Please also look at our page that discusses how to configure for and use the UCSB Data Warehouse.
What is it?
The Central Database fulfills the need for a centrally accessible body of integrated student and financial files and those applications related to UCSB as an organizational entity.
Who are the clients?
The central functional offices at UCSB such as Accounting, Registrar, Admissions, Budget and Planning, Business Services, Human Resources, Facilities Management, and many others. Students and faculty are also becoming direct clients as systems such as STAR and GOLD are deployed. Departmental office staff are also becoming clients as systems such as REx (online purchase requisitions) and Travel are developed.
What does it mean?
Ready access to data affects many areas of operation for the campus as an educational institution. Some of the processes that depend on this function include the admission of students, placement of students in classes, disbursement of financial aid, and the synchronization of campus financial records with departmental activities.
Quality of Service
Access to data in the Central Administrative Database is critical. From a technical perspective the Computer Center operations facility, where our computing equipment is located, is an optimal environment for computing equipment. It is air conditioned, has a very large un-interruptable power supply, is kept appropriately clean for computing equipment and provides service 24 hours each day, 7 days a week, 365 days per year. This operating environment allows us to generally provide continuous access to campus data services. The Computer Center Systems Group provides several levels of system redundancy with regard to the expertise in supporting large numbers of users and has sufficient depth of expertise to provide customer support through vacations and other typical staff "outages".
The Details
The Central Administrative Database Function consists of Adabas, Com-plete, and Natural Service on the IBM 9672-R61 Enterprise Server under the OS/390 environment.
In the future...
We see the central administrative database function growing to include all routine data gathering, transaction processing, storage, and forwarding functions necessary to provide central administrative support to the campus. Data elements would be captured once, from the person closest to the source (student, faculty, vendor, etc.), and stored in the database. Views of various data elements in appropriate combinations would be presented to anyone with access to the system, according to the profile of access privileges granted to that person. New or updated data items would be available immediately across the campus. Requests for goods, services, space (e.g. seats in classes) and other resources would be transmitted from the requestor to the allocator immediately with appropriate tracking, approval and status information along the way. In many cases, transactions could occur immediately with a record of the event preserved for later approval and auditing purposes.Periodic extracts of selected data elements in transaction files would be placed in the Data Warehouse for reporting, analysis, and executive information purposes. People would be freed from the drudgery of keying and data, uploading and downloading files, and of transporting paper around campus and they would have more time available to be creative and analytical as suited their tastes and talents.
For assistance or further information please contact webcontact@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu .
Last Modified: CGH, 2/16/01