One of the best aspects of working in IT is the breadth and variety of the issues we manage, ranging from significant, high-profile projects, to less visible, but important developments which often go unnoticed. Another month has flown past and  February included some good illustrations of this. It’s been a very busy time for IT Services, and  for me personally, with many working groups, steering groups and committees to attend, in addition to my continued round of meeting as many of ITS’ customers as possible. The more I find out about the ways in which IT is supporting the work of different schools and departments, the more fascinating the job becomes!

On the “high profile” front, we reached a significant milestone when the core communications equipment for the Kotaraya Tower in Malaysia was delivered here for configuration and testing. Sorting out the contractual, shipping, and logistics details has been a lot of hard work for many people in IT Services, and we have appreciated the help of our colleagues in FMD and Procurement. The next stage in our plan is to finish our configuration work and demonstrate the proposed IT equipment to those who will have to manage its use in situ, before it is finally shipped to Malaysia for installation.

Behind the scenes, two of our staff (Chris de la Force and Chris Wakelin) were invited to a meeting at Sophos (our supplier of virus protection software). The company has been so impressed by Chris W’s regular work in identifying and notifying Sophos of newly-detected threats (they call the information he sends them: “the Wakelin Files”!), that we have been offered Sophos’ “Platinum” level of service cover for the cost of our existing “basic support” service. Quite an achievement, and deserved recognition of the excellent specialist work carried out regularly by Chris and Chris to protect the University from malicious software attacks.

Amongst the projects completed in February was the “RoomView” system installation which allows for the remote control of AV equipment in 7 lecture theatres on the Whiteknights Campus and in rooms at London Road. This will allow ITS to respond more quickly to problems in these rooms and provides better proactive monitoring of AV equipment. Yet another “behind the scenes” example of something which will make a big difference to the quality of our services.

John

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