| Minimum Workstation and Software Site License Subcommittee Minutes |
September 18, 2003
Meeting in AH-1120 at 10 a.m.
Diana Osborn, Chair
Macromedia
Contribute is now on the dropdown list
and the link to the dropdown on our ssl.html page has been updated.
Server products are priced at the time of request and don't appear on the dropdown list.
Maintenance is on a calendar date basis from March 30, 2002 to March 28, 2004, and
not on a department's actual purchase date of each software package.
Ad-Aware licensing
Ad-Aware software:
- removes executables that cause annoying pop-up ads
- stops any hijacking of browser to go to certain sites
- removes 3rd party utilities & other benefits
Post meeting - Cyndi got a response from LavaSoft that Ad-Aware Educational pricing is 50% off of Corporate pricing, and Upgrade maintenance costs are 10% off of Corporate pricing.
A comparable product, Spybot - Search & Destroy 1.2 is a completely free program (no license needed). For further information, see their website: http://www.safer-networking.org/
Eudora 6
It was noted that the recent release of Eudora 6 by Qualcomm has security holes. These may only affect the Windows version. TNS
has not released the new version for either platform.
McAfee
Due to home PC's and laptops infecting other campus hosts with recent worms, the necessity of licensing home-based machines
has become a priority. John Ross brought the problem to Academic Affairs attention and they have indicated AA will pay
for 3,088 copies of McAfee to be installed on home machines for faculty and staff for 1 year only. This is not official as yet,
since no quote from the reseller has been received. Currently SDSU is licensed for 5,483 copies of VirusScan and 1,110 copies
of Virex which includes Athletics for on-campus Windows and Mac computers. Celia mentioned that once the quote is here and
account numbers given, we will need a new grant number to unlock the product. John Ross and Linda Burton are discussing the
need to request a limited number of copies for Library visitors and student laptops on an as needed basis, which may be
an additional $500 for 1,000 licenses.
Discussion ensued over the use of McAfee. Celia Chavez said the McAfee contract expires 10/1/04, but due to staggered grants coverage can continue until 1/1/05. Each grant number allows for 2 years. She did cite continuing difficulties getting good service and reasonable contract pricing since NAI took over McAfee. It was noted that Academic Affairs pays 85% of the costs, so has the deciding vote on what is purchased for the campus, and John Denune's and other UNIX administrators' historical preference for McAfee was rooted in some beneficial server features. These features should be revisited before SDSU considers changing from McAfee to Norton or some other product. We may need separate contracts for servers versus desktops.
Communication of Technical Campus Information
Diana opened the discussion on the need for better communications on campus with regard to technical information.
Stephen Treger raised issue of necessity of each area's IT representative to participate better in NAC Security, NWNT, MWSSLS, and
IAAC meetings, in order to optimize their use of patch deployment. One suggestion was for a more formal sign-in sheet coupled with a review
and report sent to College/Department's Deans. Several MWSSLS representatives concured that participation in regular meetings would best be
induced by those IT representative's supervisors. Without top-down directives on the importance of participation, priorities of
each area will supercede the IT representative's participation. A strong suggestion was made that College/Department's deans be
contacted to inform him/her of the urgency for their IT staff participating more actively. Hopefully this would heighten
awareness of the necessity of prompt patch installation, even if done singly without a patch management product other
than Windows Update.
Patch Management Working Group
Patch Management products (SUS, WU, Patchlink, St.Bernard, Quest, Landas, Zenworks, Altiris, WU, logon scripts,
Shavlic, etc.) need review and comparison to allow a committee's recommendation. Therefore, a working group has been formed.
The group will meet next week to review the products. Diana asked MWSSLS members to send her any information they have on the above products'
performance.
Calendar Committee Update
The committee has distilled its work down to 3 choices: Meeting Maker, Novell's GroupWise, and MS Exchange, and
will be showing the products to the IT Managers Committee for a decision.
However, MS Exchange was dumped from the running mostly because there are a number of departments/areas who will not
use it, because of security issues with either it or the client, Outlook. There are other reasons that it wasn't
selected for the final decision, which will be outlined in a forthcoming report, but the committee couldn't recommend
something for a potential campus-wide solution if numbers of areas won't use it. It was noted that Meeting Maker and
GroupWise are not locked into running on a Windows machine. MeetingMaker is available on Sun and Windows and GroupWise
will run on Windows, Netware and very soon (if not out now) on Linux. Like Meeting Maker, GroupWise
requires a third party product to enable off-line (non-active) Palm-PDA synchronization, but integration via
wireless interface with network host is standard feature.
Software Survey
An update of last year's survey will soon to be done and will provide useful info as each area compiles their information
for our 2nd annual Software Survey this Fall (October or November). Cyndi Chie will resume efforts on this upon completion of her other
recent web project below:
http://arweb.sdsu.edu/es/admissions/
Next MWSSLS meeting will be October 16, 2003 in AH-1120 at 10 a.m.
PLEASE NOTE: The statements found on the MWSSLS Home Page are for informational purposes only. While every effort is made to ensure that this information is up to date and accurate, official information can be found in the University publications.
Last modified on September 24, 2003
This page is maintained by the ROHAN webmaster
