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October 2006 Update

In This Update


C&C Organizational Chart Is Online

An organizational chart showing C&C's seven divisions and its executive and senior managers is now online at http://www.washington.edu/uwtech/cac.orgchart.pdf

For more information on the responsibilities of each C&C's divisions see: http://www.washington.edu/uwtech/contacts.html


UW Data Center Facilities Plan Approved

Following nearly two years of planning and campus conversations, the Data Center Steering Committee and the Provost have approved a long-term strategy for meeting the university’s data center needs. The strategy calls for developing distributed, centrally managed data center facilities, including:

  • Developing a new data center in the recently acquired Safeco properties (now UW Tower properties)
  • Retaining the 4545 building data center and implementing a number of building improvements including an ESCO (energy service company) energy savings project
  • Retaining a leased space component in the long-term plan as a complement to owned facilities, allowing flexibility and scalability to respond to changing needs and technologies
  • Planning for the possible future use of the Academic Computing Center facility as a potential home for office uses that would benefit from a small amount of raised floor space (this space would not be managed as part of the central data center facilities pool)
  • Continuing partnerships with other institutions and private providers outside of the Puget Sound region to secure locations for disaster recovery server placement

The strategy was recommended by the Data Center Work Group after extensive analysis that included a look at future demand, possible alternatives, and development of a funding plan. The 2007-09 state capital budget request includes $25 million for upgrades and construction of new data center space; approximately $20 million would go toward construction, with the balance directed toward related connectivity improvements. A pre-design report for the new data center space in the UW Tower properties will now move forward aggressively to allow for design completion by December 2007 and occupancy in 2009.

To meet immediate needs, interim UW data center space at the Sabey data center in Tukwila was secured and became operational July 24, 2006. This interim facility has relieved some of the electrical demand at the 4545 Building, and will provide additional interim server housing capacity while the new UW data center space is being developed. A pricing plan is being finalized during October to allow additional server racks to be installed at the Tukwila interim facility.

For more information, please contact Marilyn Cox, Assistant Vice Provost for Capital Planning, mcox@u.washington.edu, 206-914-2175.


Student Retention Project Targets December Deadline

This new project is moving a step closer to achieving its goal of allowing schools and colleges to access and directly interact with UW student retention and recruitment data.

The short-term impetus for the project is to be able to report doctoral retention data since 1996 to the National Research Council (NRC) Assessment of Doctoral Programs by its December 15 deadline. One outcome of this work will be to provide consistent doctoral retention reporting for the entire university. More information about the NRC assessment is available on the Graduate School's Web site (http://www.grad.washington.edu/nrc).

The student retention project will also:

  • Collect and organize student retention data in a way that makes it easier to understand, and to provide access so that schools and colleges can analyze it
  • Increase the integrity and availability of central student data, which could result in the need for fewer shadow systems
  • Allow schools and colleges to directly query the data to answer other retention and recruiting questions, including undergraduate outcomes

This project is an outgrowth of work by the IT Resource Sharing Group and is a collaboration between UW schools and colleges, the Graduate School, Office of the Registrar, and C&C's Enterprise Data Warehouse team.


UW Systems Undergo Security Test

Some UW systems underwent a stress test in August to look at areas of security vulnerability. This 40-hour "tip of the iceberg" exercise, arranged by Kirk Bailey, UW Chief Information Security Officer, spotlighted several security-related issues for the university to focus on in the months ahead including:

  • Resources will be needed at all levels (central, school/college, departmental) to address systems security issues
  • Simple, lowercase letter passwords that can be easily compromised are still an issue
  • Web developers, skilled at providing content-rich Web sites, will need additional expertise to provide secure Web applications

The test was conducted by a nationally recognized security consulting firm. Bailey is working with others to identify what further steps are needed to protect the UW's data and the network. He will continue the discussion with computing directors and their deans in the months ahead.


C&C Enhances Customer Service on Multiple Fronts

C&C is working to enhance customer service as part of its strategic planning effort. C&C:

  • Has developed a services brochure that shows C&C's services at a glance. The brochure was developed for BizTech as a quick, user-friendly guide to C&C help, services, and support. C&C will continue to refine this brochure to make it more useful to our customers. The services brochure is available online at http://www.washington.edu/cac/biztech/tech_for_uw.pdf
  • Is adopting a new ticketing system to better track and respond to customer service requests across organizational boundaries.
  • Is developing a customer service survey that will provide valuable feedback to C&C on how best to meet customer needs and to provide a baseline for tracking customer satisfaction over time.
  • Is developing customer service standards for all of C&C to ensure consistent, responsive, and timely customer service throughout the organization. As part of this process, C&C is looking at best practices of peer institutions across the country.

UW Seattle Wireless Initiative: Access Continues to Grow

As of October 13, 2006, the UW Seattle Wireless Initiative has provided wireless access in the following UW Seattle locations:

  • 43 buildings (plus partial wireless in a number of other buildings)
  • 170 general assignment classrooms (7976 seats)
  • 144 department classrooms (approximately 5141 seats)
  • 9 departmental/branch libraries (not including upgrade in Odegaard Undergraduate Library)
  • 1787 wireless access points
  • 2 major outdoor areas (HUB lawn & Quad)
  • 2 partial outdoor areas (Husky stadium and baseball/soccer stadium)

For a list of areas in Phase II, which officially began July 1, and to see a map showing how wireless is growing, see http://www.washington.edu/computing/wireless/wifi_map.html


Service Expands Under New Music Download Agreement

A new service agreement gives students on any UW campus free, legal music downloads, and is also available to faculty, staff, and alumni at a low cost ($5.99 per month). The UW signed the agreement with Seattle-based Cdigix in September for its "Ctrax" service, with over two million tracks. In the first few weeks, over 1,100 UW users have signed up.

The UW's previous agreement with Napster was restricted to students in UW Seattle residence halls and was not available to faculty and staff. Like last year's Napster service, Ctrax uses Microsoft Windows Media DRM (digital rights management).

More information is available at http://www.washington.edu/computing/d2u.


Record Email Volumes Challenge Spam Control Efforts

Email volume hit a record high this month with 3.87 million email messages coming into the UW on October 4. More than 74 percent of those messages were spam. As the volume of spam has increased, C&C has taken the following measures to lessen the impact:

  • Added servers: Now 21 servers run the UW’s anti-spam software; 3 were added just this year
  • Upgraded filtering software: A major version upgrade and three minor upgrades to the filtering software were implemented this year
  • Revised mail handling protocol: Twice this year to optimize performance
  • Strengthened blocking of frequent spammers: Expanded use of private sector blacklists

While C&C is continuing to seek new ways to control spam, increasing volumes are making this ever more challenging. An additional measure everyone with a UW NetID can take is to turn on the spam filter available through the Email Delivery Manager.

For more information on using junk mail filtering, see http://www.washington.edu/computing/email/spamfilter.html