Last post of the year

Well, the world didn't end today (12-21-12)

Mayans.  Who can trust a people that doesn't really exist anymore.
Did they know something we didn't?
Did aliens come and get them?
Did they simply get tired of counting when they hit 2012?

The world may never know...



But on the lighter side of things, I intend to wake up tomorrow and eat lots of food and enjoy myself for the next week or so.  We have worked hard this term ... really this whole year.  We have a full crew and I plan to schedule a departmental staff meeting next year. 

My plan for next year is to:

1. Check-in with everyone for their current project status
2. Update and distribute the next 6 months of projects
3. Do staff evals.

Top projects:

1. WOU EDW
2. Long list from McDonald
3. Ramp-up for Banner upgrade

Early IQ

Single Sign-On just grows and grows and grows :)

Early next year, we'll be bringing a tool called EarlyIQ into Portal's SSO.
EarlyIQ has two sections: the student success center, and a staff area.  Both will be connected.

Ron has begun the initial technical configuration, and we'll loop back around on it next year.  In a perfect world, we'll get it working by the start-of-the-term -- but we might not hit that.

So we'll get that done, and link it from Portal.

Faculty WorkLoad - updated

The Faculty WorkLoad team met this week, going over updates provided by Nathan Brake.

With such an incredibly busy year (Banner migration, upgrades, etc...) I'm very pleased with the progress that Nathan has made.  We are still in Phase 1 (setup), but have a written plan with some very rough dates to complete that and move onto Phase 2 (reporting).  Once complete, we can focus on testing for Phase 3 (integration with HR/Payroll).

It will be great to have this project done, and I expect it to be completed in 2013.

Hadoop

Two points for being a Michael!

After my trip to the CIO Forum, I became very interested in Big Data, particularly Hadoop as a processing tool.

So, I found this:

http://www.michael-noll.com/tutorials/running-hadoop-on-ubuntu-linux-single-node-cluster

written by another Michael - and very well done.  I cheated a bit and didn't follow all of his instructions (for Java, etc...) but after 2 tries, got it all to work!

I've run my first two Hadoop jobs, and am now calculating some statistics for them.  Meanwhile, I'm building a two-node cluster (and will re-run jobs, gather stats), then hope to graduate to a 10+ node cluster.

Over the years, I've collected the retired Mac Minis, and have stored them away for some dark purpose.  This is that time.  This is their moment.  They shall rise and power Hadoop.  For free.

Anyway, off to configs.  I've much to do, and so little time to do it...

Another Term down

Fall has come and gone.  Tomorrow at this time, finals will be over and it'll be Christmas Break!

w00t

I'm listening to Christmas music now, and thinking back on this term.  We made it through two large Banner changes.  Move in went smoothly (after we didn't migrate away from our NAC solution).  Projects continue to get done - although perhaps at a slightly slower pace than hoped.

Frequently developer schedules are delayed by the on-going maintenance from previously built applications.  As that body of work increases, traditionally the maintenance on it also increases.  The danger appears when developers are spending more time doing maintenance than new development.
Staff turnover only exacerbates this issue, and programs are divvied up between existing and new developers to maintain someone else's code :)

It has been a good term, and though I feel more behind than ever - I feel like we've been meeting the critical needs with a high level of customer service and system stability.

Accessibility

This isn't a topic I discuss much, but it's come up twice this week, so I thought I'd mention it.

I've been working with Melissa (Office of Disability Services) for some time, on making WOU's technology more accessible.  To be very honest, I still don't understand much more than the tip of the iceberg, but we are working together on it, and I'm learning.  We all are :)

This week we discuss a document provided to us to begin evaluating Access Technologies on campus.  We also recently received a Webex demonstration from a vendor who scans the website for normal stuff like broken links and misspellings - but they can also scan for Accessibility compliance (including section 508).

Next year I expect we'll be implementing some trainings and disseminating some information for website editors and developers alike.

More interviews

We have successfully completed one week of interviews for Adam's replacement.

There are a few more interviews to do, then we'll select our best candidates.

It will be nice to have a full crew, once again.

HEM

I put it off long enough :)

I finally got my health care stuff in order, signed up, registered and submitted my HEM information...

I still have some big questions, so I emailed Heather.  I'm really expecting to save a bunch of money next year on health care costs, with Providence Choice --

I expect to have significantly reduced bills at each stop, and some services will now be free :)

Banner Upgrade, v3

This week we learned that we would need to upgrade AR, along with FIS & HR (but not student).  Our upgrade date is in 2 weeks, and this makes testing nearly impossible.  We will do what we can during the next 2 weeks, and hope that we don't have to push it back 2 weeks.

HOMEcoming --

Welcome to Homecoming Week at WOU!

It's been quite a week -- Fireworks on wednesday, a LAN party tonight and foot-ball tomorrow...
I have the opportunity to host the LAN party, so I'm pretty excited about that!  It's been a lot of work, but I think we have the food, the people, the location, the games, the help and the time.

It's been ... awhile since I hosted a LAN party, so it'll be interesting to see how this one goes. 
The TF2 tourney starts at 2200.  Bring your box, and load your caffeine - it's time to play.

InCommon

What do we have in common?  InCommon!

I guess that's probably an old joke now, but who cares :)

WOU has successfully registered as a member of InCommon.
We are eagerly awaiting our Certificate Service verification, as we'll be able to issue an unlimited number of CERTs (including EV) for any/all of our web pages and applicances - with one fixed, initial cost.
SOOOOO exciting, and we'll be able to re-organize who in the department issues the CERTs.  We'll be able to appropriately lockdown and secure all web-logins, at basically the same cost...

It's an exciting time, and I'm anxious to begin.

EDW - Progress

So, to date Eric has requested three unique reports/sets of data from our FIS data-warehouse.

Mind you, the WOU EDW is NOT be confused with ODS EDW (an expensive Banner product) or the EDW provided by OUS 5th-site during the reign of Connie Atchley.

This is WOU's home-grown EDW.

At present, we have completed the answer to the first of Eric's questions - and will be presenting that tomorrow.
We'll also give a status on the 3rd request (which will be delivered next) and asking clarifying questions for the 2nd request.

I hope that tomorrow's meeting will be very productive and make us feel like we're well on-the-way to having a real milestone completed on our jouney to the WOU EDW.

Departments

Well today we had a very rousing meeting regarding Departments, and the Campus Directory.

In the past we maintained and printed a paper directory for all of campus.
It was expensive.
It was time consuming.
It was inaccurate even before it was printed.

So we built an online directory so that information could be pulled from Banner each night, and displayed for all the world to see.

Anyway, there was a great deal of communication about letting folks update their information, or request it be updated, or ....
This ended up being short-lived as that information has to sync with Banner, hence come from Banner, hence it cannot be maintained/updated/displayed separately.

So, on to departments.  You see, Banner doesn't hold the phone # you call for a specific department.  This is something we did manually on paper.
But the digital age (as you all know) comes with it's own challenges and idiosyncrasies.  In the end (after much discussion) we decided that we would come back to this question next week after we all gave it additional thought.

Welcome, New School Year

Welcome :)

We hope that the service our department provides continuously improves.

We hope that all of your technology works together.

We hope that you remember to save often.

We hope that we all succeed in learning.

We hope that the economy improves.

We hope that your dreams and wishes come true.

We hope that you come to appreciate WOU the way that we have.



Thank you for coming.  We hope that you enjoy your stay :)

A new school year is an exciting time, filled with energy, and eager new students.
May we all take advantage of the time we have.
To learn, love and live.
Carpe diem.

Migration to Upgrade

We had hoped to make some serious progress on the Banner upgrade (2+ weeks of "mods" to be done to code/forms), but have mostly still been doing Migration cleanup, Data Warehousing and routine tasks ...

The mods will need to be in place soon, as campus will need 2-6 weeks (depending on the department) to test the upgraded code/forms.  I will be meeting with Darin weekly to ensure that our communication is up-to-date and we are appropriately addressing campus issues and the Upgrade Schedule.

Post-Banner Migration

I am PLEASED to announce that the Banner migration (to Linux) went pretty well :)

This is not to say that a report was missed here-or-there, or that everything was flawless.
However, we had no large surprises, crashes or mishaps.  The Banner functional team (Faye, Michelle, Dorothy) and the programmer team (Mike, Nathan, Christina) both did a great job of preparing and testing Banner and it's myriad features.

We begin anew, preparing for the across-the-board point release updates to various Banner modules.  We can begin implementing our mods next week.  Upon completion, both the Banner functional team and campus can begin (or conclude) the much-needed testing before November.

Cisco ISE

In an ongoing effort to maintain a secure campus infrastructure, WOU had planned to upgrade our Cisco NAC (network access control) to ISE (Identity Services Engine).

I am sad to report that this upgrade will not be in place for Fall Term.

During the implementation (in a test environment), we ran into numerous large bugs that prevented us from properly configuring ISE to required end-points (laptops, etc...) to authenticate (login) and posture (client scan for updates, AV, etc...).

In reality, ISE is not a direct cut-over from NAC.  Authentication is handled much differently, and I believe that ISE is tuned for a 802.1x environment.  Though our experience with 802.1x was limited, we tried to implement it after our 3rd ISE design change.  It was not a pleasant experience.  Again, in another environment (VPN, corporate, ...) it surely works well and cleanly - but not here.

We will continue to run NAC.  We have tidy-ed it up a bit and will continue to monitor the much-needed improvements to ISE 1.2.x, expected in late January.

Evaluations

I spent a great deal of time this week (and last) doing performance evaluations.
"Evals" are really quite a bit of work, and require precision.

In the past I had built a self-evaluation for my employees to think about their job and performance differently.

Currently I'm build an anonymous supervisor feedback form.  It is not really designed to be an evaluation of me by my employees.  It IS designed to solicit feedback from them about what would make them more efficient, etc...

I plan to review this document with Bill during my next eval.

Campus Video Tour - ready to launch!

We'll be launching the new campus video tour on monday.
It will replace our map found at: www.wou.edu/map

Each building has at least one video, and may also include multiple pictures that can be browsed.
An information section is also included for each building, including a possible link to a webpage will more complete information.

This project has been in the works for some time, and is FINALLY ready to launch.  Very exciting --

Cleaning Project

I conscripted some of our finest today to do a little cleaning project.
This project has been overdue, for some time now.
We all chipped in, including a few students and made some MAJOR progress.

Upon completion of the vacuuming, we discovered that our shop-vac had not been cleaned in awhile.  Maybe never.  So we ...tried... to clean it...

So dirty:

Reporting from EDW

Today was a momentous occasion.  We presented our answer to Eric for his complex and interesting data request.  We were very close, although the approach was not perfect, we can do a few tweaks next week to bring it to near-completion.

There are some very strange differences between FIS/SIS/etc... and trying to get them all to link and reconcile is VERY complicated.  Our team (Bruce, Christina, Nathan) has done an excellent job.

TaskList

I had a productive meeting with Dave this week, and we are very close to having 2 of his projects completed :)
Unfortunately, since I last met with him, that list has grown significantly.
Still working to juggle projects, schedules, timelines, etc...

Next week should be a very productive week, with things getting crossed off of lists.

Cognos

We are meeting with the Vice-Chancellor and one of the CIO's from around the state on monday to discuss Data Warehousing, and it's future at WOU.

Our team has been working recently to provide some data to Eric as we just crossed over year-end.
I'm very confident in the abilities of our team, and hope that our meeting on Monday is a positive event.  I've been spending time this week getting myself up-to-speed on the reports that exist and building new reports for Monday's meeting and beyond.

SOAR - the re-emergence

I'm not sure if re-emergence is a word, but the spellcheckers don't seem to mind.

Today was SOAR #1.  We spent a great deal of the time this week prepping, organizing and re-learning some of the things that are done for SOAR.  Overall, things seem to have worked well and the vast majority of the work is now done :)

Schedule - coming together

This week we finalized the Banner migration and upgrade timelines.

OUS requested that we bump our week back to September, and we graciously agreed.
We'll have an upgrade, followed by the migration, followed by an upgrade.
It's going to be quite a ride.

Mike Soukup is doing a great job on the technical team to make preparations.
In July, he'll be bringing Nathan and Christina up-to-speed and will include them in much more of the preparation for the Banner changes this year.

Now I just have to get the REST of the projects slated, and send that information out to campus...

Security Summit

Wednesday afternoon, I joined the IT open-source security summit for the Portland Area.  The roundtable included the City of Portland, Military, OSU, Google, some government observers and some private contractors.

In the end, we all struggle with the salience of Open-source software, it's supportability and our staffing of it's R&D, maintenance and support for Security areas.
It was actually reassuring that much larger institutions are struggling with very similar things to us.

Training

Monday I spent the whole day in Cisco UCS training ... the instructor was obsessed with IT super-villains. 
I missed the 2nd day of training, but was later informed that their server crashed anyway and the only thing I really missed was lunch :)

June - A new beginning

In June, we'll have a full crew again for the first time in a LONG time.

We hired a new Desktop Support staff member, and an OS/phone staff member.
Both start in June, and we're super excited to have them here!

Not having a "face" for our department for the Service Request Desk (SRD) has been particularly problematic.  I have a great hope that our new employee will come in with some real energy and revolutionize the way we serve the campus!  With our powers combined, we'll get the list to a manageable number, and blow the sox off of campus members as we provide the highest level of service ever.

So yeah, we still have to train/acclimate them to WOU, but I don't think that's gonna take long.

Word 2007/2010 - Default Spacing

So, I did done learned me sumethin' this week ...

A faculty member asked me about the default spacing in Word 2007, how it puts some empty space between each line.  That's irritating, but can be fixed with a few clicks.  But that's EVERY time ...

Solution?  You bet.

Launch Word 2007/2010.

Click the "Change Styles" button next to the listed styles in the Header.
Hover over "Style Set".
Click "Word 2003".

Then go back into "Change Styles", back into "Style Set" and click "Set as Default".

Boom.

Comp Testing

Ah, the power of VDI.  Phenomenal, cosmic power!  Itty-bitty living space.

But profiles, and group policy and comp testing - oh my!

This has been a doosey of a week, trying to prep for Comp Tests yesterday.  The lockdown profile didn't work in VDI, and Richard found the solution at like midnight the night before.
Next year I think we'll start testing like a month beforehand :)

In the end, the Grad office got a working system and we learned stuff about profiles, VDI, GP and Win7.  Quite a ride ...

Interviewing ....

Yup, it's everyone FAVorite process - interviews!
And with 3 open positions (one is for a student position), that's about all we've done for 2+ weeks.  And we have another solid week of interviews.

I wish I could code while we do them.  Think of how much more efficient I could be ;)

We've found some good candidates, so I'm anxious to do the 2nd interviews, and hiring.  Everyone is feeling the strain of pulling 2 empty chairs.

Desk Move

I have completed my desk relocation from ITC 007 to ITC 008.
I'll be closer to the staff I supervise, and have more room to spread out.
It will also put future teams closer together for increased interaction.

And beyond needing to clean up pretty bad, I'm pretty happy with the move, the desk, the location and my new office-mates.

I really need to trade-in some of this Cisco gear :)  That alone will get rid of half my stuff.

But I'm not getting rid of the minis.  Ever  :)

Cloud Computing

As many of my Faithful Followers know ... I've been collecting old Mac Mini's for sometime now.

Yesterday I spent almost the entire day attempting to install and manage Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC).  UEC has a Eucalyptus core for clustering.

So I got the software installed on the minis (3 of them).  One is the cloud controller, the other two are just nodes.
I reconfigured a switch and put them on the right VLAN and built some firewall rules so that everyone can talk to everything.  Progress!

Then I setup a subscription to Landscape to manage them.  And I can manage them, but need to have a non-self-signed CERT to do so :(

I logged directly into the Cloud Controller, and canonical's CERT is messed up with GoDaddy.  After an hour of searching, no one had a solution.

So I jumped over to RightScale.  Management works... but they don't have any Eucalyptus images.  No worky.

So I tried HybridFox.  Same deal.  No images.

I started working with enStratus, but I'm thinking my cloud is a bit "old" for them to really help me, although I actually got two emails from them.

Eucalyptus actually called me too, and we talked, but as I was only doing research, and want to do it on a private cloud, he had little feedback for me.

Overall, I think cloud computing is probably neat in Amazon's EC2 - where it works.
Private clouds?  A joke for the moment.  At least with Eucalyptus.

Some day perhaps.  Until then, my Mini's remain @ my /command.

Firefox 11.0 - fail

I recently upgraded to Firefox 11.0
We have a security appliance on a private network.
It has a self-signed CERT, so I get the "This Connection is Untrusted" page.  That's normal.

I click "Add Exception".  I click "Get Certificate", but the page says "This site provides valid, verified information.  There is no need to add an exception."
So the "Confirm Security Exception" button isn't clickable.
You've locked me out of anything with a self-signed CERT ???

Really?  No one bothered to test something so critical before it was released to the planet?

wow ... No wonder you're losing to Chrome...

Big Project Down! Online Schedule of Classes

Bill handed me a project in December/January that I JUST finished :(
It was a many-term online schedule of classes.  The "live" production one only shows terms that students can actively register for.  This told looks at historical and future data to provide needed info to Deans, etc...

Anyway, with some real help from Soukup, I got it done :)

Faculty WorkLoad

Nathan and I have been digging into WorkLoad for a few weeks now, and yesterday we had our first real 'status' meeting with key players.

We had few (if any) bad assumptions or calculations.  Most of the work will be focused on understanding the Banner forms, their inter-connectivity, and how they access/calculate the data.

A few more weeks of work, and we'll have another status meeting in April.

Cinxi Ranger

So our nFx Ranger died a few weeks ago, and I rebooted it, etc... - to no avail.
Finally opened a support case, and we're gonna rebuild it from scratch.

I have the DVD and just got the password so I'm gonna start the rebuild now.

Scheduling

I have just a few projects left before I can finish scheduling all the campus programming projects.

Faculty Load has taken a lot of time this week, and will consume much of next week as well --

Realtime schedule of classes

90% done!

Haha - old joke.  It wasn't really funny back then ...

So BK handed me a project to update a realtime schedule of classes for the Deans and AP.  The code was there, but it was out-of-date, was missing terms, missing data, so-so interface, etc...

I added the terms, added security (Portal), loaded the data, re-re-re-re-re-re-loaded the data and got about 20% :)

Next week Mike can vet my data, and help me fill in some names and we can push it to the important people --

Then on to PM!  ... and training ... and Faculty Load.

Running - 5k

http://cpsfoundation.org/?page_id=178

It is time.  My running debut is in 15 days.  Today I ran ~3 miles w/ BK.  My knee still feels good, so I'm moving forward.  Paid my fee and I'm ready to run!

It has been a very long time since I competed ... in anything really (except for DISC GOLF!)... ahem.  Running.  Anyway, I'm excited.

Imminent - Faculty Load

Faculty Load Kickoff is next week.

Jeremy will be up on Monday to do some Banner training.  After that I'll have about 1.5 days to totally ramp up, learn and try to understand Faculty Load. 

What it is? 
Who is involved?
What do they want?
Why do they want it?
When do they want it?
What do they expect to get from it?
Whose expectations are misaligned with other groups?

What are all the steps?
Which ones are critical?
Can we group the pieces into groups?
Which steps are in the first group?
How long will that take?
Where do we start?

As you can see, I'm full of questions...  questions that need answering.  And no Saruman to provide counsel.  That's OK.  We have a group of real smart people to help us work through this until we have a successful product!

load

If I were a unix server, my cpu load averages would be in the 90's.  like all week...

I have a disorganized desktop, a completed eval that I still need to go over with an employee, 320 emails in my inbox (ouch), and a list that's growing each day.

Did I mention that I had 5-6 hours this week that were not scheduled?
Holy hand-grenades.  It's been wild.  Oh, and I've not been feeling well for about 3 days (compacted by that disallowing me to exercise).

I want a nap, and a cookie :)  On the bright side, I had some very productive meetings this week.  Some might even allow me to have other people do some of the many many things on my list :)

KPI meeting(s)

Well, that's two meetings now that I've been to for KPIs, this week.

I really do understand that value of KPIs, but I'm concerned about the process.
1. The "consensus" process has so watered down the text/meaning/value of each KPI, that they have seemed to become a bit over-generic.
2. A whole team of academics (which I love, don't get my wrong) seem to have word-smithed them - so to be completely honest, I don't know what half of them mean :(
3. We're gonna have to find ways to COLLECT data for some of them, meaning that we have no comparative data (aka no KPI) for 5 years... ... ... ...
4. So many people do things so differently, I'm not what the value will be for us ... in 5 years ... ?

Anyway, I'm most likely confused because I'm --not-- and academic, and just don't get it all.  :)  That's fine - I'll let the smart people figure it all out.  Then we can build it!

The killer ratio

The longer I've worked here, the more obvious a trend has emerged.  It has begun to concern me, and I'm working to take steps to combat it this year.

When a developer starts out, the spend nearly 95% of their time writing code.  This goes merrily along (often for years), until the ratio begins to move.  The ratio is the amount of time that is spent writing new code, versus maintaining existing code.  As old projects need maintenance, updates, patches, etc... a developer can move from the 95/5 ratio closer to 75/25.  75% on new projects is still quite good.

But the killer ratio is when the sides change.  When a developer goes under 50/50, there is a problem.  Expectations have risen each year for the last few years.  Resources have not.  We are always encouraged to "do more, with less".  Sure :)
When my developers spend so much time babysitting old code, patching, etc... that new code takes 2-3 times as long, then campus members notice.  They complain :)  I don't blame them.  They don't understand.  I am only just beginning to understand.

How do we change the future?
We slow down, for one.  We cannot maintain a break-neck pace forever.  The summer comes quickly.  We will regroup, repair and rebuild some foundations.
We will analyze our projects, understand them.  Automate them.  Users should be able to use their seasonal apps without needing us to "prep" them.  This is the goal for existing and new code.  Having a huge codebase in the Portal has enabled us to simultaneously update CSS, security, etc...

But we must remain vigilant. 

The future is what we make it.  We cannot continue to pay the price of "heads-down" development and trying to work harder.  When an inefficiency has been identified, it must be resolved.  That's my job.  Updating the list, and including periods of rebuilding must occur.  It will occur.  Will it take "longer" to release apps?  In the short term, perhaps.  But it's a short-term loss, long-term gain.  I also cannot run my people near redline for long periods of time.  Everyone has to catch a deep breath.  Then we push on.  Stronger than ever.

SAML

We are embarking on our 2nd SAML integration project.  Our first technical meeting is next week.  I'm very pleased with SAML, and think we might be able to expand it to other systems in the future.

This project is for integration with a bank, and we are acting as a pilot for the project.  WOU has a team of 9 involved, but the technical lead will really be performing most of the work.

Running

Run, Forrest, Run!

Good advice.  Seriously.  Especially if you spend lots of time in front of the computer at work.  And at home.  And, well - you know.

Bill and I have started running at the Health and Wellness Center.  And honestly - I'm amazed.  I'm a pasta-lovin', Mt. Dew drinkin', over-technologized guy who's reasonably thin.  But running is like a drug.  My body anticipates it.  I feel stronger after I run, like right after. 

I'm looking at doing a 10K this year.  Spring/Summer/Fall ... maybe 2?  Not sure.  I ran 2.5 miles yesterday.  That's almost halfway there...

2012 is a year of change for me.  Time to stand up, and change things in my life.  And it's happening, and it's good. 

New Employee

Nathan Brake has joined us a Banner Programmer/Analyst!

After 3 failed searches for someone to fill this position, we changed the PD and hired Nathan.  We are very excited to have him.  Please join me in welcoming him to the team.  He has some big shoes to fill and is learning as fast as he can ;)

I'm exciting to have a full team again, and we'll focus this term on training and laying a solid foundation.  First on his task list?  Faculty Load (dramatic music)...

Project Management

And we welcome in the New Year --

This has been an incredible year so far (and it's only been a week!!!)

I'm making a change in 2012, and have started working out very regularly this month.  Yesterday I ran 2 miles without stopping.  For you runners, I know that you're giggling on the inside because that's no great feat.  But for a guy who counts a walk to the mailbox as his "weekly exercise" and loves burgers, fries and Mt. Dew - it's a big deal.
I've even started looking at doing a 10K this Fall (after I've gone more than a week).

In other news, I will be focusing very hard next week on Project Management.  I need to meet with each member of my team to figure out which projects they are still working on, the status of each - and others that have been assigned to them.
Coordinating with Bruce, I'll then assign a few more and attach a schedule to the whole process so that we have a clear picture of what's going on.