CCC Home --> Meetings --> Minutes --> Meeting Notes: March 26, 1998 11:00 am
C.C.C. meeting Notes:
March 26, 1998 11:00 am
In attendance:
Neil Parker - Medicine (nparker@ucla.edu 5-6774 ),
Jason Frand - Management (jfrand@anderson.ucla.edu
5-0522 )
Gregg Kitch - SEAS (kitch@seas.ucla.edu 5-0471 )
Max Kopelevich - Physical Sciences (mik@chem.ucla.edu
6-3902 )
Mike Vasser - Life Sciences (mvasser@lifesci.ucla.edu 6-7567 )
Eric Chang - Public Policy (eric@ucla.edu 5-6053 )
Karie Masterson - Humanities (karie@humnet.ucla.edu
5-3981 )
John DeGolyer - Law (John@law.ucla.edu 5-4689 )
Tom Phelan - Soc Sci (phelan@ssc.ucla.edu 5-0522 )
Virtual Participants:
Daniel Tran - Arts and Architecture (dtran@ucla.edu 5-1336
)
Phil Ender - Education (ender@gseis.ucla.edu 5-1944
)
We begin the meeting with some general introductions and then Neil spent some tie talking about
the environment at the Hospitals. We decided to adopt the mission statement and make it a " living
document" so it can be flexible and subject to modification. Karie will open up a web site for the
CCC and will post our mission statement and our approved meeting notes. We approved the meeting
notes from Feb. 26th, 1998 so I send those onto Karie for posting.
Jason and others are going to meet on a more general campus committee we decided to broach the
question of Central services. An open and rollicking discussion of what we think Central should
provide - where we think they are strong - where they are weak and an attempt to flush out some
ideas of the sorts of things that might be useful to local support centers and to the campus in
general
We begin with the notion brought forward by Gregg that if campus provides central
services it should be do so using a competitive model. That is the services provided
by central campus should be lower cost and or {provide better quality?} than similar services from
outside of the university. All were in agreement. There was some discussion of units that are
leftover from a long time ago which are not very useful to the local units. We briefly discussed
different funding models for achieving equity among units and then moved onto more interesting
topics.
We attempted to define some roles for central services:
Central Services as a Network Provider - It makes sense that campus should
aggregate all local campus services onto things like a large T-3 and higher bandwidth. It seems to
make sense that campus should provide a service such as CTS that can provide backbone services. The
second important condition we wanted from central services is that central services
should be flexible and able to provide different levels of service to different
units. As an example for all of the people at the table, we all handle our own routing and
infrastructure yet there are units on campus which need internet connectivity provided down to the
port level. CTS should be able to have both staffing and a service model that is able to meet
different campus needs.
Max then brought an interesting idea to the table, soon we will all have the ability to run
voice and other services over the existing IP network this may give each unit the ability to
contract directly with outside service providers or to route telephone calls over the IP network.
{Given the reliability of our IP networks -jd } the discussion brought on a third important
condition of what we want from central services which is that local units should have
the flexibility to go to outside service providers if we desire better service or a lower cost
service.
Central Services as a Provider of Intellectual capital {smart people}
Jason asked how do we as local managers leverage and keep our "intellectual capital" that is all
of our great people and still interface with central services? Suggesting another role for central
services. As an example Anderson now has to support both HP UX and Suns OS. But, he doesnít
need to add another full time staff person. Neil mentioned that there might be methods that each
department could informally collaborate or that Central may act as a clearing-house for providing
services. He mentioned a project in which the medical school is developing significant expertise in
the management of images and suggested that expertise and facility might be leveraged to other
units. Later in our meeting we discussed campus as having the ability to provide temporary systems
people and programmers. In essence central would act as a pool for temporary-help and trained
personal who are widely familiar with campus systems.
Central services as a Provider of Central repair facility.
Someone suggested that campus could play a significant role in the straight repair of equipment.
It was noted I think to my surprise that ASUCLA provides a full service repair site for DELL
computers, as well as Macintosh computers. This service doesnít seem widely publicized - could
they meet demand? Should this role be formally expanded? Supported?
Central service Units now provide a unique existing pool of specialized
talent.
Max suggested that we are at a specific turning point right now in that some of our central units
have a great deal of depth and many years of experience in very specific technical disciplines.
Something that in todayís market is very rare and should be put to optimal use. If these units
are let to slide then the university stands to loose some significant "Intellectual capital". One
example of this might be high-end Unix administration.
We worked back to a fourth important condition of things we want from Central services that is
All central services should be guaranteed, infrequently changes and should allow local
distribution. If we are to have central services then they should be something that
we can plan on and they should be as steady and as supported as much as technological and political
change will allow. If there are to be changes then central units must put a premium on
communicating those changes to the CSC and general user population.
Next we entered into an exercise where we assume there is no central services what are the
things that we would want?
Central Software licensing:
Central services should aggregate the campus purchasing to provide savings on software and
support. Aggregate pricing for the campus licensing should provide UCLA with a level of support
contracts which will provide -
Premium Software technical help contracts:
UCLA as a campus should have some very high level of software contracts with dedicated support
technicians and support contracts that would be specified and available to local C.S.C. We might
suggest using the model of the General Networks contract for help with Novell support.
We are looking for a central point of contact along the lines of the old MIC. The question was
asked what was it that made the MIC work? The answer was unanimously Don Worth - Kudos to Don. Our
main question if such a service were re-instated could anybody do it as well?
There was also some discussion of the past when the MIC provided very talented CNEs' who would
go to different sites and help with different problems. I think everyone at the table felt this was
a valuable service but, the problem was that we couldnít keep good talent working at UCLA
maybe because of lack of salary, or institutional support. This role could certainly be
re-instituted and expanded to provide multi-systems engineering providing help with Unix, Novell,
NT, etc. etc.
Point of contact for vendors:
There was recognition that many vendors are often frustrated because the shear size of UCLA
effectively prevents them from effectively marketing. They cannot meet with each individual group
and cannot provide equipment to each group. So the Central service should provide a point of
co-ordination. With a strong concern from the group that such an agency could all too easily become
too cozy with specific vendors. The danger is that we tend to be comfortable with technologies that
we know and so we only recommend one vendor to the detriment of others. Perhaps specific
demonstration units and expertise should be farmed out to different technical groups on campus with
the condition that those groups are responsible for demonstrating the software to other groups on
campus. There needs to be a system for checks and balances and for the open discussion of adopting
vendors and various standards for campus.
Training:
Training of users and training of the technical community on campus should be a strong central
service. The current availability of Training is lacking and represents a huge role for improvement
of central services.
Jason had to leave at this point: He mentioned the idea of forming up a sub-group of people to
get together and take a good look at both Windows98 and NT5.0 to see if we can get information and
help the local units develop approaches to roll-out.
Super-computing resources (NSF):
Members of the group that it is very important to provide centralized super-computing. SP2 now
provides inexpensive super-computing which is very important to scientific endeavors. State of the
art supercomputing is also very important in attracting research staff. It was noted that the
evolution and therefore obsolescence of supercomputer facilities is very rapid. It was noted that
with improved networking and the work that is currently being done on massively parallel projects -
essentially ganging together a large number of personal computers to form a one large distributed
processing system is an approach which is under some use at other institutions. It seemed to be
widely recognized among the group those different types of computers and computer resources need to
be supported and have a role in the full computing infrastructure at UCLA. Neil then asked the
question: perhaps all super computing should be located at a Central University of California site
- Perhaps we just built a large pipe down to San Diego and rely on a UC resource rather than have
each campus run duplicative services.
UCOP Should Provide:
- Consultative role in co-ordinating technical efforts of each campus
- Standards and support for internetworking all of the UC campus - there seems to be a huge need
to have communications and similar standards between all campusís in the UC system. This at
least to us seems to be a largely un-coordinated effort.
- Central authentication services
- Discussed providing a central Hot-site: Standby disaster recovery for units such as the
hospitals who need to be back on-line quickly in the event of a disaster.
We just touched on this briefly and may want to return to it at future meetings.
Role of Central services as a Data repository and Backup Site:
- The use of the campus archivist for archival and retrieval of backup media and other digital
media both as long term storage and short-term retrievable storage.
- The use of HSM both on a campus level and on a local unit level
- The OAC backup project - anyone know the status?
Everyone at the table had some form of backup system in place with varying levels of
sophistication. Gregg has very high level backup service, which he recharges as part of general
systems maintenance ( Gregg, I didnít get the numbers something like 30/50 and 80 per month
depending upon the level of support.) This involves systems management and backup. SEAS uses a
Tivoli server using an IBM 3590 backing up multiple gigabytes of data. They also use a SAMBA server
to provide drag and drop for data backup.
Proposed Central Resources:
Tom thought from previous meetings that central might propose the three following resources:
- Software licensing:
- See our earlier discussion. I think our discussion suggests this role needs to be
expanded.
- Statistical Consulting:
- It was generally felt that this might be of some use - but there was not a lot of enthusiasm.
Some of us make use of this service currently and it is useful to have the statisticians come on to
our local sites and help people with their projects. It was a concern that the statisticians should
be trained to use and feel comfortable with local statistical tools rather than redirecting every
project to the mainframe.
- G.I.S. Graphical Information Systems:
- In the group it looked like this might not be very useful outside of perhaps public
policy.
Two more important considerations came out of the discussion it is useful to have
central people come out to the local units and work with us. The corollary to that
statement is that local units need some level of control. So that we need to have flexibility to
let local units decide where to share the resources Even to the extent of
deciding where to share people. There is an interest in group consulting between departments, but
there is also an overwhelming feeling of well - being overwhelmed and not having enough resources
to meet our own local needs much less collaborate with another unit. This needs to be delicately
balanced and is best done as close to the demand as is possible.
Role of central services as a clearing house for IS Legal Issues:
I think for all of this the Legal issues involved in Information Systems expand well beyond the
narrow issues of copyright. It would be ideal to have a central point of contact or a central
person - perhaps in the campus councilsí office that is a point person on I.S. issues.
Role of central services as an information Resource Center:
If you have information - how do you share it ?
Things that should not be done centrally:
Decisions should not be pushed down without significant input from local centers. Local units
want to have more of a partnership role with centralized units.
Central units should not have one model that is just pushed down on everybody there should be
some flexibility in service levels. Central services should be services that local users can
change.
Additional thoughts and conclusion:
When we centrally build systems, should local units be responsible for the population of data? Or
should that be done from a central level, Or should that be done from a user level? Specifically we
are concerned about future implementations of things like directory services.
There was also concern about all of the student listings. Shouldnít someone on campus
provide a list of students who are enrolled in each class electronically? There was also mention
that once a student is accepted they now get a BOL ID immediately so that we can use these ID to
immediately distribute information.
Once again we came back to the purchasing issue. We flagged a potential discussion with Sam
Moribito or perhaps Anne Polly. There are many concerns over the central purchasing process -
specifically in regards to large orders, standards, and delays in purchasing.
Closing:
Gregg Kitch offered to host the next meeting, pending the availability of a conference room. We
are going to try to shoot for the 4th Thursday of each month for a meeting time.
Conclusion:
It seems in our discussion that we are concerned with which central services are offered by
campus, but we are more concerned about the nature and principle of those services.
We want services that are competitive with outside services and or better cost. if
campus provides central services it should be do so using a competitive model.
We would like to see services with flexibility to meet the variety of needs on campus.
Central services should be flexible and able to provide different levels of service to
different units.
Local units should have the flexibility to go to outside service providers if we
desire better service or a lower cost service.
We would like to see units that have a well-defined program and high levels of communication as
they need to rapidly change programs to meet changing technology and changing campus needs.
All central services should be guaranteed infrequently changes and should allow local
distribution.
Local units would like more of a partnership approach with the central units. The following
three statements during the meeting might provide guidelines to this effect:
- It is useful to have central people come to the local units and work with
us.
- Let local units decide where to share the resources.
- Decisions should not be pushed down without significant input from local centers.
Local units want to have more of a partnership role with centralized units.
We would like to see central units well supported, we would like to make sure that people who
come to campus to provide expertise are well compensated and that there is a commitment from campus
to involve and keep these people at UCLA.
|
