AGENDA ITEM BACKGROUND
TO: GOVERNING BOARD
DATE
FROM: PRESIDENT
SUBJECT:
April 11, 2011
Information Technology Update
REASON FOR BOARD CONSIDERATION
ENCLOSURE(S)
ITEM NUMBER
INFORMATION
Page 1 of 5
E.11
Storage Area Network (SAN) Update
Identified as a campus-wide critical need, the college SAN supports Datatel, the campus network
drives, email storage, numerous virtual servers, and several college databases. IT Staff have been
working with the vendor EMC to develop and design a replacement SAN. The current SAN is 4.5
years old and is running on a good faith extension of support from EMC. Accounting for planned
short term growth and potential future expansion (e.g., Softdocs, Blackboard 9.1, virtual labs, etc.)
has resulted in a design that should carry us through the next four years. Research has included:
 Other vendors and products
 Industry trends
 Contacting and consulting Cabrillo CIS Faculty
 Reviewing what CSUMB, UCSC, and other community colleges are using
 Analysis of the current SAN and how applications are using the storage space and backup
The final product design features the following benefits:
 Ability to support thin client deployment (i.e., virtual labs)
 Support for growth of current applications by tripling total storage space
 Ability to react and shift resources across servers as needed
 Reduced power consumption over current SAN
 Training for staff on new features and resources
Cabrillo College Purchasing and IT have finished accepting pricing for a replacement EMC Storage
Area Network (SAN). IT staff are reviewing the parts lists, specifications, and pricing received from
the bidding vendors as of March 16, 2011. The list of parts and the pricing summary is based upon
the EMC California WSCA/NASPO Contract #B27161. Initial bids are coming in under $400,000. IT
is attempting to negotiate further reductions in price.
SAN Timeline
March:
Receive quotes from Vendors and approve one.
April:
Process order and confirm delivery date
May:
Begin training and planning for install, prepare power in 1300
June/July: Receive and install new SAN
(Continued on next page…)
Administrator Initiating Item:
Brian King
Craig Hayward
Academic and Professional Matter
If yes, Faculty Senate Agreement
Senate President Signature
 Yes  No
 Yes  No
Final Disposition
Data Center Upgrade and Server Consolidation
On November 29, 2010 the computer room AC unit for the 1300 building data center failed. While a
plan to consolidate data centers and provide redundant cooling for the 1300 data center was
already under development, the AC failure clearly increased the importance of moving quickly from
planning to implementation.
IT staff have worked with M&O staff and an air conditioning engineer to develop a plan that will
provide a stable, adequately cooled environment that safeguards our mission critical servers,
switches and data. The plan involves some modifications to the 1300 building to improve energy
efficiency and to allow for the inclusion of the servers and equipment that is currently housed in the
1200 building. The plan calls for the installation of two enterprise-level data center air conditioners,
providing failover protection in the eventuality that one unit fails.
Additionally, the project includes planning for greater cooling capacity as more equipment is added
and cooling needs exceed the capacity of one unit. By including ducting for a third unit, we will
have the option in the future to increase total cooling capacity by running two units at once while
still having n+1 failover protection. Improved ducting and the enforcement of hot/cold zones are
expected to provide improved cooling and a reduction in energy usage over the former system.
The project activities and milestones are being tracked by IT and M&O in Smartsheet; the project is
on time and on track to be completed by early summer 2011.
Datatel/Technical Applications update
A significant upgrade to of the database “backend” of the Datatel system to Unidata 7.2 was
scheduled for Spring Break. Staff were notified via email on March 30 th that Web Advisor and
Colleague (two user interfaces for Datatel) would be unavailable on April 7 th from 5 am to 1 pm.
Subsequent to the acquisition of Sun by Oracle, we switched support for the Sun server that runs
Datatel (aka Brain) to Oracle. Our current Sunfire server reaches end-of-support in April, 2014.
Planning for replacement has begun and is included in the Tech Plan.
Tech Plan
Tech Plan development has moved online in order to increase the ability of stakeholders and
constituents to participate in its development. Currently there are 42 editors/reviewers on the
Smartsheet, including member of the Tech Committee and other college stakeholders. The
development process to date has involved the Tech Plan Development Committee (a subcommittee of the Tech Committee) developing the general direction and outline of the plan. Then
IT staff and other content experts created statements describing each content area. These
documents are then attached to the Tech Plan outline hosted in Smartsheet. Stakeholders can
then engage in threaded conversations about the content, making edits and suggestions which are
incorporated in subsequent drafts. In May, all the content, edits and suggestions will be combined
into the final document which will be shared with CPC and the component councils for review and
input. That draft will be presented to the Board at the May Board meeting for review and input. A
status update exported from Smartsheet is provided on the following three pages.
(Continued on next page…)
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Tech Plan Summary
Done
1
Tech Plan Section Name
Status
Comments
Introduction: Challenges and opportunities
2
3
Enterprise Software - Datatel, Colleague, WebAdvisor, & Blackboard
4
Initial narrative
5
Datatel
6
Datatel Action Plan review
7
New Datatel modules and enhancements
8
Prospects
9
Cohorts
10
MOX
11
WebAdvisor
12
Colleague upgrades
13
Unidata
14
e-Commerce
15
User Interface
16
SQL Migration
17
Business case
18
Timeline
19
Blackboard
20
Upgrade to version 9.1
21
Business case for moving to Bb hosted services
22
23
Analytics & Reporting
24
SQL Data Warehouse
25
Business case
26
Timeline
27
Informer
28
Database overview
29
MS SQL Reporting Services
30
31
32
IT Operations
Technology requests and prioritization process
33
Narrative
34
Diagram
35
List of projects
36
Project Management
37
Smartsheet
38
Communication cycle
39
40
Purchasing
Narrative
41
42
Instructional technology
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Done
43
Tech Plan Section Name
New room rollout plan
45
Networking projectors and smart classroom equipment
46
Satisfaction survey and analysis
47
The Computer Technology Center
48
Student computer labs
49
Aptos
50
Watsonville
52
Comments
Smart classrooms
44
51
Status
Virtual Desktop Initiative
Business case
53
Refresh cycle
54
Maintenance
55
Pilot in Spring 2012
56
57
Web strategy
58
Harnessing the Cloud
59
Google calendar
60
Google docs
61
Online orientation
62
Web page ownership and editing
63
Content Management System
64
Faculty web pages
65
Department web pages
66
67
Supporting Infrastructure
68
Wireless network
69
Secure vs. Open
70
Description & coverage map
71
Storage Area Network (SAN)
72
Business case
73
Data centers
74
1300 Data center
75
Watsonville Data Center
76
Facilities support & upgrades
77
Unified Communications
78
79
Security
80
Disaster recovery and business continuity planning
81
Virus and malware protection
82
Employee email and spam filtering
83
Acceptable use policy
84
Communications
85
Emergency Texts: AlertU vs. Twitter
86
87
88
Training and support
Security awareness training
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Done
89
90
91
Tech Plan Section Name
Status
Comments
Faculty and staff technology training
The Teaching and Learning Center (TLC)
IT Personnel Training
92
Help Desk
93
Staff computers and technology
94
95
Staffing
96
97
Emerging trends
98
Electronic textbooks - will 2012 be their year?
99
Consumerization of technology
100
Resource challenges
101
Course management systems
102
Analytics for everyone
103
Identity management
104
Growth in distance education
105
The connected communication paradox
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