The PeopleSoft 8.9 upgrade was completed on time at the beginning of August. The successful completion of this project was due in large part to the heroic efforts of some iCIT staff and members of the user community. In reviewing this project, it was agreed that future projects would benefit from engaging in better planning. While the sacrifice and hard work of a few team member is very appreciated, better planning for future projects should minimize the need for such heroic efforts.
Project Management Direction
As iCIT continues to improve the way we do business, project management is playing a key role. Greater customer satisfaction, better resource allocations, and effective solutions are all benefits of improved project managment. With this in mind, iCIT is taking a strategic approach to project management.
Kent Steinike, iCIT’s Project Management Officer, is helping iCIT develop a successful project management culture and working with iCIT team members to implement effective project management practices. Part of this initiative includes implementing a comprehensive web-based project management software system which provides complete management, tracking and collaboration platforms.
State of Web Development
Since February 2005, all new UWW web applications have been developed using ASP.NET. Beginning in April of this year, these applications were upgraded to use the new .NET 2.0 framework. This represents a significant change of strategic direction for web development at UWW. In the past web applications were created independently and in a variety of programming languages (ColdFusion, PHP, ASP.NET, etc.). Barry Henrichs is leading an initiative to standardize web applications across campus, providing greater stability and security. As the project moves forward, many applications that were previously using ColdFusion will either be deleted, replaced by Collage functionality, or redeveloped in .NET 2.0. This strategic move also prepares the way for creating a campus web portal. More information will be available as the project proceeds.
Storage Management Direction
The Storage Management Project has completd the needs analysis, market research and cost analysis. The team has also established a strategic direction for our storage solution, and is now at the vendor negotiation stage. They expect to select a vendor by mid October and to deploy by the end of the calendar year.
The storage strategy seeks to accomplish a number of things:
1. Consolidate storage administration for all Enterprise storage to simplify and remove inconsistencies.
2. Use the same storage systems where possible and cost effective. This increases speed of implementation and lower the inital cost.
3. Have the fewest storage systems possible, reducing costs while simplifying management, upgrades and replacement cycles.
4. Avoid pre-purchasing storage space whenever possible. Purchasing space as needed provides the lowest hardware cost.
More information will be available as the storage management project progresses.
Information Security Program Audited
The UW System Office of Operations Review and Audit performed a program review of the information security program at UW-Whitewater on September 22nd as part of a larger initiative of security program review at all UW
System institutions. The review covered computer security functions, policies, practices and procedures and involved Elena Pokot, Blake Penn and Nick Ciesinski. iCIT looks forward to seeing the results of this review which are expected to be available early next year.