University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

COMPUTERANDNETWORKSERVICESMANAGEMENTREPORT

January and February 2011

Table of Contents1. SUMMARY......................................................................................................................................42. SYSTEMS SUPPORT (SS)..............................................................................................................72.1 Introduction....................................................................................................................................72.2 Progress..........................................................................................................................................72.2.1 Desktop backup service...............................................................................................................72.2.2 UNIX and Storage Area Network (SAN) Management..............................................................82.2.3 Database Administration.............................................................................................................82.2.4 Email............................................................................................................................................92.3 Challenges......................................................................................................................................92.4 Staffing...........................................................................................................................................92.5 Projects...........................................................................................................................................92.5.1 Wits Private Cloud.......................................................................................................................92.6 Service statistics...........................................................................................................................102.6.1 Service availability....................................................................................................................102.6.2 Staff email usage.......................................................................................................................102.6.3 Student email usage...................................................................................................................113. COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION SECURITY (CIS)...............................................143.1 Introduction..................................................................................................................................143.2 Progress........................................................................................................................................143.3 Challenges and Incidents..............................................................................................................153.4 Priorities and Projects...................................................................................................................163.5 Staffing and Training....................................................................................................................173.6 Statistics........................................................................................................................................173.7 Mail...............................................................................................................................................183.8 Anti Virus......................................................................................................................................183.9 Paper Usage..................................................................................................................................184. TELEPHONE SERVICES..............................................................................................................224.1 Introduction..................................................................................................................................224.2 Progress........................................................................................................................................224.3 Challenges and Incidents..............................................................................................................224.4 Priorities and Projects...................................................................................................................234.5 Staffing and Training....................................................................................................................234.6 Statistics........................................................................................................................................235. STUDENT & CLIENT SUPPORT (SCS)......................................................................................245.1 Introduction & Summary..............................................................................................................245.2 Progress........................................................................................................................................245.3 Challenges....................................................................................................................................265.4 Staff..............................................................................................................................................265.5 Projects / Priorities.......................................................................................................................265.6 Statistics........................................................................................................................................276. BUSINESS SOLUTIONS (BS).....................................................................................................286.1 Introduction/Summary..................................................................................................................286.2 Progress........................................................................................................................................286.3 Staff..............................................................................................................................................296.4 Projects/Priorities.........................................................................................................................296.5 Statistics........................................................................................................................................297. STRATEGIC AND CORPORATE SERVICES (STCS)................................................................317.1 Summary.......................................................................................................................................31

7.2 Progress........................................................................................................................................317.2.1.1 KIM strategy...........................................................................................................................317.2.1.2 KIM management meets Wits Business School.....................................................................317.3 Tenders:........................................................................................................................................317.3.1 Desktop/Laptop/Netbook Procurement RFP.............................................................................317.3.2 Microsoft LAR process.............................................................................................................317.4 Policies:........................................................................................................................................327.5 Collaborations:.............................................................................................................................327.6 Annual reporting:..........................................................................................................................337.7 Corporate and Commercial Services............................................................................................337.7.1 Contract Management...............................................................................................................337.7.2 Licensing and Vendor discussions.............................................................................................337.7.3 Training rooms...........................................................................................................................337.7.4 Asset Tool requirements............................................................................................................337.8 Statistics........................................................................................................................................347.8.1 Call Logging..............................................................................................................................347.8.2 CNS overtime and standby statistics.........................................................................................357.8.3 CNS student claims statistics.....................................................................................................367.8.4 CNS travel claims statistics.......................................................................................................378. FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT.....................................................................................................388.1 March Budget Review..................................................................................................................388.2 2011 Forecast................................................................................................................................39

Illustration IndexIllustration 1: Uptime of services on servers...................................................................................11Illustration 2: Staff email users and storage used...........................................................................12Illustration 3: Active staff email users..............................................................................................12Illustration 4: Staff email disk usage...............................................................................................13Illustration 5: Unique Student Email Logins for July and August 2010............................................13Illustration 6: Unique Student Email Logins for July and August 2009............................................14

1. SUMMARY

1. 1 Systems SupportThe new year started as usual with the processing of the Matric results on the iWits system. The recommendations of the ICT Reference committee to remove the enforcement of password changes on the directory system and the removal of the automatic screen saver on some workstations were implemented.

The first intern joined the team as part of the Graduate Internship Program in January.

The Network Attached Storage (NAS) hardware was delivered and made operational.

The iWits Release 12 (R12) project and the Student Information Management System (SIMS) project continued to take up the most of the Database Administration and UNIX team's time during this period, with upgrades and new instances being completed. More details can be found in the sections below.

Maintenance was performed on the iWits Production system to allow the easier cloning of the system for the R12 project.

The Business Intelligence development database and Oracle Warehouse Builder were upgraded to version 11.2.0.1 and a new instance was created.

The first set of training was done in the CNS training room using Ubuntu desktops and Microsoft Terminal servers for Windows based applications.

1. 2 Communications and Information SecurityDuring the reporting period the various CIS teams were busy with the following:

The network team was involved in the setup of the network infrastructure required at the Student Enrolment Centre (SENC) and in Central Block for the SPSC ( Single Point Service Centre) for the 2011 registrations.

The Chris Hani - Baragwanath fibre link was finally handed over by TENET to WITS on the 6th

January 2011.

The Data Center team were busy with the printing of offer letters and registration forms for the 2011 registration process.

The proposals from the RFP (Request for Proposal) for the construction of the new Disaster Recovery Data Center in CLM (Commerce Law Management) building, West Campus, ground floor room 37 were reviewed and recommendations were made.

The firewall installation is near completion. The approach from the vendor and the Information Security Team (INFOSEC) has been to test the cut-over into components and do the migration in stages. Over the last 2 to 3 months, this has been carried out with great success. The final stage is to now test the hardware in full cluster mode, and this will happen in March 2011.

The general day to day activities of dealing with Service desk calls, service requests and involvement in various projects continued during this period.

1.3 Telephone ServicesTelephone Services (TS) began 2011 with numerous moves, adds and changes on the voice network for departments (statistics below). This period is a busy time for TS, particularly the University's switchboards, with inquiries from parents and students being prevalent. During this period, TS employs a temporary member of staff to ensure the switchboard is fully manned during working hours.

1.4 Student and Client SupportStudent & Client Support (SCS) comprises of four sections:

•The Staff Support Service Desk:

The main role of this team is to provide telephonic and hands-on support for Wits staff desktops

and laptops.

•The Student Support Service Desk:

The main role of this team is to manage computer labs and Student Assistants, supporting

students and lecturers in the use of the computer labs of CNS and those Faculties that have

outsourced their computer lab management to CNS.

•The SOE Team (Standard Operating Environment):

A small team of specialist system engineers that create, maintain and manage the creation of

computer hard disk images (snapshots) which in turn allows for the efficient management of large

groups of student and staff computers.

•QualComm Team: The Quality Service Management and Communications Team in SCS

responsible for quality service and communications on behalf of KIM (Knowledge & Information

Management.

1. 5 Business SolutionsThe BITS Student team have worked on admissions functionality due for the CRP scheduled in early March 2011. Development is going well on these.

The BITS HR/Payroll and Finance team were predominantly focused on the R12 project.

The NMS team have worked closely with marketing to prepare the CCMS (the Wits website) which is due to go live in March 2011. This project is progressing well.

The OASIS team were focused on the Online Applications changes for the SIMS project which are also due for presentation at the CRP in early March. This team is also the major player in the research element of the DAMS project which received much attention in this period.

1.6 Strategic & Corporate ServicesThe focus in Strategic and Corporate services in the January to February period included the following: The training rooms were setup in the ubuntu environment and we facilitated testing with the users. We supported the KIM management team in terms of annual reporting requirements to parliament, transformation updates and actively participating in discussions with internal stakeholders like Wits Business School and the Senate Reference KIM strategy working group. We continued working with the Legal office on our desktop tender document and the related service level agreement. We participated in external forums including special interest groups in collaboration with other universities to identify opportunities for collaborative procurement. We contributed to the NEC working group set up to establish a contract framework for the University. Drafting of the asset tool requirements was worked on extensively by our graduate intern to support us in our search for a tool that will be fit for purpose.

1.7 Financial ManagementCNS is requesting that the budget submitted during 2010 for the Special Projects be reviewed. This request is for 4 projects with the total amount of R23, 993,265.35.

A few of these projects have begun; we fund these by using CNS's operational budget where

resources are available, e.g. staffing and other minor expenses. Projects which have begun are Internet Protocola Telephony (IPT); Student Ownership of Computing Equipment (SOOCE) and Digital Archiving Management (DAMs).

2. SYSTEMS SUPPORT (SS)

2.1 IntroductionThe new year started as usual with the processing of the Matric results on the iWits system. The recommendations of the ICT Reference committee to remove the enforcement of password changes on the directory system and the removal of the automatic screen saver on some workstations were implemented.

The first intern joined the team as part of the Graduate Internship Program in January.

The Network Attached Storage (NAS) hardware was delivered and made operational.

The iWits Release 12 (R12) project and the Student Information Management System (SIMS) project continued to take up the most of the Database Administration and UNIX team's time during this period, with upgrades and new instances being completed. More details can be found in the sections below.

Maintenance was performed on the iWits Production system to allow the easier cloning of the system for the R12 project.

The Business Intelligence development database and Oracle Warehouse Builder were upgraded to version 11.2.0.1 and a new instance was created.

The first set of training was done in the CNS training room using Ubuntu desktops and Microsoft Terminal servers for Windows based applications.

The following operational challenges were faced:

•The SMS system was not functioning properly at the start of the year. The supplier was called and the system software was updated. An improved monitoring process has been implemented to avoid a repeat of this incident.

•Users at Baragwanath Hospital started to complain that they could not access the staff email system. A server providing network services was installed to help resolve the problem. It helped improve login response times but did not resolve the problem. It was found that applying service pack 3 for Windows XP resolved the problem. There are many other desktops that do not have this service pack on all campuses and potentially can affect these users in the same way. We are working with other CNS sections on this matter.

•The staff email system was unavailable on the 21 February to about 25 % of the users due to a corrupted log file. Service was restored by the end of business on the same day.

•Printing of student letters through the 1-1 fulfilment system, generated errors during the printing process after the maintenance work done on the iWits production system. Duplicates letters were being generated.

•Some student letters (FM to provide details)... Please get these details or remove this line.

At the end of February a total of 24 878 students had logged into the student email system.

2.2 Progress

2.2.1 Desktop backup serviceAt the end of February, there were 129 departments with 1600 active users in total using the Windows desktop backup solution.

2.2.2 UNIX and Storage Area Network (SAN) ManagementThe R12 and SIMS projects have kept the team busy with the provisioning server and disk environments for each instance. The UNIX team was involved in installation of the SIMS and Cloud NAS infrastructure. Besides the SIMS and Cloud infrastructure deployment, the following was achieved:

•Zabbix, an Open Source monitoring system, is being rolled out to servers.

•Backula, an Open Source backup system, is being tested for server backup.

•Virtual Ubuntu servers set up on the Cloud infrastructure for:

◦Digital Asset Management Project, a development server for testing Fedora.

◦A web server was made available for the development work for the WWW2011 conference.

◦iFolder, an Open Source desktop file synchronisation system was installed on the cloud infrastructure. The system still needs to be configured for use.

•One new Solaris Zone, virtual server set up for the R12 project.

2.2.3 Database AdministrationThe team worked on the following projects:

•Oracle Applications R12 project. The version of the development instance was upgraded from Release 12.1.1 to Release 12.1.3. At the end of February five upgrades were done from Release 11 to Release 12, five Release 12 clones and six Release 11 clones were completed for the project. It must be noted that the average time to complete an upgrade is two weeks if work is done during normal working hours.

•Business Intelligence (BI) system upgrade to Version 11g. The BI development server database and the Oracle Warehouse Builder were upgraded to Version 11.2.0.1. Problems were experienced with this version and it was decided not to upgrade the Production environment until these were resolved. We were advised by Oracle that Version 11.2.0.2 would potentially resolve the issues. An in place upgrade was done to the development environment to Version 11.2.0.2 and this did not resolve all the issues. It was then decided to clone the production system and do a straight upgrade to Version 11.2.0.2.

•Business Intelligence. A new instance was created for the R12 project.

•Matric Results Processing. The team provided support for the Matric results processing in January.

•Enabling Oracle Application Management (OAM) with Oracle Enterprise Management (OEM). This is on hold until we can free up resources for this work.

•Student Information Management Systems project. A new clone of the environment was completed. Maintenance work was done on the tables and data imports were carried out.

•iWits Interoperability patches. The iWits production system was upgraded to allow for easier cloning and upgrades for the R12 instances. The application of these patches reduces the upgrade time by 6 hours per instance.

The following database maintenance tasks were completed:

•Maintenance work was done on the Residence Management System database.

•The Residence Management System and Wits Academic Marks Processing System databases were cloned.

2.2.4 Email No new maintenance was done on the staff email system. A member of the support staff has joined the project team that will implement the new email system for staff, students and alumni.

2.3 ChallengesThe challenges reported on the previous period remain:

•Not finding appropriate skilled staff for the vacancies, see section on staffing below.

•Lack of space for the West Campus Data Centre that is hampering other initiatives e.g. Private Cloud.

•Lack of appropriate policies that can be used to define standards and standard operating procedures that will improve operational efficiencies.

•Finding appropriate time to do system maintenance that requires more than 3 hours.

2.4 StaffingA new staff member, Arsha Joseph, joined the UNIX/SAN administration team in February. There are three vacancies in the Microsoft Administration team and one in the UNIX/SAN Administration team. Potential staff are being head hunted for these positions and three possible candidates have been identified and interviews have been scheduled for March. Interns are also being sought as part of the Graduate Internship Program in CNS.

2.5 Projects

2.5.1 Wits Private CloudThe upgraded Networked Attached Storage devices were made available for use. No additional physical servers were added to the Cloud complex but usage of it did increase from the previous reporting period i.e. Server03 has moved from 24% allocated to 75% allocated. At the end of February the following memory allocations existed on the Ubuntu hosts and this can be used as a guide to how much of the server is allocated:

Server Memory allocation

Server01 100.00%

Server02 90.00%

Server03 75.00%

Server04 100.00%

Additional server infrastructure will be procured in 2011 to cater for increasing requirements. The architecture of the Cloud infrastructure will be reviewed to ensure effective use of resources.

2.6 Service statistics

2.6.1 Service availabilityThe following graphs show the percentage uptime for services on the servers on which they are hosted i.e. network and desktop availability is not taken into account in these calculations. The period 08:00 – 17:00 is defined as “office hours”. The period 17:00 – 08:00 is defined as “after hours” and includes weekend and public holidays. All maintenance periods and agreed down times are excluded from the calculations of service availability.

In January there was one incident for the staff email system:

•On 12th January, the system was not available to users that use IMAP and Outlook Web Access. The web certificate was renewed and service restored at 10:30.

In February there were three incidents on the staff email system and one for the Residence Management System:

•On the 8th and 10th February, the system had to be reset as a result of large mail queues that consisted mostly of spam.

•On the 21st February, a corrupted log file caused 25% of the users to not have access to their email until 16:45 while the system was being repaired.

•On the 18th February, the web server for the Residence Management System was restarted after users complained that they could access the system.

2.6.2 Staff email usage

Illustration 1: Uptime of services on servers

There was a decrease of 17.34 % in the number of active mailboxes since the end December 2010, see illustration 3. This can be attributed to employment contracts coming to an end in December and a clean up of email accounts that was done to disable all accounts not accessed since January 2008. There was a corresponding 2.69% increase in disk usage, see illustration 4. The number of email items stored in the system has increased by 5.5% since December to 15.5 million mail items.

2.6.3 Student email usage

3Illustration 4: Staff email disk usage

Illustration 2: Staff email and storage usedIllustration 3: Active staff email users

The pattern of usage in this period is different for the corresponding period in 2010. The academic year started earlier in 2010 and the normal peak usage day, the first day of term, is in February this year. 762 more students logged into the email system on the first day of term compared to the corresponding day in 2010. It can also be noted that subsequent days show an increase in usage in 2011. At the end of February a total of 24 878 students had logged into the student email. At the end of 2010 a total of 27 982 students had logged into the email system.

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Illustration 5: Unique student email logins for January and February 2011

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Illustration 6: Unique student email logins for January and February 2010

Disclaimer: The Systems Support report only reflect highlights of development and production services and does not reflect all the work done in the section.

3. COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION SECURITY (CIS)

3.1 Introduction

During the reporting period the various CIS teams were busy with the following:

The network team was involved in the setup of the network infrastructure required at the Student Enrolment Centre (SENC) and in Central Block for the SPSC ( Single Point Service Centre) for the 2011 registrations.

The Chris Hani - Baragwanath fibre link was finally handed over by TENET to WITS on the 6th

January 2011.

The Data Center team were busy with the printing of offer letters and registration forms for the 2011 registration process.

The proposals from the RFP (Request for Proposal) for the construction of the new Disaster Recovery Data Center in CLM (Commerce Law Management) building, West Campus, ground floor room 37 were reviewed and recommendations were made.

The firewall installation is near completion. The approach from the vendor and the Information Security Team (INFOSEC) has been to test the cut-over into components and do the migration in stages. Over the last 2 to 3 months, this has been carried out with great success. The final stage is to now test the hardware in full cluster mode, and this will happen in March 2011.

The general day to day activities of dealing with Service desk calls , service requests and involvement in various projects continued during this period.

3.2 Progress

Proxy Server Upgrades : INFOSEC has completed the building of the student load balanced cluster and will put the solution into test mode in March 2011. There were some delays in the rolling out the solution due to outstanding tests.

Mail-gateway Server Upgrades : INFOSEC has completed the build of the mail gateways servers onto Linux platforms and has started testing the servers with mail traffic. When all test criteria have been satisfied, the servers will be placed into full production and this should happen over the next reporting period.

East Campus Data Center : The network switches for the site arrived in February, the team is now planning the implementation and require a suitable down time window. This will be scheduled via the CNS Change Advisory Board (CAB).

West Campus Disaster Recovery area : the tender documents were reviewed and a short list has been compiled with recommendation and suggestions, a meeting will be held on the 07 March 2011 to discuss the awarding of the tender.

UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply) : Funding has been made available for the purchase of new UPSs for key areas; these areas have been identified and will need to be

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prioritized due to the limited funding. Additional UPSs will be needed to protect all networking equipment across the Wits University main campus network especially now with the implementation of the campus generators.

The link from East Campus to the Chris Hani -Baragwanath hospital was upgraded in the first week of January from a 2Mbp/TELKOM link, to a 1 Gbps fibre link. There were issues with the client machines not being able to read mail until a patch was applied to the desktops. The Service Desk handled all the calls and did the installations of the patch.

3.3 Challenges and Incidents

The networks team were asked to investigate options to enable tablets such as iPads and various smart phones that do not support browser based authentication to connect to the wireless network. A separate logical network had to be configured to accommodate these mobile devices and currently a pilot is being run within CNS where the Media Access Control (MAC) address of the devices are used as an authentication mechanism. A MAC address is a unique identifier assigned to a network interfaces for communications on the physical network segment.

During the first week of the term, the wireless network on the East Campus was not able to accommodate the many users trying to connect. Changes had to be made to increase the IP (Internet protocol) addresses available for that service and also reduce the lease period of the IP address allocated. This is now being monitored.

A critical email failure was noticed in February which affected a large number of users and involved up to 7000 delayed mails. A failure in the anti-virus software on the mail gateways resulted in certain mails to be held back in the mail queue. All affected users were notified and the mails released. The impact was low and INFOSEC has taken steps to prevent this from reoccurring.

Printing problems were experienced with registration forms on the 25th of January 2011, these were resolved by the Systems Support server administrators.

Unplanned power failures were experience on the the following days, January 10 and 28, February 7 , 19 , 23; the East Campus Data Center remained functional as the result of the successful cut over from city power to UPS to generator and then back to city power.

During the February/March service of the HVAC (Heating, Ventilating, Air Conditioning) units at the East Campus Data Centre a leak was detected on one of the 8 compressors.

At the West campus Data Center problems are still being experienced with the HVAC (Heating, Ventilating, Air Conditioning) units, these problems are due to a failures of the compressors.

The planned power shut downs for the installation of the campus generators during the reporting period affected the network availability.

The Chamber of Mines main network distribution link went down as no UPS is in in place. The East Campus network went down and when power was restored the Hillman, Physics, Humphrey Raikes and School of Arts buildings failed to restart automatically. The network switch at the Physics building was damaged and had to be replaced.

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At Chris Hani – Baragwanath Hospital, the Palliative Care unit network switch failed to switch on after power was off from 22nd January 2011 to 24th January 2011 at that site.

A radio link had to be installed as a backup link for the Free Space Optic (FSO) laser link that is installed between the Knockando residence and Parktown Campus water tower: this was done as a result of high failure rate on the FSO link. The supplier is working on resolving the problem.

The network switch configurations in the CNS managed computer labs across the campuses were changed to facilitate the efficient deployment of machine images.

3.4 Priorities and Projects

The following items are high priority for the teams at present

•the roll out of a proxy cluster solution

•the upgrade of the firewalls

•the upgrade of the mail gateways onto new platforms

•the construction of the West Campus Disaster Recovery Data Center, can no longer host any additional equipment in this area due to the high loads on the current UPS and HVAC units

•the purchase of the above mentioned UPSs as the networking equipment is without power protection now

•the installation of the East Campus Data Center switches as the server administrators are waiting iLO (Integrated light-Out) connections to their servers

The networks team is busy with the following Capital Development and PIMD projects:

•the New Sciences Centre

•Chamber of Mines quadrants 1,2,and 3

•the Art Gallery at University Corner

•the PKV 815 project ; the cabling contractors have been appointed and the issuing of the purchase order for the networking equipment has been issued.

•quotes to link the residences of South Court and Graduate Lodge to the network are being obtained

•the cabling and installation of the networking equipment has been completed at the new SIMS project office at the MATRIX; the team moved to their new area in early January

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3.5 Staffing and Training

INFOSEC is still head hunting candidates to fill the 4th post in the division.

Serge Tsibangu, joined the CIS team, as part of the CNS Graduate Internship Program. Serge will be studying for a masters degree this year.

In March Jules Fotso will join the team on a six month contract to assist with the Telephone Services Pilot pilot of 3 free and Opens Source based IPT (Iinternet Protocol Telephony) solutions.

3.6 Statistics

Breakdown of Internet traffic by protocol

Internet usage for the months of January and February 2011 is shown below. Student proxy traffic has taken the lead in position 1 followed by Staff proxy traffic and default traffic.

The graph below shows the Top 10 protocols for inbound traffic

Internet Proxy usage by Faculty

During the months of January and February, the highest Internet usage for students was by the Faculty of Engineering with 1 131.46 GB and 2 743.31 GB, respectively (see graph below). February shows a steady increase in Internet usage by the students as they get back from vacation.

For staff the highest Internet usage during the months of January and February was by KIM with 2 116.26 GB and 2 742.60 GB for January and February, respectively (see graph below).

The highest total Internet usage for Staff and Students was in February with 7 241.60 GB and 11 676.51 GB, respectively (see graph below). These values were higher than those of the previous months and reflect staff and students returning from the holidays.

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3.7 MailThe mail gateways received 19 830 175 and 18 341 349 emails for the months of January and February 2011 respectively. There is a significant decrease in the amount of emails received for the first two months of this year (see previous reports).

For the months of January and February, the total number of rejected emails was 17 448 556 and 12 682 218 respectively. As with the case for the received emails, there is a significant decrease in the amount of emails rejected for the first two months of this year (see previous reports).

The total amount of spam blocked for January and February was 16 529 327 and 11 650 268 respectively. These values reflect an decrease in blocked spam for January and February.

The overall figure for this reporting period are slightly lower than normal as the reporting server suffered log corruption for the last four days of February 2011. As a result, the data was lost.

Incoming/Outgoing mail-gateway server: January and February 2010

3.8 Anti VirusThe total threat count for January and February was 58 059 and 99 509 respectively. This represents the total number of threats dealt with by the anti virus software on client desktops on the Wits network. The difference between the two months reflect the quiet period during January, which results in a lower threat count.

3.9 Paper Usage

The graph below shows the number of boxes of paper distributed from the DATA CENTRE paper stock to the various areas of CNS, total of 2500 pages per box.

Paper Usage for the past two reporting periods

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MCQ (Multiple Choice Questionnaires) marking for the past two reporting periods

Network StatisticsThe graph below indicates the utilization of the line during the reporting period, the 1 Gbp/s fiber link went live on 6th January 2011. The utilization is below 4%, so the graph was adjusted to a maximum of 5% for clearer viewing. The link was down on 22nd January - 24th January 2011 due to a power failure at the site.

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Wireless Statistics

The graph below shows the usage of the wireless network during the last 3 month. There is an increase at the end of January when registration began.

The graph below shows the number client connections on the wireless network during the last 3 months.

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4. TELEPHONE SERVICES

4.1 Introduction

Telephone Services (TS) began 2011 with numerous moves, adds and changes on the voice network for departments (statistics below). This period is a busy time for TS, particularly the University's switchboards, with inquiries from parents and students being prevalent. During this period, TS employs a temporary member of staff to ensure the switchboard is fully manned during working hours.

4.2 Progress

The Internet Protocol Telephony (IPT) Project got under way with three companies being identified as vendors who would be invited to take part in a pilot to take Wits' telephony into the IPT spectrum. Weekly meetings for updates have been scheduled and these will increase to daily updates as the pilots progress.

The Knowledge and Information (KIM) Project Manager has been working with the Wits Legal Office to ensure all protocols are complete and this has hindered the time slots somewhat as the time line for the residence is June 2011.

A presentation was given to the Operational Implementation Steering Group (OISG) on scenarios for the IPT expansion for Wits Junction which is a new residence for Medical Students and will require the provisioning of 1 200 telephones.

There were also two internal presentations on possible scenarios with products such as Asterisk and FreeSwitch, both being Free and Open Source (FOSS) products.

The CNS PC Laboratory which hosted 30 additional agents for Student Enrollment Center was dismantled at the end of January. The Single Point Student Center, housed in the Exams Hall in Central Block was also dismantled in February.

A CNS Graduate Intern has been tasked to look at the University's telephone accounts and to investigate any savings that might be available to the Wits.

A budget meeting was held with the CNS Financial Manager to ensure TS is fiscally sound is ongoing.

4.3 Challenges and Incidents

A scheduled upgrade of the billing system (Galactrix) was undertaken at the end of December 2010. It was not until the scheduled monthly email reports to departments did not run, that problems were picked up. This resulted in additional work for Unison Communications who were called in to rectify the situation. The problem has been solved and reports and billing functioning normally.

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Since moving the voice mail server to the CNS Data Center, we have experienced downtime with voice mail. Unison Communications and the CNS team are working to resolve.

4.4 Priorities and Projects

The priority has been the IPT Project which has been time consuming and the Performance Appraisals for staff and setting of Key Performance Areas (KPAs).

4.5 Staffing and Training

No formal training was undertaken during this period.

Mr Serge Tshabangu, a CNS Graduate Intern and Mr Jules Fotso, who is on contract for six months have joined the team, they bring a wealth of experience in both the telecommunications field, and particularly Asterisk.

4.6 Statistics

January 2011

Percentage of Costs

Distribution of Costs

Cell Calls 66.11% R 337,110.47

Local Calls 21.71% R 110,688.87

National Calls 9.79% R 49,942.41

International 2.39% R 12,170.71

February 2011

Percentage of Costs

Distribution of Costs

Cell Calls 65.60% R 359,591.98

Local Calls 21.89% R 119,974.01

National Calls 9.88% R 54,138.32

International 2.64% R 14,472.71

January February

New extensions 50 37

Transferred extensions 113 57

Upgrades analogue/digital 0 2

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5. STUDENT & CLIENT SUPPORT (SCS)

5.1 Introduction & SummaryStudent & Client Support (SCS) comprises of four sections:

•The Staff Support Service Desk:

The main role of this team is to provide telephonic and hands-on support for Wits staff desktops

and laptops.

•The Student Support Service Desk:

The main role of this team is to manage computer labs and Student Assistants, supporting

students and lecturers in the use of the computer labs of CNS and those Faculties that have

outsourced their computer lab management to CNS.

•The SOE Team (Standard Operating Environment):

A small team of specialist system engineers that create, maintain and manage the creation of

computer hard disk images (snapshots) which in turn allows for the efficient management of

large groups of student and staff computers.

•QualComm Team: The Quality Service Management and Communications Team in SCS

responsible for quality service and communications on behalf of KIM (Knowledge & Information

Management.

5.2 Progress

Of special interest during this period is the 2011 student registration. This year as in previous

years, CNS committed staff from multiple areas to ensure the registration ICT requirements

were met with high levels of efficiency.

Some of the issues noted for the Registration Report back meeting, include:

5.2.1 Last minutes requests: Users kept sending requests about computers during registration

which included requests to their remote offices.

5.2.2 Venue availability: We requested to have the venue available on the 15th of December,

but was only made available to us days prior the registration.(January). This impacts on

our delivery since we will not have the required resources on the unknown day the venue

becomes available.

5.2.3 Registration wrap-up: There was not enough time for us to set up the computers back to

the labs. Registration was concluded just before the start of the teaching block, which

does give us the required time to prepare and set-up the computers back in the

computer labs.

5.2.4 Student passwords: Information pertaining to student passwords were found in some

cases were still communicated according to the previous mechanism of IS number

instead of the new facility of the student password being sms'd to the primary cell

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number we have for them on record.

5.2.5 A proposal will be taken to the Report back meeting to consider the use of existing

computer lab facilities during registration. This will have numerous advantages,

including:

5.2.5.1 Savings due casual and permanent staff having to move, and logistically account for

over 100 computers that need to be moved out of highly secured computer cages and

locking cables.

5.2.5.2 Damage to computer equipment having to be moved across campuses, over rough

terrain, and without adequate insulation can be completely avoided.

5.2.5.3 Having to account for each monitor and CPU box via serial number, updating the

relevant documentation requires extensive commitment in terms of both time and

resources.

5.2.5.4 This issue is compounded by the fact the not only do all these workstations have to be

taken to the student registration locations, set up and secured, but they all need to be

brought back and set up perfectly in their cages, a task that is very labour intensive due

to the tight cabling of both the computer workstation as well as the security cabling in

and around the security cage and trunking.

The replacement of the CNS computer lab printing solution has now reached a phase of

calling for quotes from Minolta, Ricoh and HP, for a pull printing ICAM integrated

solution. The request for the quotations are expected to go out in March, 2011.

The incident call logging, routing, and tracking system, HEAT, which has been used in

CNS is in the process of being replaced by a new open source system, called OTRS

(dubbed as Otter). There has been some delays in the launch of Otter and currently it is

entering the final stages of getting the reporting structure of the system in place. The

launch of Otter is expect in early April, 2011 as this time is more appropriate to introduce

a new Service Desk system, when it is less busy at the Service Desk and likely more

prudent in order to address any potential teething problems there might be.

The new 2011 IT guides for Staff and students were published at www.wits.ac.za/access

The launch of technical support for Windows 7 in 2011 has gone smoothly. There had

been the expected impact on some software packages, and in these case the software

is either upgraded or the PCs remain on Windows XP depending on the best option.

Support for Linux is growing in terms of staff skill levels and adoption within CNS as part

of the Desktop Migration Project. As a result of this project numerous staff members in

CNS are running Ubuntu Linux on their new desktops, combined with Terminal Services

for the Windows applications they may still require. Further staffing for Linux support is in

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progress (see staffing section 4.4)

The SOE team utilised the new image deployment system developed in house as totally

open source, cross-platform solution. The staff in the team working on this solution,

especially Timothy Mitchell need special mention for this significant achievement.

The infrastructure upgrades funded by DOE grant money within a number of CNS

computer labs were completed successfully.

5.3 Challenges(Refer to student registration under 4.2)

Ceilings in the CNS computer labs on West Campus in the FNB building have collapsed

due to rain. Damage to the lab computers were minimal, but the labs will remain non-

operational until the venues have been repaired.

In addition there are a concerning number of calls (some logged months before) that

remain unresolved. These issues will be addressed in a dedicated meeting with PIMD to

determine the best way forward to expedite these calls.

Operational tasks are affecting the time available to commit to the larger enterprise

projects, such as WITA.

5.4 StaffIn terms of the SOE the position for providing desktop support on Linux is being

advertised, and in the meantime the position is filled by a contractor.

In addition a graduate intern was placed at CNS staff Service Desk. An additional two

graduate interns have been stationed at the Student Service Desk.

5.5 Projects / Priorities

•WITA – Wits IT Access – Ongoing, being addressed at Faculty ICT Committees as well as

internally within CNS.

•Enterprise Printing – Kick-off meetings have been held with HP and Ricoh with specific focus

on running a Proof Of Concept for student printing in the CNS computer labs.

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•Formalizing the Quality and Communications Team in SCS – Ongoing.

•

5.6 Statisticsa. Service Desk Calls Received and Closed

Figure 1

b. i-WITS (Oracle) Calls Received and Closed

Figure 2

Figure 3

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6. BUSINESS SOLUTIONS (BS)

6.1 Introduction/Summary

The BITS Student team have worked on admissions functionality due for the CRP scheduled in early March 2011. Development is going well on these.

The BITS HR/Payroll and Finance team were predominantly focused on the R12 project.

The NMS team have worked closely with marketing to prepare the CCMS (the Wits website) which is due to go live in March 2011. This project is progressing well.

The OASIS team were focused on the Online Applications changes for the SIMS project which are also due for presentation at the CRP in early March. This team is also the major player in the research element of the DAMS project which received much attention in this period.

6.2 Progress

The BITS Student team began making good use of their Peopletools training in this period. Working according to the SIMS project plan, the admissions module was the main focus. The BITS Student team were tasked with writing the enquiry screens for this module. These screens will be used by SENC, Faculty and School staff to be able to enquire on any data relevant to an applicant as the Campus Solution software does not provide this data in a consolidated format that can be used for administrative and decision making processes. The other deliverable for the CRP in March was the development of the Rapid Application Capture (RAC) screens. Again, Campus Solutions does not cover this functionality very efficiently leading to the need for these screens. The last development was screens for the International Office who record and track data for international students. This functionality does not exists in Campus Solution and hence the need for this development. The development of these screens was met with positive feedback.

The CCMS project was the main focus of the NMS team. Major developments were completed last year but there were a number of open bugs and last minute enhancements to prepare the CCMS for production readiness in March 2011. Marketing spent many hours working on the content and finishing touches to make the system ready for public consumption.

The VRE projects continued steadily. The VRE contract finally received the attention it needed internally and was circulated to University of Pretoria as they are the party contracting Wits for the development services on the VRE.

The OASIS team played a role in three major projects. The first being the Online Application screens which needed redevelopment for the SIMS projects to integrate Campus Solutions and introduce some agreed new functionality. The second being the DAMS project where many hours were spent on research and evaluation of the recommended architecture stack. The final area of focus was the SPLIT project as this team is responsible for the majority of the integration between the iWits ERP and other systems. The SPLIT project will separate the current iWits ERP into two instances where the Finance, HR and Payroll instance will be separated from the

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OSS one and introduce a new Person Store for maintaining unique records for each individual. The new Finance, HR and Payroll instance will be on R12 by then and thus all the integration needs revamping and testing. Analysis and some development work was done on this during this period but the finalized new Person Store and R12 development is not complete and will affect this SPLIT project.

6.3 Staff

Sihle Manqele joined the OASIS team on the 3 January 2011 bringing valuable java experience to the team.

Yogini Govind left the CNS team to join Finance as the IT Financial Manager. We implemented some interim measures in the teams she lead to create the opportunity to reevaluate the structure of the iWits support team in Business Solutions and to concurrently assess the ERP Support Strategy at Wits.

Some interns were interviewed and an offer was made to a Christopher Moeketsi, a BSc graduate. Christopher will join the OASIS team on 1 March 2011. Further recruitment of GIP's will continue.

4 positions were advertised in this period with the closing dates for these being the 11 March 2011. These were for 3 Quality Assurance positions and 1 Business Analyst.

6.4 Projects/Priorities

Our main focus areas have been:

1.Chisimba Content Management System - CCMS2.Student Information Management System – SIMS3.Oracle ERP Version 12 – R124.Oracle ERP Split - Split5.Digital Asset Management System - DAMS6.Customer Relationship Management - CRM7.Virtual Research Environment – VRE

6.5 Statistics

The Business Solutions team workload was dominated by project work. Above is a graph of the hours spent in project work done in this period, with a bar per project. The CCMS project required many hours of overtime due to the deadline being so close. There were 3 staff members working on this project whereas there were 4 staff members working on the SIMS project.

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The balance of hours worked in Business Solutions are indicated above. These items

include client requests, service requests and minor system enhancements as approved by CAB. There are 4 members of the BITS team, 3 members of the NMS team and 6 members of the OASIS team.

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CCMS DAMS OCS OTTER R12 SIMS SIMS – OA SPLIT VRE

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600CCMS 1496.75

DAMS 471

OCS 123

OTTER 212.5R12 180.5

SIMS 815.25

SIMS – OA 284

SPLIT 46

VRE 328

Business Solutions: New Projects

BITS NMS OASIS

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

1000 BITS 939

NMS 355.25

OASIS 660.5

Business Solutions: Support, Client Requests and Enhancements

7. STRATEGIC AND CORPORATE SERVICES (STCS)

7.1 SummaryThe focus in Strategic and Corporate services in the January to February period included the following: The training rooms were setup in the ubuntu environment and we facilitated testing with the users. We supported the KIM management team in terms of annual reporting requirements to parliament, transformation updates and actively participating in discussions with internal stakeholders like Wits Business School and the Senate Reference KIM strategy working group. We continued working with the Legal office on our desktop tender document and the related service level agreement. We participated in external forums including special interest groups in collaboration with other universities to identify opportunities for collaborative procurement. We contributed to the NEC working group set up to establish a contract framework for the University. Drafting of the asset tool requirements was worked on extensively by our graduate intern to support us in our search for a tool that will be fit for purpose.

7.2 Progress

7.2.1 Strategic ServicesStrategies:

7.2.1.1 KIM strategy

A meeting was held with the Senate Reference working group to obtain input into the format of a revised KIM strategy. The outcome of discussions reflected that the KIM strategy document would be high level and contain the primary strategic objectives. It would reference the individual portfolios plans and the 2013 rolling plan.

7.2.1.2 KIM management meets Wits Business School

A meeting was held with the Wits Business School to determine initiatives that will promote WBS becoming an “IT savvy” business school. A number of projects were decided on in each of the portfolios of KIM to support this collaboration.

7.3 Tenders:

7.3.1 Desktop/Laptop/Netbook Procurement RFP

The RFP and associated service level agreements(sla) documents were prepared and discussion with the Legal Office continued in the January/February period. The service level agreement refers to a procurement sla and an after sales warranty sla. The documents are in a fairly advanced stage and are to be approved by the RFP panel before publishing. This will ensure that a preliminary contract is available when the RFP is published.

7.3.2 Microsoft LAR process

Discussions around the large area reseller that we use for the Microsoft site license initiated and initial discussions were had with Microsoft and internal stakeholders. As the Microsoft contract was up for renewal in February, it was decided to extend this for another year with the existing large

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area reseller. A tender process is planned for third quarter of this year.

7.4 Policies:Standards, Processes, Procedures

The anti virus standards/guideline annexure was finalised and agreement was obtained from the relevant internal stakeholders. It was decided to create separate documents for the security annexures. These would detail logical, physical, perimeter and workstation security guidelines.

Password Procedure

The 30 day password enforcement was removed. This was recommended at a Senate ICT Reference meeting and subsequently implemented.

Acceptable Use Policy(AUP)

A discussion related to updates to the AUP was held with the Legal Office, DVC(KIM), Alumni, International Relations, AISU and Marketing and communications. The recommended adjustments are to be circulated and then the process for authorisation of the revisions would need to be followed before the adjusted policy can be published.

7.5 Collaborations:ASAUDIT procurement special interest group(SIG)

ASAUDIT is the consortium of IT Directors in South Africa. We participated in an ASAUDIT workshop with other universities to determine whether there are opportunities for collaborative engagements and procurement. This was a two day workshop held with a number of universities, six key vendors and Purco(purchasing consortium of universities) to determine whether this type of engagement would be feasible and beneficial.

Most of the vendors were open for negotiation indicating that this type of arrangement could be mutually beneficial for the universities. The SIG is being formalised and progressive discussions are planned for the March-April period.

NEC procurement and contract standard for Wits

We were asked to participate in an NEC (a contract framework) working group to establish standard processes and contracts for the University environment. A presentation was provided by a NEC expert, and to date we have had two subsequent workshops with the group. This will continue into the next quarter.

SIMS working group

We continued to participate in the SIMS working group. Of relevance to this area, contract management issues were raised as a risk at the working group. This was in light of the contract negotiations happening with one of our current vendors without sufficient CNS involvement. The working group also noted that we intend renovating the training rooms this year and a window period in Aug-Sept was identified for possible renovations. The training rooms would not be operational during that time period if renovation plans are successful.

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7.6 Annual reporting:

Annual report to Parliament

We contributed towards the annual report to parliament. This report contains highlights related to technology implementations in the 2010 period. It also contained a new input in terms of the governance of IT.

Transformation report updates

Employment statistics was analysed since 2009 and an update prepared to the 2009 transformation report. This is to be discussed at a University Forum in May.

7.7 Corporate and Commercial Services

Various priorities were focused on in this period. They include:

7.7.1 Contract ManagementKey contracts worked on in this period include the Microsoft Agreement, the Business Connexion Master Agreement and work on the SPSS contract (new).

7.7.2 Licensing and Vendor discussionsMonthly meetings were held with the desktop vendors. It was noted that CNS has 47 vendors. 20 of these vendors do not have current contracts. This is being addressed on an ongoing basis with the Legal Office.

7.7.3 Training roomsThe CCS training rooms were set up in an Ubuntu environment using Terminal services to access the Windows environment if required. Users were asked to assist in testing whether the environment was suitable. It was noted that as this is a fairly new experience for CNS, there were multiple teething problems. The Users' experience and comments were documented and CCS prepared a recommendation proposal based on this to have a dual training environment (Windows and Ubuntu).

7.7.4 Asset Tool requirementsThatho Lehutso joined the Strategic services team as a part-time graduate intern in February. His primary role initially is focused on finalising the requirements for an asset management tool. This will support CCS in their search for a tool that is fit for purpose.

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7.8 Statistics

7.8.1 Call LoggingCalls are still being logged on the heat system. Statistics related to workload in January and February per category is displayed below. Overtime, standby, student and travel claims for the period is summarised thereafter. A large volume of calls were related to password downloads which is to be expected at this time of the year.

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7.8.2 CNS overtime and standby statistics

Year to date overtime and standby payments for the period total to R28,630.

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January FebruaryR 13,700.00

R 13,800.00

R 13,900.00

R 14,000.00

R 14,100.00

R 14,200.00

R 14,300.00

R 14,400.00

R 14,500.00

R 14,600.00

R 14,700.00

Overtime and standby for Jan-Feb 2011

Overtime and standby

7.8.3 CNS student claims statistics Year to date overtime and standby payments for the period total to R80,252.

January FebruaryR -00

R 10,000.00

R 20,000.00

R 30,000.00

R 40,000.00

R 50,000.00

R 60,000.00

Student claims for Jan-Feb 2011

Student claims

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7.8.4 CNS travel claims statistics

Year to date overtime and standby payments for the period total to R7,648.

January FebruaryR 3,300.00

R 3,400.00

R 3,500.00

R 3,600.00

R 3,700.00

R 3,800.00

R 3,900.00

R 4,000.00

R 4,100.00

Travel Claims for Jan-Feb 2011

Travel Claims

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8. FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT

8.1 March Budget ReviewCNS is requesting that the budget submitted during 2010 for the Special Projects to be reviewed. This request is for 4 projects with the total amount of R23, 993,265.35.

A few of these projects have begun; we fund these by using CNS's operational budget where resources are available, e.g. staffing and other minor expenses. Projects which have begun are IPT; SOOCE and Digital Archiving Management.

Below is a summary of these special projects.

PROJECT NAME PROJECT COST RECURRINGEXPENDITURE

DETAILS OF PROJECT COST

1.a 10g upgrade East and West Campus

7,800,000.00 Maintenance Costs R400 000 from 2014

Equipment, support services, implementation and project management fee

1.b Parktown Fibre ring (including Hillbrow area)

7,033,800.00 To be determined Fibre ring, spurs, and last/first mile , access cost and annual SLA, capex cost

1.c FSO (Free Space optics) links to residence x 4 GL, BC, CL and Knockando

1,200,000.00 R255 000 maintenance & support - from 2012

Equipment, installation material, installation, managed services

1.d Parktown equipment

2,500,000.00 To be determined Cores for Parktown areas, maintenance costs R130 000 p.a. payable from 2014

2. IPT Implementation

1,900,000.00 To be determined Phase 1

3. Student Ownership of Computing Devices

2,059,465.35 Cost recovery through rental of safes

Advertising, staff costs, charge points, digital safes, etc.

4.Digital Asset Management

1,500,000.00 Licence renewal , maintenance, support & component replacements

Staff, software , hardware, development, technical services & change management

Total 23,993,265.35

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8.2 2011 Forecast

8.2.1SalariesAt the beginning of 2011, CNS had 22 vacancies. These included 4 new posts. CNS used these salaries savings to fund salaries for the Graduate Internship Programme for which CNS has employed 8 interns to date.Forecast calculation reflects salaries savings for 2011 to be R1 153 548 from vacancies not filled in the first quarter of 2011.CNS would like to use part of these savings to fund the salaries review which is in process and continuing from 2010.

8.2.2 OperationsTotal expenditure to date is R9 441 596.26.This includes the Zimbra implementation cost which will be transferred to Capex.

8.2.3 CapexCNS will be transferring R1.5 Million from the operational budget to Capex for Zimbra implementation as this cost should be capitalised and not expensed. Capex budget after the transfer will total to R5.5 million.

8.3 Telephone Services

8.3.1 2011 Forecast8. 3.2 RevenueTelephone services revenue earned for services to retailers on campus to date is R48 851.43.8. 3.3 SalariesSalary expenditure to date totals to R275 630.17. There is one vacancy which is a new post.8.3.4 OperationsIncome of R451 269.39 is offset by salaries and capex expenditure.The remainder of the income is R200 892.86, which is the savings from communication expenditure which was lower than what was budgeted for January.

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