Services and Infrastructure Success
During the month of October, the Columbia Cardiology group was cutover to VU ACD phone service: 15 IP telephones were upgraded to ACD.
The month of October saw a lot of activity at the Centre and Baker Buildings; ITS moved over 20 phones to facilitate renovations.
ITS successfully life cycled the network equipment used for the voice “Fusion” network.
End User Services WIN
ITS and the staff at Barnes & Noble successfully worked together to move the University’s bookstore from Rand Hall to the corner of 25th and West End Ave. The new location offers adjacent parking, expanded hours, Vanderbilt textbooks, course materials, apparel and other university items. A café will also be housed in the store.
Tags: 2011
September 30th, 2011 · No Comments
Manage/Enable the University
Virtual WIN
The month of September saw ITS work with Owen School to create a customized meeting room on the video conferencing bridge to conduct student job interviews and working sessions with distance partners. Owen School successfully connected with Nissan corporate offices in Japan. The advantages of a customized meeting room is that once it is set-up, it requires no intervention on the part of ITS, and can be accessed anytime. This is particularly important when conferences are held with overseas participants in varying time zones.
WIN for the Law School
ITS worked with Law IT to assist with the infrastructure changes needed to support ITS’s VMware View VDI pilot; including storage, backup, networking and firewall rules. This was done in a tight time line to bring the system online before the academic year began. Currently, there are 100 virtual machines, with 25% of them being used at any given time.
Operator Services Stats
During September 2011, Operator Services received 147,914 calls, with a 98.8 answer rate. There were 5,182 requests to page physicians and other medical personnel. The team completed 19,467 pager modifications supporting patient care, 19,680 directory updates and 626 changes made to the On-Call schedules. A total of 747 conference calls were requested and processed and 416 Emergency Calls/Alerts were facilitated through the call center.
Malware Prevention – OpenDNS
ITS successfully implemented Malware Prevention (OpenDNS) at VUMC. Should users inadvertently visit an infected website, the service generates a ‘block screen’ informing them that malware has been detected and the site cannot be accessed at that time. Sites are monitored in real time on a regular basis, so that they can be accessed again after malware issues have been resolved.
WIN for F5 Lifecycle
In September, the F5 load balancer lifecycle implementation came to a successful resolution. During this lifecycle, both firewalls and the F5 equipment were upgraded to enhance network functionality.
Network Services and Infrastructure Success
The month of September brought the successful completion to several network Lifecycle tasks totaling 28 Wireless Access Points (AP’s) and two network switches. The completed buildings include: 1202 18th Avenue South, 1110 19th Avenue South, 625 Chestnut, the Black Cultural Center, the Library Archives, Hawkins Field House, Stadium Club/HealthPlus, the Library Annex, Schulman Center and Student Rec.
ITS successfully improved wireless network coverage in Kirkland Hall; by adding Wireless Access Points in areas where coverage was weak, or did not exist. Kirkland Hall is now 100% covered.
During the month of September, ITS successfully completed 3,452 voice work order tasks; this is up a total of 200 from the same time frame last year.
Overall University wireless coverage is now 70%.
Security WINS
The month of September saw ITS successfully re-align the host quarantine process for the Medical Center. ITS also deployed and lifecycled the Sungard Firewall Manager and the Sungard Disaster Recovery Firewall. The Medical Center Edge Firewall upgrade (software-Phase I) was successfully completed.
ITS Online Procurement Improvement WIN
September saw the successful rollout of the ITS Online Catalog of Products and Services, through eProcurement. This initiative was announced to the entire Vanderbilt community as an option to replace the paper A-Requisition/1180 process. The catalog is now ITS’s preferred ordering process.
Application Hosting WIN
As part of a life cycle effort, the Application Hosting team replaced the F5 load balancers with new hardware. The new F5 Viprion load balancers offer new features, and more bandwidth, to accommodate the anticipated new applications and traffic growth. The scheduled change was performed as a live migration with minimal impact to load balanced services.
Voice Services WIN
ITS coordinated the installation of a fifteen agent Automatic Call Distribution application for Vanderbilt Heart’s Columbia clinic. Work will continue with Vanderbilt Heart as Franklin and Murfreesboro will also become part of this application in the coming weeks.
Tags: 2011
Manage/Enable the University
VUmailguard Proofpoint Replacement with Forefront Online
During August, all email, both outbound and inbound, is now passing through Microsoft FOPE. ITS utilizes the cloud-based service to reduce complexity and the amount of physical infrastructure to support mail filtering.
ITS Data Center Firewall Project
August 2011 saw a lot of progress in this important initiative. There was a reduction of 1 pair of firewalls (Network Operations Center Firewall), the subsequent clean-up of the 129.59.1.0/24 public network where 169 IP addresses were reclaimed and 94 of 118 backups were either discontinued or moved to private interface in our storage environment. This additionally removed traffic that passed through the firewalls.
Operator Services Stats
During August 2011, Operator Services received 201,076 calls, with a 98.4 answer rate. There were 6,843 requests to page physicians and other medical personnel. The team completed 25,355 pager modifications supporting patient care, 19,122 directory updates and 664 changes made to the On-Call schedules. A total of 864 conference calls were requested and processed and 429 Emergency Calls/Alerts were facilitated through the call center.
Security WINS
In the month of August, ITS facilitated the removal of two medical center firewalls. We successfully removed Firewall IP-40 from service (Skyro) and we subsequently removed Firewall IP-40 (Whamo) from service. We are proudly reducing our firewalls one at a time.
Human Resources Firewall WIN
The month of August culminated a many-months-long initiative that moved all of Human Resources, residing in the 2525 West End Avenue building and in the Student Life Center, behind a firewall. This initiative is key; as it provides additional protection and security, to the PCs in that department, from hacking to reduce the chance of data theft.
Desktop Support SharePoint Site
August 2011 saw the creation of the new SharePoint site for Desktop Support. This site improves the ability to locate the team’s support documents and the means to create new documents; thus, saving time and improving the ability to support users more quickly and efficiently.
Network Services and Infrastructure Success
The month of August brought a successful Student Return … with very few incidents reported. The third floor of the Commons was built-out as the new Political Science department. ITS successfully installed 49 IP phones, activated 127 data ports and installed wireless coverage. ITS facilitated 140 data port activations and wireless coverage for Molecular Biology. Olin Hall saw 37 telephone installations, ITS completed the Au Bon Pain installation, and Arts and Sciences (Furman & Stevenson) received 21 data port activations. In addition, during the month of August, ITS successfully facilitated and completed work at the Law School, Owen, and Sony/BMG. There was a total of 2,391 work order tasks (moves, additions, and changes) completed during August, 2011.
Application Hosting WINS
During August, ITS augmented streaming support for Apple devices. We updated the shared streaming services to include support for iPhone and iPad devices, as these mobile devices are becoming more common on campus ITS upgraded the fire suppression system in the research zone in the Hill Data Center, replacing the aging system with current hardware, thus avoiding issues arising from scarce parts or supplies.
Student Move-In Weekend WIN
For Student Return this year ITS participated in the Services and Resources Fair, provided materials and assisted in assembling new student backpacks, and ordered and distributed patch cables for new students.
Provost’s New Faculty Orientation WIN
ITS participated in the Provost’s orientation for new Vanderbilt faculty members on Mon Aug 22. This is the first time ITS has participated. The new faculty were introduced to: the tiered structure of technology services and support at Vanderbilt, including how to find the right Local Support Provider (LSP) and ITS Service Delivery Manager (SDM), basic security practices around ePasswords and sensitive data, it was explained that many no-cost and low-cost shared services are available to them and they were given a sampling of ITS services. The session was a success and was well attended by 47 tenured and non-tenured faculty.
Web Win
ITS has created the ‘ITS Training’ web page. This page will be the place where users can download codes for Microsoft Office training.
Tags: 2011
Manage/Enable the University
Administrative Phone Upgrade
During July, a series of upgrades to the administrative phone system were successfully completed impacting the Medical Center proper, 100 Oaks, and multiple locations near the main campus. ITS staff was acknowledged for thorough communication and efficient change management. Similar upgrades will be executed on an annual basis.
ITS Online Procurement Improvement Project WIN
On July 6, ITS deployed a new catalog for ITS Products and Services that integrates with eProcurement. This enables ITS to capture necessary information from customers without a paper requisition or 1180. ITS increased the number of catalog items from 14 to 51. The new catalog is user-friendly, and resembles many on-line shopping experiences.
End User Services WIN
During the month of July, ITS successfully installed a PC in the Baker Building which is a Site Kiosk for students to access the Student Account Website at Vanderbilt, with a link to Sallie Mae (for financial assistance) and Gallagher Koster (for insurance information). All other sites, except other Vanderbilt sites, have been blocked to keep the PC safe and secure. As an additional enhancement, if the student walks away while logged into a session, the PC times out and clears cache, settings and history. Finally, in order to save power, the PC automatically turns off at 7 PM and turns itself back on at 6 AM on weekdays.
Operator Services Stats
During July 2011, Operator Services received 162,866 calls, with a 98.3 answer rate. There were 5,434 requests to page physicians and other medical personnel. The team completed 20,254 pager modifications supporting patient care, 28,578 directory updates and 674 changes made to the On-Call schedules. A total of 631 conference calls were requested and processed and 308 Emergency Calls/Alerts were facilitated through the call center.
Security WINS
In the month of July, ITS facilitated a Security Awareness presentation to the Treasury Office. The presentation was titled ‘Web and Email Security' and was well attended.
During the month of July, the Vanderbilt Firewall team successfully upgraded several firewalls. The upgrade provided stability and continued software support. The firewalls were:
Bryan BCL
Featheringill BCL
Hill BCL
Library Annex
UA BCL
Cohen
VPD 100 Oaks
VPD PRB
VPD VCH
VPD VUH
Resliving
Infrastructure Success
During the month of July, ITS Network Services successfully life-cycled Aps in the Common's Center and in Kirkland Hall; switches in Student Rec and routers for UA, Calhoun and Hill Center.
ITS successfully converted Lebanon Neurology and Lebanon Cardiology to the Vanderbilt voice network.
In the month of July, ITS successfully facilitated the move of 18 telephones from various campus locations to 2146 Belcourt Avenue.
The month of July saw Vanderbilt University Police Department (VUPD) renovations completed. VUPD Dispatch moved to the 111 28th Avenue Building and will be called the Communications Center. The Emergency Operations Center (EOC) is on the 2nd floor with an ‘overflow or control' operation in the Chief's office. This was an extensive renovation and move; which included: 41 phone moves and three phone installations, activation of 94 data ports and relocating the Motorola equipment, four radio channels recorded and 12 dry circuits to Vanderbilt Medical Center.
Application Hosting WINS
UPS Maintenance
ITS replaced the battery packs in two Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS) in the Hill Data Center. The eight hour task to replace 60 batteries was completed with no downtime or impact to the mission critical services hosted in the Hill Data Center. The new batteries are essential for maximizing the amount of available backup power during times when utility power is not stable.
Research Storage Expansion
ITS added 192 TB of storage to the BlueArc research storage arrays. This expansion provides the Vanderbilt research community with more high speed storage space to continue their research activities.
Upgraded RedHat Network Satellite Deployed
ITS has deployed a new RedHat Network Satellite server. This new server gives the Vanderbilt community accesses to the latest versions of RedHat Enterprise Linux.
anage/Enable the University
Administrative Phone UpgradeDuring July, a series of upgrades to the administrative phone system were successfully completed impacting the Medical Center proper, 100 Oaks, and multiple locations near the main campus. ITS staff was acknowledged for thorough communication and efficient change management. Similar upgrades will be executed on an annual basis. ITS Online Procurement Improvement Project WINOn July 6, ITS deployed a new catalog for ITS Products and Services that integrates with eProcurement. This enables ITS to capture necessary information from customers without a paper requisition or 1180. ITS increased the number of catalog items from 14 to 51. The new catalog is user-friendly, and resembles many on-line shopping experiences. End User Services WINDuring the month of July, ITS successfully installed a PC in the Baker Building which is a Site Kiosk for students to access the Student Account Website at Vanderbilt, with a link to Sallie Mae (for financial assistance) and Gallagher Koster (for insurance information). All other sites, except other Vanderbilt sites, have been blocked to keep the PC safe and secure. As an additional enhancement, if the student walks away while logged into a session, the PC times out and clears cache, settings and history. Finally, in order to save power, the PC automatically turns off at 7 PM and turns itself back on at 6 AM on weekdays. Operator Services StatsDuring July 2011, Operator Services received 162,866 calls, with a 98.3 answer rate. There were 5,434 requests to page physicians and other medical personnel. The team completed 20,254 pager modifications supporting patient care, 28,578 directory updates and 674 changes made to the On-Call schedules. A total of 631 conference calls were requested and processed and 308 Emergency Calls/Alerts were facilitated through the call center. Security WINSIn the month of July, ITS facilitated a Security Awareness presentation to the Treasury Office. The presentation was titled ‘Web and Email Security’ and was well attended. During the month of July, the Vanderbilt Firewall team successfully upgraded several firewalls. The upgrade provided stability and continued software support. The firewalls were: Bryan BCLFeatheringill BCLHill BCLLibrary AnnexUA BCLCohenVPD 100 OaksVPD PRBVPD VCHVPD VUHResliving Infrastructure SuccessDuring the month of July, ITS Network Services successfully life-cycled Aps in the Common’s Center and in Kirkland Hall; switches in Student Rec and routers for UA, Calhoun and Hill Center. ITS successfully converted Lebanon Neurology and Lebanon Cardiology to the Vanderbilt voice network. In the month of July, ITS successfully facilitated the move of 18 telephones from various campus locations to 2146 Belcourt Avenue. The month of July saw Vanderbilt University Police Department (VUPD) renovations completed. VUPD Dispatch moved to the 111 28th Avenue Building and will be called the Communications Center. The Emergency Operations Center (EOC) is on the 2nd floor with an ‘overflow or control’ operation in the Chief’s office. This was an extensive renovation and move; which included: 41 phone moves and three phone installations, activation of 94 data ports and relocating the Motorola equipment, four radio channels recorded and 12 dry circuits to Vanderbilt Medical Center. Application Hosting WINS UPS Maintenance ITS replaced the battery packs in two Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS) in the Hill Data Center. The eight hour task to replace 60 batteries was completed with no downtime or impact to the mission critical services hosted in the Hill Data Center. The new batteries are essential for maximizing the amount of available backup power during times when utility power is not stable. Research Storage Expansion ITS added 192 TB of storage to the BlueArc research storage arrays. This expansion provides the Vanderbilt research community with more high speed storage space to continue their research activities. Upgraded RedHat Network Satellite Deployed ITS has deployed a new RedHat Network Satellite server. This new server gives the Vanderbilt community accesses to the latest versions of RedHat Enterprise Linux. Manage/Enable the University
Administrative Phone Upgrade
During July, a series of upgrades to the administrative phone system were successfully completed impacting the Medical Center proper, 100 Oaks, and multiple locations near the main campus. ITS staff was acknowledged for thorough communication and efficient change management. Similar upgrades will be executed on an annual basis.
ITS Online Procurement Improvement Project WIN
On July 6, ITS deployed a new catalog for ITS Products and Services that integrates with eProcurement. This enables ITS to capture necessary information from customers without a paper requisition or 1180. ITS increased the number of catalog items from 14 to 51. The new catalog is user-friendly, and resembles many on-line shopping experiences.
End User Services WIN
During the month of July, ITS successfully installed a PC in the Baker Building which is a Site Kiosk for students to access the Student Account Website at Vanderbilt, with a link to Sallie Mae (for financial assistance) and Gallagher Koster (for insurance information). All other sites, except other Vanderbilt sites, have been blocked to keep the PC safe and secure. As an additional enhancement, if the student walks away while logged into a session, the PC times out and clears cache, settings and history. Finally, in order to save power, the PC automatically turns off at 7 PM and turns itself back on at 6 AM on weekdays.
Operator Services Stats
During July 2011, Operator Services received 162,866 calls, with a 98.3 answer rate. There were 5,434 requests to page physicians and other medical personnel. The team completed 20,254 pager modifications supporting patient care, 28,578 directory updates and 674 changes made to the On-Call schedules. A total of 631 conference calls were requested and processed and 308 Emergency Calls/Alerts were facilitated through the call center.
Security WINS
In the month of July, ITS facilitated a Security Awareness presentation to the Treasury Office. The presentation was titled ‘Web and Email Security' and was well attended.
During the month of July, the Vanderbilt Firewall team successfully upgraded several firewalls. The upgrade provided stability and continued software support. The firewalls were:
Bryan BCL
Featheringill BCL
Hill BCL
Library Annex
UA BCL
Cohen
VPD 100 Oaks
VPD PRB
VPD VCH
VPD VUH
Resliving
Infrastructure Success
During the month of July, ITS Network Services successfully life-cycled Aps in the Common's Center and in Kirkland Hall; switches in Student Rec and routers for UA, Calhoun and Hill Center.
ITS successfully converted Lebanon Neurology and Lebanon Cardiology to the Vanderbilt voice network.
In the month of July, ITS successfully facilitated the move of 18 telephones from various campus locations to 2146 Belcourt Avenue.
The month of July saw Vanderbilt University Police Department (VUPD) renovations completed. VUPD Dispatch moved to the 111 28th Avenue Building and will be called the Communications Center. The Emergency Operations Center (EOC) is on the 2nd floor with an ‘overflow or control' operation in the Chief's office. This was an extensive renovation and move; which included: 41 phone moves and three phone installations, activation of 94 data ports and relocating the Motorola equipment, four radio channels recorded and 12 dry circuits to Vanderbilt Medical Center.
Application Hosting WINS
UPS Maintenance
ITS replaced the battery packs in two Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS) in the Hill Data Center. The eight hour task to replace 60 batteries was completed with no downtime or impact to the mission critical services hosted in the Hill Data Center. The new batteries are essential for maximizing the amount of available backup power during times when utility power is not stable.
Research Storage Expansion
ITS added 192 TB of storage to the BlueArc research storage arrays. This expansion provides the Vanderbilt research community with more high speed storage space to continue their research activities.
Upgraded RedHat Network Satellite Deployed
ITS has deployed a new RedHat Network Satellite server. This new server gives the Vanderbilt community accesses to the latest versions of RedHat Enterprise Linux.
Tags: 2011
