JOG:

The Billing, Accounts Receivable & Cashiering System (BARC) project has reached the integration testing stage.  About 50% of the function has now been tested and accepted by the functional office.  We have, however, had another JAVA programmer turnover.  This one (previously a student) went to Accenture in Zurich.

In our continuing series of performance tests we learned that our Sybase Data Warehouse performs 3 to 7 times faster on an IBM Netfinity 933MHz machine than it does on our 8-way 132MHz RS/6000.

The first set of standard reports from the Data Warehouse based on Brio.Insight has been released to the campus.  Payroll data has also been added to the Warehouse.

Capital Assets Tracking System (CATS) has been modified to permit departmental browse and update.

First set of GASB modifications are completed.

Employee IDs are scheduled to change from SSNs to random numbers on the weekend of June 9.

The Institutional Advancement division has contracted with IS&C to replace their Novell/Groupwise email and calendaring functions with Simeon and CorporateTime.  This change will add about 150 new customers to these services.

UCSB Directory (LDAP) development continues with students now loaded.  The infrastructure will include mirrored LDAP boxes fronted by a pair of  IDAR machines and a switching router.

Portal discussions and experiments are in progress in multiple areas.  A group interested in student services is constructing a prototype to support Single-Sign-On (SSO) to student service web servers.  Meanwhile, IS&C is experimenting with role-based authorization and SSO using a product called DirectorySmart from Opennetwork.  Both experimental portals access mainframe data via a new Entire X Broker product from Software AG.

The proposed replacement of 3990/3390 DASD with an IBM 2105-F20 Enterprise Storage Server (Shark) will save 90% on electricity, cooling and floorspace.  The resulting reduction of demand on our UPS might allow us to ride out some power outages without shutting down.
 

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CPG:

The buildout of our Next Generation Backbone continues.  We have installed and configured our 7 core switches (Foundry Networks BigIron 4000).  We have two pilot groups testing routing and multicast functionalities.  We are currently trouble shooting a bug with multicast.  We are in the process of site preparation for the 28 building switch locations (Foundry Networks FastIron Workgroup switches).  We plan to have the new backbone in production before Fall 2001.

We are using UCR's RFP as a starting point for our own efforts to procure an alternative to our current Verizon CentraNet service.  The current plan is to sign a contract for the PBX aquisition or Centrex service by the end of this calendar year and convert to the new system in August, 2002.

We are in the process of testing our newly acquired Interactive Speech Recognition Directory Assistance System (PureRequest from Phillips Voice Request).  The next step is to solicit a campus-wide group of pilot testers. The plan is to use this system to expand our off-hour operator services and enhance existing business hour services.

We are developing guidelines for the use of wireless data networks and providing a clearinghouse for existing wireless installations.  Information regarding this effort is available at http://www.commserv.ucsb.edu/wireless/

Contractor work has been in process 5 weeks for one of our 7 Intrabuilding Wiring Projects.

We will be involving the use of LDAP in our production of the hardcopy campus telephone directory.  Next year we plan to have LDAP be both the source and mechanism for updating and publishing this information.

Two new cellular services are going through the campus process to try and locate cell sites on campus.  We already have cell sites on campus for AT&T Wireless and Verizon Wireless.

We added UCTV, SCOLA and a Student Access Channel to the cable television programming we deliver to the 1,000 cable television customers on campus. We've had some very favorable comments on the availability of UCTV.