JOG:

The new Billing, Accounts Receivable & Cashiering System (BARC) has been delayed yet again.  Testing in June revealed that performance was not adequate for the large batch streams that arrive from the Registrar and Financial Aid each quarter (e.g., it took more than 20 hours to load certain files).  As a result the system was re-architected and re-written over the summer.  The changes required to obtain acceptable performance from the transaction processor then generated a ripple of changes throughout the system.  Just as we were emerging from that phase and returning to integration and user acceptance testing on the whole system, we discovered that moving the JAVA code from the PC/NT environment where the developers work to the AIX environment which we had planned to use for production caused the performance to degrade by a factor of ten.  We are now in the process of determining how much of this difference is due to the hardware/operating system/Java Virtual Machine and how much is due to other variables such as network location.  We expect to issue an RFQ for a machine of undetermined architecture that will run the application with acceptable performance.  The theory of "write once, run anywhere" will thus be tested.

A campus group led by the chief financial officer has been working to select a new reporting environment for Data Warehouse financial reports.  Finalists are Brio and Business Objects.

The Graduate Student Fee Remission system was updated during the short time between the completion of union negotiations and the beginning of fee assessments.  We really need more time for modifications to complex systems!

LDAP development continues with the integration of telephone numbers and the addition of students scheduled for October.

The Thin Client service is rolling out with more than 60 customers signed up.  Implementation of the production server is now in progress after a six week delay in delivery of the hardware.   Spin-off services such as "desktop@isc" for those who would like to use current desktop software from older workstations are being contemplated.

The Computer Center's Disaster Recovery Plan is complete and available on the web.  Work on the more technical aspects of IS-3 implementation (firewalls, probing, intrusion detection) progresses.

Implementation of the new Office of Information Technology continues.  Elise Meyer, formerly with the UCSB Physics department, has been selected as the Associate Director.  Communications Services and the Campus Network Programmers were transferred to the new office on July 1.  The search for a permanent half-time faculty director continues.

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CPG:

Our upgraded modem pool utilizing a Remote Access System (Cisco 5300) will be going into production this quarter.  We will currently be bringing up 48 of our possible 128 modems connections.  Our Senior Officers' decision to not continually augment our modem pool and suggest people use an ISP if they get busy signals has been very successful. Recent analysis has shown that the maximum number of concurrent modems connections was twenty (20).

We have completed the rewiring of 500 University owned apartments to support cable modems and 177 of the residents have already connected to the new service. We expect several hundred additional connections after the start of the academic year. This completes the goal of providing an ethernet "port per pillow" in all University owned housing units.

Our negotiations with Cox Communications for a discount on cable modem service to faculty, staff and student residences with an option of having the monthly fees billed to a University account number rather than the resident's home cable bill were unsuccessful.

The installation of additional single-mode fiber optic cable to support the Next Generation Backbone initiative is almost complete. An RFP has been issued for the core and building switches.

The campus has provided funds to install intrabuilding wiring in several academic buildings on campus. Work has begun on those buildings that were considered the highest priority.

A technical committee has almost completed their review of the campus wiring standards. Once they are finished the new standards will be published at www.commserv.ucsb.edu   In conjunction with this effort Communication Services has also developed Project Planning Guidelines for Communications Facilities similar to those of Irvine that also include Budgeting Recommendations. We will be testing the accuracy of these formulas against the real world experience of the Intrabuilding Wiring Projects.

We are using Online Signup for Residential Telephone and Television Services for the first time this quarter. Each year we hire 4-6 casual staff to transcribe the installation requests from paper forms to an Oracle database. Using the online signup system we will eliminate at least four of these hires. So far, over 95% of the installation requests have been received via the online signup system.

We are evaluating giving our Residential customers the option of electronic distribution of their billing statement for a small monthly credit ($1).