| Minimum Workstation and Software Site License Subcommittee Minutes |
January 15, 2009
Meeting in AH-1120 at 10 a.m.
Diana Osborn, Chair
Security Audit Update
The Security Office is preparing a placard highlighting incident response procedures similar to the campus Emergency handout. It is planned for posting in server rooms or by help desks as a quick reference of the Security Incident Response Program. If you would like to see a proof copy and offer feedback, please contact Tom Sneden at tsenden@mail.sdsu.edu.
The Security Office is continuing the process of closing outstanding items from the Audit findings. One item is the meetings with departments to go over their list of items to close. 50 percent of those meetings have been scheduled between now and May. Another item concerns having an outside company regularly scan our systems containing credit card information. One software most approved for outside companies to use for this purpose is Foundstone. Since SDSU already has Foundstone, the campus will know how well we meet our goals even before contracting with an outside company.
On PCI compliance issues, CSU Pomona and Long Beach are taking the lead. CSU Pomona is now compliant. Their processes will be assisting the other campuses come into compliance and SDSU needs to be compliant by July.
Coming soon will be new Security Awareness Training. What we have seen so far is very good and web based. It will probably be deployed at SDSU sometime after March to all campus employees. While it will seem like everyone is doing it at the same time, later it will spread out and there will be staff taking it at different times. It will be a dynamic process, so as new employees arrive they will get the training right away.
iWorks and iLife
Apple has announced a Volume Pricing discount for large departmental purchases of iWorks '09 and iLife '09. While the SDSU Bookstore sells the products boxed with 1 license and 1 media for $39, these discounts are per seat for multiple licenses and 1 media for much lower amounts. Example: 1000+ seats for iWorks '09 is $9 and iLife '09 is $25 each. Either media is only $15.
In order we all get the cheaper pricing, all departments interested in these programs should forward their group counts/amounts for iLife/iWorks purchases to Celia Chavez by Friday January 23, 2009. After the bulk purchase is made, departments would receive a chargeback for their portion.
MS Contract
The Microsoft Contract has been renewed with CO MS and ASAP/Dell for the same coverage as last time. Only change to the contract will be that All MS Server Licenses will have to be purchased, so please make sure you keep that proof of purchase certificate to go with your server. CALs will only be covered for certain MS Standard (not Enterprise) Servers. CALs for Terminal Servers are no longer covered.
MS Project and Visio are also not covered, but the covered programs can still be obtained from the SDSU Bookstore for home use at a price of $10.
McAfee Antivirus/Antispyware Update
The campus renewed the McAfee contract in December for 1 year. Everything is the same as before, Celia Chavez has the Grant Number and departments will be receiving a chargeback for their portion based on the previous count of licenses issued to their division since we are on a maintenance agreement. It was noted this is the last year for Counterspy, as the campus goal is for one product to handle both anti-virus and anti-spyware. Diana Osborn stated there would be a call for committee members later this year to look at products that can handle both functions.
SPSS News
There are still some concerns about SPSS Version 17 and we will not be releasing it at this time. It was noted that Version 16 is still the official one for the campus.
Hi Software
The Hi Software package has been renewed and has been available since December. The new activation codes were emailed to all main contacts on December 17th and the previous activation code expired on December 31st. If you need new codes, you should contact Celia Chavez. In February, the campus will evaluate a new web-based product.
AMP Report
The AMP Contract with Apple is now complete and departments using the program will be receiving their chargeback of $67.15 per computer.
Meeting Maker/Notify Link
Bob Newhouse announced Oudom Ky has been ill and is not expected back until the end of January. Therefore putting Meeting Maker's Notify Link into production has been halted. February is the new production date for PDAs and Smart Phones using this service. Be aware a chargeback will be incurred for the service.
CATS Conference
The 12th annual CATS Conference takes place April 1-3, 2009 at San Diego State University. This year CATS begins with a 12:30 pm lunch on Wednesday, April 1 and concludes at 4:00 pm on Friday, April 3. This year's theme is "Community Arcade: Exhibits of Excellence." The three days will showcase projects, experiences, and interests of members. Many networking opportunities will enable peers at different campuses and institutions to collaborate and solve common problems.
Keynote speaker will be Mark Laumakis, Ph.D., who holds dual positions at San Diego State University - Faculty in Residence in Instructional Technology Services and Lecturer in Psychology. His talk is entitled - Parallel Worlds: Facilitating the Alliance between University Teaching and Academic Technology
With the conference at SDSU, our campus is receiving 20 sponsored slots. SDSU members of the planning committee will use some of these slots, but a significant number will be available for the SDSU community. Please contact James Frazee, if you are interested in one of the remaining slots. Remember those who attend without sponsorship will need to pay the $175 registration fee.
Log Management Committee Report
Shawn Rohrbach announced there is an invitation out to Splunk Inc. present a demonstration of their product - Splunk - see http://www.splunk.com. It is the mid-price solution that the Log Management Committee has been evaluating.
According to the company website, Splunk lets you search and analyze all your IT infrastructure data from a single location in real time. You can troubleshoot application outages, investigate security incidents and more...in minutes not hours. Collect and organize your IT data once and make it available for troubleshooting problems, enhancing security monitoring or compliance log management. With logs, configurations, messages, alerts and statistics all indexed together, IT functions no longer need to operate as individual silos with their own independent views. Provides saved web access reports that you can access when needed. Splunk captures and indexes file system changes, database audit logs and actual configuration files and database records alongside configuration policy, change tickets, error events and other IT data for contextualized view of change.
Minimum Workstation Specs
Diana will be sending changes on the PC minimum workstations specification to our web page updaters shortly. If anyone has additional changes, please send them to Diana Osborn at diana@sciences.sdsu.edu
Other Announcements
Rich Pickett stated the campus phonebook is available as an application for iPhones at http://phonebook.sdsu.edu/m/#_home, and a 22 page contract from Apple on the iPhone project is being evaluated.
Aztec Shops is offering promotions from Dell and Apple.
Next meeting will be February 19, 2009.
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 January 21, 2009
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