UCLA CCC - Meeting Notes: April 15, 1999

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CCC Meeting Report

April 15, 1999

Meeting Hosted by Jason Frand

Location - Anderson 203

This report summarizes the actions and discussions at the April 15^th meeting.

AITB: Marsha Smith reported that the meeting report from the last AITB meeting (April 5, 1999) would be coming out soon.
1. Marsha explained that the AITB charter was originally scheduled to expire soon, because of its two-year sunset clause. However, the consensus at the April 5 meeting was for the AITB to be extended for at least six more months. This extension would allow the AITB to stay on Board while the new IT Officer gets a sense of what is going on. After the first few months of the IT Officer’s tenure then changes in AITB membership, etc. would be possible.

Security: Daniel Tran provided an update on Security. Discussion has been held at previous meetings about the need for an outside consultant to help with security issues. The Security group has since met and developed a list of items for inclusion in an RFP for an outside consultant. Daniel Tran and Kent Wada will meet next week to discuss the RFP, and Dan hopes to have a copy of the RFP available at the next CCC meeting. Funding for this position is not identified at the moment. The group generally concurred that there was a need to find a balance on the security issue between the need for a secure environment and the need to provide computing environments sufficiently open to meet academic needs.
Novell: John DeGolyer stated that a Novell representative would be coming to the Law School to meet with UCLA reps on April 22. John encouraged everyone to try to attend this Novell meeting. The meeting will be held from 1pm — 4pm.
Y2K: John DeGolyer reported that Al Solomon wants to form a Y2K swat team, to utilize existing staff for y2k problems. He would like to know the level of interest in this from the CCC group.

Discussion followed about what type of model could be successfully used on this issue. Possible models discussed included the Novell model. Members expressed concern that all of the members of the y2k swat team will need y2k help simultaneously, and they might find they would not be able to actually help anyone else.
Neil Parker stated that at the medical center staff members have been told that there will be no vacations or leaves for one week before and two weeks following January 1, 2000.
Jason Frand said while he knew they could have some problems, at the Anderson School no one would die of any y2k problems that might be experienced. Jason said it might be useful to identify those areas at the greatest risk.
Neil Parker stated that while he and his staff feel that they have the major items covered, they do expect many nuisance items to crop up. He said that the biggest problems at the med school involve lab dishes, petri dishes, and animals — many of these are fed and cared for by machines that are date-dependent.
Marsha Smith stated that Al Solomon has mentioned that a type of triage could be used for y2k problems, that people calling in could get access to some resources.

UNEX (use for campus training programs): Eric Chang stated that since many departments on campus have Novell servers, the group wants to see if they can set up a seminar concerning the latest changes to Novell, NT and Unix. Eric spoke to Frank Burris (sp?) who does a lot of contract work with aerospace companies in the South Bay for Novell users. Jason Frand stated that if Frank Burris were available to meet with the CCC for the next meeting, it would be a good idea to place him on the agenda.
Staff Issues: There was a round of discussion on the problems of retaining and recruiting good IT people at UCLA, with much input from various members of the group.

Use of bonuses was discussed; the medical center computing is offering bonuses for those who recommend (successful) external candidates for IT positions on campus. Greg Kitch said that he has been attending the annual UCLA job fair at Ackerman for years; he collects resumes and has hired some very good UCLA students for IT positions who have been very good at their jobs and stayed in the positions for years.
The group concluded that it would be good if a list could be compiled which would list the salary information on IT positions on campus by department (only name information would be omitted). Marsha Smith suggested that the final report on staffing issues should be taken to the AITB. This would help facilitate more awareness of the issue.

Software Licensing: Mary Wright, Software Central Coordinator and Marsha Smith, Assoc. Dir. of OAC, gave a brief presentation on Software Licensing. Marsha stated that Mary has been juggling this complex, intricate process for many years, basically alone. Marsha hopes to help Mary create a long-term advisory board for Software Central. At the heart of the Software Central operation are six core functions:

Identifying potential licenses: Mary mentioned that licenses can come in via a variety of ways. Some come in through the vendors, and some through system wide. Reps from all of the UC campuses deal with agreements system wide, and have monthly conference calls.
Vendor negotiations: Negotiations are of multiple types. For some contracts there is a campus wide discount. There can also be department pooling, or a combination of central and departmental pooling.
Communication: Mary is attempting to utilize the Software Central web site to help get more effective communications about Software Central and its services to the campus. She feels the need to "beef up" ways to communicate more.
Administration of Agreements: Payment tracking, etc.
Distribution of software: Software can be checked out, and where appropriate, multiple copies can be made available to individuals or departments.
Provision of technical support: Mary stated that many of the vendors, in exchange for offering an organization such as UCLA deep discounts on its software, expect that there will only be one NAMED person — often the software coordinator — who is authorized to contact the vendor for technical support and assistance. She stated that she has tried to come up with some innovative ways to help provide technical support for the wide variety of products. She has tried to correlate Software Central with the Statistical consulting services offered by OAC, through the SAS/SPSS consulting.