Multidivisional and Office of the CIO
Internet connectivity enhanced
In January, ITS Networking completed upgrading the campus internet connectivity from 4×10 Gbps to 2×100 Gbps. This upgrade required substantial efforts from ITS Networking and the Information Security Office. With this higher amount of bandwidth, ITS hopes to enable higher speed flows on and off campus and to experience fewer outages as a result of bandwidth saturation of previous 10 Gbps internet links.
11,000 campus phones migrated so far in multi-year project
On February 25, the ITS project team migrated 4,269 phones across 124 buildings and 25 divisions, representing the largest batch of phones moved so far in the project. In its multi-year project to migrate University’s phone service to AT&T from Verizon, ITS has now moved about 11,000 phones over to the AT&T network and has about 9,000 working phones remaining.
Project completed for annual terms of use for admin systems
Multiple ITS team worked on a project that in February instituted an annual terms of use for users of administrative systems in ConnectCarolina, InfoPorte and Tarheel Reports. The annual review is meant to remind users of their responsibilities and ensure integrity of University data. The following teams worked on this project: Enterprise Applications Security, Enterprise Applications Enabling Tools, Enterprise Reporting within Data & Reporting Environments & Application Middleware (DREAM), and ITS Change Management.
The Well features supply chain issues
The Well picked up ITS Communications’ story of how ITS has dealt with supply chain disruption.
People
Suzanne Cadwell, Director of Educational Technologies, and Ryan Turner, Head of ITS Networking, presented at the ITS Peer to Peer virtual gathering on February 18.
Customer Experience & Engagement
New WordPress plugin improves functionality and accessibility
ITS Digital Services created a new WordPress plugin that improves functionality, offers additional customization options, and addresses accessibility issues. Digital Services developed the plugin to replace two legacy plugins that caused accessibility issues and were no longer supported by the original developers. The new UNC Content Elements plugin makes available such elements as buttons, icons, tables, tabs, responsive images, accordions, panels and popovers.
Digital Accessibility Office debuts self-paced training
The Digital Accessibility Office (DAO) now has an online self-paced version of its popular Digital Accessibility Awareness training. The goal of this introductory training is to teach the campus community about digital accessibility and how campus members can apply it in their daily lives.
Service Desk gains new leader
Calvin Groves, previously director of information technology with the School of Education, took the helm of the Services Desk on March 21. He replaced Ingrid Camacho, who retired at the end of February after a long career.
Service Desk adjusts two leaders’ classifications
ITS classified Lyndon Joyce and Christina Artis officially as IT managers. Most ITS staffers thought they were already managers. The two lead their teams with great skill and competence for years, but not with the right classification for the work. In a related change, all of Tier 1 — phones, chat and Walk-In — were moved under Artis’ supervision. AVC Kate Hash said the long overdue change will enable ITS to break down silos and better adapt to resource constraints and customers’ needs.
The Well features Ingrid Comacho
The Well published a feature of Ingrid Comacho, excerpted from an ITS Communications story, for its “Women Making History” series.
People
Service Desk Director Ingrid Camacho retired February 28 after working for the Service Desk since it formed more than two decades ago.
Tech Support Specialist Leslie Kreizman retired at the end of February after working for ITS for more than two decades. She worked with two other ITS team members to support University administrators at more than 15 campus locations.
Infrastructure & Operations
Campus moves to cloud authenticating for Microsoft 365
In January, ITS moved the campus to a cloud-based method of authenticating using Microsoft 365. The move meant that ITS’ on-premises infrastructure for supporting authentication into Microsoft 365, called Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS), could be retired. This enabled ITS to turn off 16 servers, freeing up capacity on other infrastructure like UCS and Splunk, and save staff time.
Modernizing UNC-Chapel Hill’s enterprise storage
Over several months, ITS replaced aging hardware that stores data for more than 70 departments on campus and serves as a backup destination for the bulk of ITS data. For the project, ITS replaced the ESMC0 hardware supporting storage.unc.edu and SecNas.unc.edu and the ESMC5 hardware that provided some primary storage for Splunk and served as that backup location for most of ITS data. On ESMC0, ITS has more than 400 volumes that hold data for more than 70 departments on campus along with core ITS services such as Splunk, ImageNow, Sakai, OpenShift and Identity Management. ESMC5, meanwhile, holds literally billions of files used for backup and recovery.
Networking report publishes
ITS Networking published its bi-annual report in January. It covers the group’s activities from July through December 2021.
Educational Technologies
Canvas LMS pilot
Educational Technologies, along with Digital and Lifelong Learning from the Provost’s Office, continues to pilot Canvas as a potential replacement for Sakai, the University’s learning management system.
The pilot began with six undergraduate courses in Fall 2021 and has expanded this Spring 2022 semester to 54 courses from a variety of disciplines. The pilot cohort includes more than 2,500 faculty, teaching assistants, students, and support
staff combined.
Data & Reporting Environments & Application Middleware
In-house solution for Coursicle
Due to an issue on the vendor side, the ITS Enterprise Applications team had to unexpectedly remove Coursicle from all UNC websites on February 8. Unfortunately, this meant that Carolina did not have a public class search option available.
Thanks to the work that ITS Data & Reporting Environments & Application Middleware (DREAM) has been doing on improving data structures and reporting application infrastructure, the DREAM team quickly jumped into action to develop an in-house public class search for students. Enterprise Applications and the Registrar’s Office provided student-focused feedback and aided in getting the new public class search into production on February 11.
Information Security Office
Qualys moves to new platform
On March 1, the Information Security Office moved users to a new platform for Qualys called Vulnerability Management, Detection and Response (VMDR).
New Operations Manager named
Effective January 10, the Information Security Office named Alex Everett as Information Security Operations Manager. In his new role, Everett helps manage ISO’s Operations and Incident Handling team and the Network Security team. He has worked for the University for 15 years. He replaces Larry Fritsche, who left in October.
Boosted security for Microsoft sign-ins
To further reduce cybersecurity incidents, ITS began blocking both medium-risk and high-risk sign-ins to Microsoft 365 for all ITS staff.
Information Security Liaisons featured
The Information Security Liaison program, led by the Information Security Office, launched a Meet the Information Security Liaison feature at its virtual meetings in December 2021 and in January 2022 ITS Communications began showcasing those liaisons with profiles on ITS News and in the ITS employee newsletter. Two of the first profiled liaisons were Charlie Patton of the School of Education and Hínár György Polczer of the Department of Biology.
Research Computing
Customer case study publishes
Research Computing collaborated with its client Wei You of the Department of Chemistry, to produce a customer case study, with support from ITS Communications. The case study published on ITS News on March 17.
ITS Project Portfolio & Change Management
People
Anita Collins presented on change management at the UNC Project and Change Management Community of Practice meeting on February 11. Brenda Carpen, Director of Project Portfolio & Change Management, facilitates the Community of Practice group and meetings.