April 18, 2007 Minutes

EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY ADVISORY
COMMITTEE

4/18/2007, 1:00-2:30 pm

ATTENDEES: David Gillett, Beth Grobman, Jeanine Hawk, Scott Heffner, Stan Judkins, Chuck Lindauer, Sherri Mines, Fred Sherman, Alex Swanner

GUESTS: Sharon Luciw, Chien Shih, Willie Pritchard, Kristianna Ledesma, Drake Lewis, Wayne Chenoweth, Bill Matsumoto, Marty Kahn, Max Gilleland

Convened: 1:05pm

1. APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING

· Will stand approved as posted

2. GENERAL NEWS (ALL)

· No items were brought up

3. STANDARDS REVIEW (SHARON)

· Continuation of the discussion from the last ETAC meeting

Members of the Hardware/Software Standards committee were invited to attend this months ETAC meeting to discuss all angles that might concern what the standards are for hardware and software (particularly hardware for computers) that are being set

The subcommittee for standardization makes recommendations on HW & SW standards (the committee has been split in terms of whether or not the standards have been set too high or too low)
Recommendations were brought back to a previous ETAC meeting and they responded with the general sense that the standards might be set too high
Fred wanted to bring all parties together for a general discussion about whether or not standards are set at the right level, and if not, which way they should go; understand what the arguments are for and against making changes to the standards
A couple of things have transpired that effect what direction we go

1) Reviewed the cost model that was being used to cost out what a new computer, on campus, would cost. Prices have been lowered because of a couple of errors made in terms of the standard

· The last ETAC meeting was left, wanting to look at the benefits and issues of using a two tier standard as an option; discuss the question "do cheap machines break more often?"; is it easier to reproduce images on a mass basis using new software across different computer architecture and the arguments for higher and lower standards
· Benefits/Issues of using two tier standards

The argument for it, is if you think the current standards are too high, you can put in a lower standard and people can select which standard they want to go to
The argument against it, is that people can currently choose what they want and buy above the standards

The standards are currently addressing approximately 90% of the need with one tier

Current standards, as they are set, are for faculty and staff and not necessarily for lab machines

Could break down to a low and high level for faculty and staff
Could have a separate standard for staff and another standard for faculty

Based upon the presumption that a lot a clerical work doesn't require a lot of processing and faculty who are creating course materials and getting into new media technologies may need a higher processing machine

Senior Staffs' interest on this issue has been one of trying to get a situation where they can distribute and refresh all computers according to the plan that was in Measure "C"
With regard to the pricing situation, it is probably putting a little pressure on a relook of what the standards are
From Fred's perspective, his interest is in insuring that the standard that is set isn't over specification, but is properly set
Fred would like to have a discussion with ETAC and the Standards Committee that is not based on forcing a computer model to a certain dollar amount. Fred's only interest is making sure that the standards have been set where they aught to be, to meet the 90 percentile criteria that has been set
Since there didn't appear to be any support for going to the two-tiered system the standards will remain as they are
Chuck felt that there should be a school wide criteria of who actually needs a laptop. There are some faculty that need them and others that just want them

Willie felt that the ratio of desktop purchases to laptop purchases, within the District, would more than make up for the difference in price between the two

· Do cheap machines break more often?

According to Sharon, Tech Services believes that the power supplies that are provided in home/small business computers are not at the level that they are for business computers – resulting in more failures in a shorter period of time, increased cost for replacement parts and labor, as well as lost productivity

Chuck has 130-140 of the cheap machines and hasn't had a single power supply failure

Chuck feels that from a purely cost point of view, it is still a good argument to go with the cheap machines; from a productivity point of view he doesn't know how to answer the question
Jeanine feels that there may be other suppliers of computers that could be used, even at a business level, like Gateway

Would like to see some industry driven data

The Dell Optiplex is made with consistently standard component parts where the cheaper models contain a large variety of component parts

Having to purchase different component parts sometimes dictate different images that have to be made

The real question should be: How much effort does it take to keep the cheaper computer models running?
Chien mentioned that manufactures of some cheaper machines might have a higher likelihood of going out of business
Stan feels that supporting the standard computers in the District is hard enough right now

Can't even get the parts we need for the computers we have

· Reproducing images on different architecture (Ghost and Universal Imaging Utility Software)

Chuck mentioned that there is new imaging software, made by Symantec that is supposed to be plug ware independent

They are testing the software out on their less expensive machines
The cost is an additional $11 per computer

According to Sharon, you still need to use Ghost by Symantec, to deploy the images
Binary Research states that "UIU software is compatible with most business class desktops and laptops" – no guarantee that it will work with all type of equipment

Tech Services would have to do some testing to see how compatible the software is

· Arguments for and against higher/lower standards

According to Willie, even though people complain at the front end that the sandards are too high, by the time the machines move out of the district, they are woefully inadequate for the day-to-day use that people have
The prices for the standard desktops and laptops haven't changed for more than five years; they are still within the same range they have always been
According to Drake, Dan Mitchell, feels that his 4-year-old iMac is woefully inadequate and if we are going to extend our standards to four years instead of three, we will run into more problems
Dan Mitchell also feels that we should have computers that meet 100% of the needs of the 90^th percentile user in the district rather than meeting the need of 90% of the users
According to Jeanine we need to look at the reality of what we are actually using the computer for, what we are actually buying and not pretend as if we know by talking about isolated situations. We need data from which we make these decisions

We have a lot of Measure "C" money, but don't have enough to do what we need to do already – so to spend it unwisely, would not be the direction to go

Marty feels that support and service (consistent imaging and the same parts available, etc) – should be ETS's decision, to make certain that the machines that we purchase can be serviced with existing resources
According to Willie, the reason for the four (4) year computer refresh instead of three (3) years, is that it was the only place in the technology area where there was a little wiggle room

Could not cut back on the funds for such things as the EIS replacement, new phone equipment, or replacement of the network

Sharon made a correction to this statement, based upon her conversations with Mike Brandy, that when he did a cut of the measure "C" funds, to get it to a level that would be acceptable to the voters, he did an across the board cut. It was supposed to be an even percentage cut, but it was cut more in some areas than others. The telephone, network and EIS budget amounts were cut as well, they were not maintained at the level that was originally ask for and are at a funding risk right now.

Scott brought up the fact that if you constrained the current expenditures in such a way, as going to lower cost computers, etc. you could possibly reach a point that would equalize and you could then do a three (3) year refresh
Jeanine feels that if we maintain the current laptop standard the campuses will have to create a policy to determine who can get a laptop
Marty mentioned the fact that laptops are more complex to service, more expensive, and more difficult and not nearly as upgradeable as desk top computers, which could shorten their life

4. DISTRICT NETWORK REPACEMENT (SHARON)

· In Jan '07, when we tried to renew our maintenance agreement with Alcatel for our old Zylan equipment, we were told that they were not going to support over two hundred of our switches after June '07, which puts us at a risk going forward

In the meantime we will be looking for some hot spares

· We were depending on our funding from measure "C" to refresh our network equipment which not yet available, due to litigation

There is $600,000 in the bond for replacement of the network – which doesn't come close to what we need to refresh all the switches
There is a line item for emergency equipment replacement so if there is no availability of a hot spare, we can have on the shelf, and we have to buy a new model we can purchase it

· Sharon is currently in the process of interviewing some consultants to help ETS develop the bid specifications to go out for another network bid

Waiting to hear back from the consultants to see how much it will cost for them to assist us in:

1)  Fine tuning our architecture – the long term architecture that includes the replacement of a telephone system
2)  Help us develop the bid specifications

· The current bug or deficiency in the Alcatel switches that doesn't support multicasting very well will not be fixed before we get a new network

The plan to move away from the ATM backbone has already begun at DA (as new buildings are brought up, a parallel backbone Ethernet network, with new Alcatel equipment, is being created)
At FH will also be creating a new Ethernet backbone with Lower Campus and Campus Center
In the process of eliminating the ATM backbone as we go out to bid and get another set of vendor hardware

One of the technical requirements will be to support the multicasting that is required for imaging

· Stan feels that we should fix the network first before we over load an already overloaded network and then talk about adding additional servers to it

5. SERVER CONSOLIDATION (CHIEN)

· With this project, we are trying to reduce some of the server problems within the campuses
· One of the things that we can do to improve system performance is to look at what kind of server load exists and what kind of improvements we can make
· Currently trying to cut the umbilical cord of the individual servers out there

Most of the servers out on both campuses are attached storage (they are attached to a particular box), some are over loaded with HR requirements and many others may not reached the 50 percentile of total storage, so their utilization is not very even
Can improve this situation by starting a project that will cut the attached storage configuration on the campuses by introducing the back end SAN storage

· With attached storage you are limited by the box size
· The DA ATC wants to replace the servers in the lab – they have run out of storage room, their servers are old and they have no way to go but to swap out the older servers

ETS has proposed that a fiber switch be installed between the processing units and the storage at the back end

This proposal will separate the storage from the server, which will allow for easier server replacement in the future while still keeping the storage

· An advantage to this type of storage is, that in a few years when your server is out of date, since your storage is not attached to a server, you can replace the server while keeping your storage
· Another advantage is that since the server at the front end does not share the storage, you are not limited by one single application in the front end that is limited by the box size. You can share the storage pool at the back end

In the future, if more storage is required, there is no need to buy more servers, you can buy more drives instead
The storage can be separated from the server for more flexibility, better reliability and better disaster recovery

· Another advantage is that, in a lab situation, when the quarterly image needs to be renewed the server won't need to be taken down. With this new set up, you can carve out a virtual or logical space on the storage and load the image first and test the space, and when you are done you can switch your current pointer to the new storage area and you have your new image ready for the course
· A lot of times you buy a server that is under utilized (you don't use all the disk space, or all the processing power), by separating the front end head of the server from the back end of the data, you will get more cost efficiencies and better fail over and recovery
· Hoping to have the project started in the ATC lab soon, with the RFP going out by the end of the month
· Chuck inquired if all servers replacements were going to be processed in this manner, or one at a time and if his labs could be done next

The current plan is to do the ACT at DA first and after the ETS staff are trained and everything is functioning well, then do the Data Center (about 140 servers) and then Chien's hope is that he can convince enough users that this is a better solution for them instead of them buying their individual servers and managing them in their individual department

6. UPCOMING AGENDA ITEMS

· Agenda items for the next ETAC meeting

1) Chien – Identity Management
2) Scott inquired if some of this months agenda items were going to be ongoing topics at future meetings – i.e. Standards

For standards, Fred wants to go back and look at the price model and see where we stand with regard to an average price for computers that we are buying – also reviewing from an ETS standpoint, what we think a minimum configuration aught to be, just for supportability reasons as well – will have more discussions with Senior Staff as well – if needed, Fred will bring the issue back to ETAC
Scott feels that there needs to be some closure on some of the issues on an ETAC committee level – it's okay for people to take positions, but part of the roll of this District wide committee is to cut through those and weigh in on them and attempt to advise in part, ETS and the District, suggestions or recommendations

Chuck thinks that the Standards committee should consider all of these things and come up with a recommendation and then it would become ETAC's job to accept it or reject it and send it back with the issues for rework
As a committee member, Scott would like to hear the information and the different conflicts with the different positions and then make a recommendation as to what the ETAC committee believes would be in the best interest of the District

3) Chuck would like to get a MAUI replacement update

7. ADJOURNMENT

· Adjourned: 2:25 pm

Next Meeting: Wednesday, May 16, 2007, 1:00 – 2:30, via video conferencing

Last Updated: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 at 12:10:12 PM
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