ITS Highlights

Web Streaming Growth—For the first time, both the Undergraduate and Medical School commencement ceremonies were streamed live concurrently and also for the first time, both were delivered in the Flash format to allow for cross-platform compatibility.  These events wrapped up a week of streaming activities that included the final event of the 2008-2009 Thinking Out of the Lunchbox lecture series at the Downtown Public Library, live streaming of Pulitzer Prize-winning Senior Day speaker Doris Kearns Goodwin and archived streaming of all four Senior Day “Study Break” lectures presented by Vanderbilt faculty for parents of this year’s graduates.  These events and others throughout the month helped make this the busiest May for streaming since the launch of Streaming Media Services in 2006.
 
Federated Access to NIH Enables Trusted Collaborations—Vanderbilt now has InCommon federated access with the National Institutes of Health and other institutions thanks to new technology implemented in ITS. InCommon eliminates the need for researchers, students, and educators to maintain multiple passwords and usernames. Identity providers manage the levels of their users' privacy and information exchange. InCommon uses Shibboleth authentication and authorization systems to enable scalable, trusted collaborations among its community of participants.

New Website for ITS—In an effort to utilize a content management system, and after much work, ITS went live with a new website on May 31. The new ITS website features a new format including three prominent new buttons for those who are “New to Vanderbilt”, “Need Help”, or need “Services A to Z.” Other new features include a focused search capability just for the ITS website and Quick Links to top search requests. News items and scheduled outages are also featured along with a new section highlighting ITS podcasts – all with RSS feed capability.

Enterprise Identity Management Expands—The next phase of identity management at Vanderbilt is explained in a new podcast available on the ITS website. The University Registrar and academic IT leaders recently provided additional input to this effort.

New Radiation Database for VEHS—Provided project management and IT infrastructure enabling a new home for the Vanderbilt Environmental Health and Safety (VEHS) radiation database. VEHS is required to track all hazardous material stored on the Vanderbilt campus along with its location and users. The new database now resides on enterprise servers in the ITS data center.

Red Phones for VPD—ITS worked with VPD to test and assess Red Phone coverage in their area. The Red Phone system is designed to ensure that strategic locations have a working phone at all times. Based on the outcome of the assessment, additional Red Phone coverage will be added to 111 28th Ave Headquarters building.

Health Plus and HR Active Directory cleanup—Desktop Support worked to configure PCs in these areas to DOA standard naming convention and cleanup the inventory database.  This reduces Active Directory clutter making it easier to identify the PC’s location and owner, enhancing support.

Timing and Ingenuity—On May 26, Desktop Support was notified by Plant Operations that due to a Kronos (time clock) upgrade, they needed a software update on 91 PCs by June 8.   On May 28, they notified ITS the upgrade was moved up and all updates must be completed by June 1.  ITS staff devised a way to successfully push the updates to all 91 PCs – working into the night to make this happen in the required time frame. This was critical because Plant Operations employees would not have been able to access the time clock on June 1 or after.

Dave Matthews, Meet Dave Mathews—When the Dave Matthews Band recently played at Vanderbilt Stadium, the ITS Network Services team, led by our own Dave Mathews, coordinated additional data connectivity services to support the concert on campus.

Microsoft Service Center Operations Manager Audible Alerts—ITS Windows Administrators deployed MS Service Center Operations Manager (SCOM) clients to the Network Operations Center (NOC) with audible alerts.  This deployment will greatly enhance automated monitoring capability for the Windows environment and alert the NOC staff of critical issues.

Windows 2008 Server Configuration Optimization—Windows Administrators discovered that hibernation is the default on all Windows 2008 Server installations potentially consuming large amounts of disk space depending on the hardware in the server.  By optimizing server configurations 8GB of storage was reclaimed for every Windows 2008 server.

Operator Services Stats—Operators Services received 146,376 calls in the call center with a 98.5% answer rate. The team completed 14,277 pager modifications supporting patient care. A total of 363 conference calls were requested and processed through the call center.

Construction Update:

• The first department of the School of Engineering moved in to 1025 16th Ave.  The Future Combat Systems Group moved in to suite 303.  The Vanderbilt network was extended to the location on 31 poles between the Hill Center and the new building. This is also our first installation of analog IP for analog and single line applications such as conference phones, fax machines, and cordless phones.
• Arts and Science Micro Computing Lab moved in to the Center Building.  This allows for this department to reside in 1 location.  They have occupied a suite not occupied by Vanderbilt staff in the past.
• A final walk through of the university buildings has been completed to determine the design of the Sprint cellular coverage system to be deployed for improve coverage.
• Work started on the Sprint Cellular coverage in 100 Oaks.  This location was part of the Sprint University Building Cellular Coverage Project. The anticipation completion date is July 10th.
• The Vanderbilt Departments at Loews Vanderbilt Plaza have opted not to have backup network connectivity to the main campus.  Office of Investments and General Counsel will try to include in the 2011 fiscal year expenses.