First a look ahead to the Summer.  As some of you may already know, a group of ladies from IT Services are planning to run the Race for Life on 21 July at 11.00 at Prospect Park.  A sponsorship form is available in the ITS staff room and they have also set up a JustGiving webpage which can be found http://www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/the-reading-it-girls.  I’m told that any donation, large or small, will be appreciated and, if you are free on the day, please come along and support them.

As well as preparing to run, our IT teams have also been working hard as usual this month. Following lots of preparation we now have firm plans in place to deliver a major refresh of IT equipment to our Kotaraya campus in Malaysia in mid-June, whilst at home support is growing for a major extension of our Wifi network coverage across all campuses. A feasibility study on this is expected to begin over the Summer, building on the “pre-feasibility” work completed over the last couple of months.

A series of briefings for senior managers recently highlighted the growing risks to Cyber Security within universities and we have therefore been working with the Head of IMPS to extend the availability of our new Information Security training modules to all staff, plus working on a “top 10 tips for IT security” awareness sheet for staff.

On the staffing front it was with sadness that we said goodbye to Manisha Joshi following her departure to Construction Management and we wish her well in her new job. I’m sure that she will continue to be a great asset to the University there. We were also very pleased to welcome Jo Mortimer as a new recruit to our Project Management Office and trust that she now feels at home in ITS.

Hopefully by the time I write next month’s blog it really will feel like Summer !

John Leary

Over the next 6 weeks we will be increasingly using it to enable more accurate information gathering and to assist in the resolution of support incidents. This is being trialled with our Help Desk, Desktop Support Technicians and Systems teams, so covering the basic layers of support services run by IT Services. One anticipated benefit is that it will eventually help increase the rate of first time fixes and reduce the length of time to incident resolution.

The appliance allows the end-user to receive desktop support without having to arrange an onsite visit.  It is fully secure, provides for chat facilities, system information gathering and offers a complete audit trail, allowing for documentation and review of actions taken by support staff. It works across a wide range of platforms including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS and Linux desktops.  It also can connect to a variety of mobile devices, including Android, iPhone, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile.

At the end of the trial period in June, a decision will be made as to whether the system should continue to be used and a follow up news item will be posted giving further details.

For more information please contact IT Services.

1. Yesterday, we had a problem with one of the Exchange front end servers, starting around 2pm. This initially manifested with a problem accessing Public Folders and was affecting up to 400 Exchange users. We believe this was resolved by a server reboot at 4.30pm, as we saw a marked decline in calls and services were responding as we would expect.
2. Yesterday evening, we had a similar incident to last week’s problems with our Virtual Server Hosting infrastructure which caused problems with:
   1. Blackboard
   2. OWAMail
   3. Smtp.reading.ac.uk
   4. Agresso
   5. Trent
   6. Blogs
   7. Website

This list is not exhaustive, but gives you an idea of the impact of the problem. Staff were working on the problem overnight and we restored services early this morning.

We have tested all the systems this morning and we are only seeing residual problems with email, which will resolve over the course of this morning.

The Microsoft announcement that Windows XP and Office 2003 will no longer be supported beyond 8 April 2014 can be found on their product support lifecycle page.

After April 2014, Windows XP based machines will not be supported in accessing University of Reading resources and services. In case of indicated security breaches, from that date they will be removed from the network.

If you will need to continue to use Windows XP beyond the deadline, it is recommended that you discuss how to quarantine these systems with IT Services as soon as possible.

IT Services recommend that all computers should be running our stable Windows 7 and Office 2010 setup. It is our recommendation that if you are currently running Windows XP or Office 2003, that you contact your IT Supporter or IT Services via ITS Help to discuss your options to update or replace your system before this deadline.

This has been changed from a standard BT issue ADSL connection to one that is somewhat faster and more robust using an AirMax point to point bridge.

The original connection was getting through at speeds as shown below:

but will be connecting at

The picture below is of the receiver at the farm being installed and ITS are confident that this new link will help deliver a better service to the site allowing for further communications development in the future.

IT Services uses SLAs for some of the enhanced, chargeable, services it provides to schools and departments and is looking at how these could be used for the standard core services as well.

IT Services is also reviewing the ITS Help service and is considering changing the priorities and expected response times for dealing with faults.  We are also looking at using more of the processes and terminology detailed in the ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) framework.  In addition, the current workflow management (Remedy) needs to be replaced.

In the new tool, we will be looking at separating reports of faults (something that impacts your ability to work or “incidents” in ITIL terms) from “requests” for something new or a change (e.g. new telephone extension, coordinating PC and phone moves when moving office, new software installation) as the expected response times could well be different between the two.  For example, a request for assistance with an office move should be made in good time before the move takes place, whereas a non-working PC should be looked at promptly.  Some requests for new services could also involve working with other University departments or teams and are really subject to project management methodologies.

The suggested new Priority, Response and Resolution targets are:

These are likely to be challenging targets for IT Services but, looking at historic data from the ITS Remedy system, we are not that far short of meeting them.  However, under the proposed prioritisation scheme, more tickets will not be in the “Normal” priority which will mean that a quicker response is needed.

IT Services note that some teams (e.g. the Digital Development Team) are dependent on IT Services to deliver some of their own services and that this impacts on service delivery levels. It may also be useful for other University departments to provide SLA’s.

Frequently, customers don’t know where to route queries for University IT systems (e.g. finance, student records) and so think that they need to contact IT Services in the first instance. To help with this, ITS Help are happy to pass calls on for you, but in the event of a misrouted ticket, the recipient of the query should be able to route the request to the correct service owner.

Some other questions that IT Services are considering include:

• The possibility of having different SLAs for staff and students
• Dealing with 24/7 support requests
• Could IT Services have different response rates for those with service contracts (e.g. desktop support contracts)?
• Some things that IT Services might see as a request actually might prevent another department from delivering their service
• Are there any penalties for not meeting the SLA target?
• What about the 20% of tickets that aren’t resolved within the target resolution period?  How quickly will they get resolved?
• What are sensible lead times for requests?  Last minute requests divert resources from other work, some of which may have been scheduled with other customers
• When (and by whom) can the priorities of incidents be changed?
• For both incidents and requests, customers need to be informed of expected turn round times.
• When IT Services staff close a ticket because they think that the incident or request is resolved, the customer needs to be consulted and informed.
• For requests that will involve a charge, customers need to be provided with an estimate in advance so that they can make an informed choice on whether to commission the work.

IT Services also note that service level agreements are two way – there should be certain requirements on the customer such as providing reasonable access to a PC to investigate and fix a problem.

It would appear that some staff may have already clicked on the message that looks as per the picture below. Please contact ITS Help or your local IT Supporter for assistance as soon as possible if you have done so.

If you have received the email but not clicked it, please delete it immediately.

If you are concerned about the risks posed by such scam email or other phishing mail, please contact your local IT Supporter or ITS Help, who will be able to assist you.

For both staff and students at the University of Reading, the sharing of your login credentials is in contradiction of University regulations, as it is in breach of the Acceptable Use Policy and is subject to disciplinary procedures.

The reminder from CSIRT was as follows:

Over the past few weeks we’ve come across a number of situations where
users have been sharing, or encouraging the sharing of eduroam
credentials between each other. For instance a user might want to
provide temporary access for a friend or a visiting lecturer from a
non-eduroam organisation might want immediate network access. It
should be clear to us as system managers that this is not safe behaviour.

This might be a good opportunity to remind your users that their
passwords are not simply something that provides network access but
are also a critical part of their online identity that like a driving
licence or passport should not be shared.

Lending your eduroam credentials to a friend would result in you being
held accountable for any misuse. It’s also worth remembering that
these credentials do not just provide access to a network, but will
often provide access to e-mail, file storage and VPNs that may contain
highly personal and sensitive information.

The reference to sensitive information is a critical point for staff to remember, as sharing your credentials puts your access to your own personal data at risk. For students, it may put IT items such as your email or your coursework at risk.  For all, it represents a massive personal and institutional risk to reputation. Imagine the consequences were your University email compromised, it could cause you considerable embarrassment and potentially the University too.

One of the key reasons for people sharing account details is the belief that obtaining a guest account for a visitor is too onerous. IT Services offer access to this facility via ITS Help, the Library IT Help Counter, Greenlands Campus Reception and through some local IT Supporters. There is also a bulk account creation facility, which helps with provision for conference attendees.

This has been in the form of a direct message similar to:

Did you see this pic of you? lol bit.ly/******

For a good explanation of what this attack entails, please see the excellent blog post at http://it.rdg.ac/WJfVnW

• The processes for the provisioning and de-provisioning of University user accounts
• The identity data propagated between systems
• Reflecting changes to the status of staff and students with the corresponding adjustments to their access rights

There have been many benefits and improvements already delivered under this project work including:

• Raising of awareness of the importance of accurate identity data and the implications of inaccuracy
• The promotion of accurate identity data management within corporate source systems
• Rationalisation of some processes involving identity information within corporate systems
• Automatic issue of staff accounts on receipt of signed contract
• Members of staff restarting within 12 months of leaving get their original account automatically re-opened
• Sessional members of staff are gradually being moved to permanent contracts on Trent. By no longer treating them as leavers between contracts, administrative overheads have been reduced
• Content free usernames have been rolled out
• Members of staff no longer require multiple usernames for different departments
• Registered users no longer have to move their files/email to a new username when they change department
• Extensions for staff accounts are now recorded and processed in Trent
• Extensive and on-going data cleansing
• Student usernames recorded on RISIS for reuse if a student enrols on a new course
• Staff Data View devised for IDM is used to drive other daily reporting requirements and updates. E.g. the Institutional Repository staff feed, Smartcards and the Timetabling staff portal
• Provision of enhanced authorisation data for AthensDA, CMS pages and Employee Self-Service logins

Originally it was expected that this project would be fitted around other commitments so has been handled as low priority and over the years has been allocated minimal staff resources. Since the inception of the project a sequence of major changes to the administrative environment of the University have impacted both directly and indirectly upon the implementation of the solution and resulted in delays. Given the increasing pressures on staff in IT Services as well as the continuing changes in the University environment we ran a major review of the work and have decided to stop this project.

We wish to acknowledge the extensive hard work and commitment of the key project team members of over such a long period of time. IT Services are aware that stopping this project will have impact in a number of administrative areas and are currently running an impact assessment to identify alternative options for delivering some of the benefits included in the project definition.

I would like to encourage anyone who is concerned to contact me.

Christine

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Christine Storey

Assistant Director, IT Services, University of Reading,

Whiteknights, PO Box 220, Reading RG6 6AF

Tel 0118 378 8433