IS Connection

Budget/Purchasing Reminder: Capital Requests/Tech Purchases

It's that time of the year -- budgets for 2004-05 are being developed by administrators and department heads. I thought it might be helpful to provide the following clarifications regarding what works best for the budgeting and purchasing process as it relates to technology purchases by the university.

CAPITAL REQUESTS: You can assume that everything that is of a technical nature (hardware, computers, printers, network components, etc) will need to be purchased from a capital account. Info Systems is the clearing house for these requests, regardless of the funding source. This is outlined in the Financial Process section of the Policy on Technology Resource Allocation.

A budget amount to use for a desktop computer is $1,000 (monitor and CPU).

COMPUTERS FOR EMPLOYEES: If you are planning any changes within your department that involve adding a position be sure to also complete a request for a computer. In recent years it has become almost a requirement that if you have a telephone on your desk you probably will also need a computer to do your job because of our strong reliance on electronic communications. I realize that we are officially in a very constrained environment as far as staffing goes, however it is amazing how often we receive an urgent call about June saying that such and such is going to happen and this means a computer will be needed. I realize some of this is inevitable because of last minute changes, but it is extremely valuable for Info Systems to be aware of these possibilities when we put together the captial budget plan for technology in March.

DEPARTMENT FUNDED PURCHASES: Info Systems is allocated a specific capital budget amount each year for technology infrastructure items. Requests always exceed available funds, but we work hard to find solutions where technology is absolutely required for people to "get their job done". Sometimes the solution involves "finding funds" within other accounts, such as from within the department itself. When this occurs it is still a requirement that Info Systems is involved in the procurement process. Again, the reason for this is spelled out on the web page for the Policy on Technology Resource Allocation.

In short, techology today is highly complex and/or it is expected to operate within a network environment. There are many, many versions of things to purchase and sooner or later something is going to break that requires technical assistance. HelpDesk is then called upon to help solve the problem. Info Systems has a limited set of resources that we leverage in various ways -- of which an important one is "standardization".

The Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) includes BOTH the original purchase price as well as the support costs and disposal costs during the life of the component. Support generally means people -- and this is where the expenses really add up. EMU has been able to s-t-r-e-t-c-h its investment in technology personnel in large part because of limiting the scope of the systems it needs to support. Please -- do not go out an purchase a technology resource without taking the request to Info Systems. It has been done in the past and frustrations abound. We will work hard to get you what you need and within the realm of something we can support. You may think HelpDesk support will never be needed for your "little _______" that you purchase quick with department funds. But it is amazing what develops that results in a call to the HelpDesk. We are here to help you get your job done and will work hard for you. Call us before you go spend your money on something that we will both be frustrated with in the future.

BOTTOM LINE: If the technology product (hardware or software) will be owned by EMU, please contact INFO SYSTEMS before you consider purchasing it on your own.

Thanks for your help. Let me know if you have any questions.

Jack Rutt
Director, Information Systems
Eastern Mennonite University
ruttj@emu.edu
540-432-4478 (desk/voicemail)

Updated Novell Client Rollout

THE PROBLEM
Information Systems has determined that the recent problems with the Novell servers are likely due to old Novell clients on the network.

THE SOLUTION
IS will be forcing upgrades to ALL Novell clients on Windows computers on the network. This includes faculty/staff and students.

HOW WILL THIS AFFECT ME?
Next time you log in, the newest Novell client will be automatically installed on your machine. Then your computer will be rebooted. After that, you can log in and things will proceed normally. This is a one-time procedure.

NOTE: A dialogue box will appear during this upgrade. DO NOT click CANCEL during the upgrade process. Doing so will prevent you from connecting to Novell and will require that Info Systems work with your computer to fix the problem. Please -- do NOT click cancel!

If you have any questions, please contact HelpDesk (helpdesk@emu.edu, x4357, 540-432-4357)

Novell Outages - Saturday, Dec 06

7:00am-8:30am : All Novell Servers will be OFF-LINE.
7:00am-12:00pm: FSAPPS Novell Server will be OFF-LINE.

EMU has five Novell Servers that provide mission critical network services for the campus. Four of them provide network file services (P:, G:, Z: drives) and printing services and the fifth server performs all the nightly backup services that copy files to disk or tape repositories that are then available for selective restorations. At various times during 2003 each of these servers either needed to be replaced with new hardware or significantly upgraded. This is a long and hard process that Info Systems began about June.

The good news is that we are almost done. The servers most difficult to upgrade have been completed. Only two relatively easy upgrades remain to be done. One will be done this Saturday (12/06) and the other will be done after the close of the fall semester.

The outage on Saturday, December 6, will involve two separate operations:

FIRST: (7:00am-8:30am) A "system image" will be made for ALL Novell servers. This is needed in order to provide the fastest way possible to restore an entire server should there be a catastrophic failure. All the Novell servers will be taken off-line about 7:00am and should be returned to service by 8:30am. During this time all access to Novell services will be unavailable to the entire campus. Novell services include the network drives, email access and logging in to the Windows computers in the computer labs. Details for this outage can be found here.

SECOND: (7:00am-12:00pm) The Novell server that hosts some specialized faculty/staff applications (i.e. Goldmine, TMA, Survey Pro, Past-Perfect Museum) will remain off-line until the hardware upgrade for this server is completed. We expect this server to be back on-line by noon. Details for this outage can be found here.

If you have any questions, please contact the HelpDesk (x4357, 540-432-4357, helpdesk@emu.edu).