University Business - May 2009 - (Page 36)

Setting the Standard a single system, more efficient maintenance, and better support from contracted vendors. “If there is a problem, you have a single point of contact and a single owner of responsibility for getting the issue resolved,” says Hernandez. John Mullen, Dell’s vice president of education, state, and local government, advises administrators to be diligent about the breadth of a potential partnering vendor’s IT capabilities. “IT decision makers should also ask a lot of questions about the solidity of key partnerships and the integrity of the vendor’s supply-chain processes.” On laptop distribution day in fall 2008, Northern Michigan University students, faculty, and staff got Lenovo ThinkPad notebooks. Serving Up Software Solutions At Johns Hopkins University (Md.), IT administrators turned to Quest Software to help bring Windows and non-Windows systems under a single umbrella for easier management and maintenance. Systems architect Jamie Bakert says IT was suffering from “console sprawl,” as staffers had to look at a dozen or so different consoles with each performing a different task. “It takes a lot of work and time throughout the day, and some of the information is confusing because [it] overlaps,” explains Bakert. Roughly three years ago, Johns Hopkins adopted Quest Management Xtensions products for Operations Manager and Configuration Manager to help enable the university’s Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 and Operations Manager 2007. By consolidating, Bakert says his colleagues have gone from being “IT generalists who were given a project with a number of clients and systems to support” to now having more specialized roles. He adds, “We’ve reduced the need to buy different products to do different layers of monitoring or management.” For multicampus institutions, Stillman notes that technology standardization can help administrators who may have to go be- ‘by having a limited set of hardware, it meant we could swap parts and provide faster service to faculty, staff, and students.’ —Les Lloyd, Saint Leo University Heading for High Performance What could be the next direction for tech standardization? John Mullen, dell’s VP of education, state, and local government, finds a particularly strong trend toward standardizing it in high-performance computing space (hPc). he estimates that this move is being driven by factors such as the economy and a rise in the use of shared clusters and research test beds at research universities. Standardization is now going into hPc networking, storage, interconnects, tools, and middleware. “hPc was about proprietary technology for much too long, which meant it was expensive,” says Mullen. now that’s changed, as the power and speed have grown rapidly. for example, Mullen cites the University of texas as having developed large visualization clusters with powerful workstations. carol Stillman, cisco’s business development manager of u.S. public sector for higher education, notes that administrators’ interest in hPc relates to the need to examine how data centers are built for energy efficiency, and as distance learning programs continue to grow with increased amounts of data. this need, she explains, will become significant in order to manage the service quality. 36 | May 2009 tween branches, by reducing the learning curve on software use and providing easier deployment and leveraging across a system. IT administrators with the University of Colorado system, meanwhile, are in the process of implementing Oracle-based systems including Campus Solutions 9.0, CRM 9.0, the Campus Solutions Warehouse in EPM 9.0, the Enterprise Portal 9.0, and the SOA Suite to merge applications and improve IT system flexibility. Begun in October 2007, the first piece of the PeopleSoft solution will go live this summer; the entire system is set for completion by the end of the 2010 fall term. The project is being funded with initiative money, and monthly meetings are centered on campus preparation for the conversion. The problems the team has experienced were due to an uneven delivery of technology currently between campuses, says Kari Branjord, assistant vice president of university management systems. By choosing standardization with the SOA suite, Branjord says it will give the institution “a way to get data in and out of our central systems in a secure manner.” This move, she adds, will offer more timely access to data in a central system than before. The Heavy on Hardware Applying tech standardization to areas such as hardware is “really about driving down your complexity” with systems, explains Curtiss Barnes, vice president for industry strategy for Oracle’s higher education division. It’s not a new strategy. Rochester Institute of Technology (N.Y.) implemented standardization with desktop and laptop computer purchases about a decade ago, according to technology buyer Elliote Simpson. The decision was driven heavily by the institution’s IT staff, who were dealing with frustration over trying to support various systems and not having any consistency with supporting call systems and incoming orders. “We really wanted to work better with our support staff and getting the systems in here they can universitybusiness.com http://www.universitybusiness.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of University Business - May 2009

University Business - May 2009
Contents
Editor's Note
College Index
Company Index
Advisory Board
Behind the News
Sense of Place
Money Matters
Viewpoint
Human Resources
Setting the Standard
Manageable Risk
Five Steps to a Powerful Social Networking Strategy
Higher Ed in the Recession
Community Colleges
What's New
End Note

University Business - May 2009