OATdb Archive

2013 - 2014

IT Infrastructure And Support Services

Goal
Provide Quality Information Technology Resources
Infrastructure and Support Services will provide resources that meet resource type needs, be reliable and be available when and where needed by the University.

Objective
Provide Core Services To Campus Community
Infrastructure and Support Services will provide core services to include email, web, print and file services to campus that is reliable and available.

KPI
Core Services To Campus Community
Track email, main website, print and file services and target a 99.9% uptime.

Result
Track Core Services To Campus Community
Core Non-ERP service total downtime* and % uptime

Email –                         0 minutes down      100.00000% uptime
File Services –          1022 minutes down        99.80556% uptime
Printing –                     0 minutes down       100.00000% uptime
Main SHSU Website – 541 minutes down         99.89707% uptime
*Total down time represent scheduled and unscheduled outages.  This percentage represents that the service was not available to most.

Core Non-ERP service unplanned downtime** and % uptime

Email –                       0 minutes down    100.00000% uptime
File Services –            44 minutes down      99.99163% uptime
Printing –                    0 minutes down     100.00000% uptime
Main SHSU Website – 406 minutes down     99.92275% uptime
** Unplanned downtime represents unscheduled outages.   This percentage represents that this service was not available due to a either a problem with the system or a break/fix that required system restart.

Action
Assess Core Services Availability To Campus
IT@Sam will assess core server's services to provide expected level of uninterrupted service to our clients and appropriately communicate service interruptions.   We will continue to enhance monitoring on servers to reduce service interruptions and provide high availability where allowed.

Objective
Provide Reliable Internet Connectivity To Campus
Infrastructure and Support Services  will provide internet services to campus that is reliable and available.

KPI
Internet Total Service Uptimes
Track the internet connectivity available to campus and target a 99.9% uptime

Result
Internet Service Uptimes
The measured KPI of internet total service uptime has been determined to be at 99.87% uptime to include scheduled and unscheduled outages.  This was below our goal of 99.9% uptime.

Action
Assess Internet Service Uptime
8/9/2014 IT@Sam Infrastructure and Support Services implemented redundancy in hardware and circuits routes to reduce the amount of internet service interruptions to campus community and external potential clients.

Objective
Provide Adequate Internet Bandwidth To Campus Community
Infrastructure and Support Services will monitor and provide adequate internet bandwidth to campus community so that core functions can be performed.

KPI
Track Internet Availability
Track the internet bandwidth uses to the campus community to determine campus bandwidth demands.    Bandwidth utilization is targeted under 75% of available bandwidth during peak hours of 8am to 9pm.  

Result
Internet Availability
The measured KPI of internet bandwidth availability during peak hours was determined to be at  95-100% utilization on the 1gb connection during peak hours of 8am to 9pm during the Fall and Spring Semesters.   Utilization was under 50% during Summer sessions between the hours of 8am and 9pm.   This value failed to meet the goal of under 75%.  

Action
Implement Additional Internet Bandwidth To Campus
IT@Sam Infrastructure and Support Services has increased internet bandwidth to a 10Gig connection effective 8/9/2014.

Objective
Infrastructure And Support Services Will Provide Service Accessibility Satisfaction
ISS will track the manner and/or medium in which resources are delivered to students, faculty and staff.

KPI
Evaluate Satisfaction Of Clients With The Manner And/or Medium In Which Resources Are Delivered
Survey campus to evaluate if resources are delivered satisfactory by the Infrastructure and Support Services department.

Result
Satisfaction With Existing Services
In meeting with faculty and staff over the course of the year, several services were identified as needing improvement:

1.  Internet Bandwidth - Staff/Faculty/Students have raised issues during long semester that internet bandwidth is not sufficient.

2.  Software Deployment - Faculty/Staff have raised issues with the requesting additional softwareS:/T:.

Action
Satisfaction With Internet Bandwidth
Complete.
In response to campus demand for additional internet bandwidth.   ISS has upgraded our internet to two 10G connections and added additional hardware redundancy to minimize down time or saturation.

Action
Satisfaction With File Shares
Complete.
File shares are established with a quota for S:, T: and email.   However with due diligence and business justifications these file shares will be increased.  ISS will continue to monitor the file shares and email to identify what the standard quota should be.


Action
Satisfaction Of Software Deployment
In Progress.
Although dates as to when IT@Sam should be notified of software request for academic purposes, faculty and staff continue to not meet these dates or request last minute changes to the software that is needed.    ISS will strive to meet the needs/demands of campus, however, we will also work with Client Services to communicate the dates that are  established for academic software.

Objective
Project Delivery Satisfaction
Infrastructure and Support Services will provide satisfactory project delivery

KPI
Evaluate Satisfaction Of Client With Project Delivery
Survey clients with whom ISS provided Project based services in a satisfactory level and target a 95% or better satisfaction rating.


Result
Satisfaction With Existing Project Delivery
Based on conversations with client, client were concern about the amount of time it takes to complete projects.


Action
Satisfaction With Project Delivery
Although the Cherwell Information Technology Project Tracking System, has been implemented,  This system requires a significant amount of time to complete projects.   The system is allowing IT@Sam to prioritize projects and have direction as to which projects should be working on.   The issue is the number of projects that are being submitted for IT to complete.  ISS will continue to identify ways to streamline the project lifecycle and to communicate timeframes that projects can be accomplished.

Goal
Provide Quality Service Delivery Experience In ISS
Infrastructure and Support Services will utilize the work order survey to measure the perception of services delivery by ISS.

Objective
Provide Service Delivery That Will Be Perceived To Have Kept The Client Informed
Infrastructure and Support Services will utilize the  work order surveys to evaluate the client's perceptions of how well Infrastructure and Support Services kept them informed of request status.

KPI
Client Perception Of The Level Of Communication Received
Work order survey will be delivered to the client upon completion of the request.  ISS will strive to receive a 95% or better satisfaction  rating on Communication received with service requests.

Result
Client Satisfaction Survey Results - Communication
ISS achieved a rating of 90% satisfaction from the 220 responses regarding perception of overall service as satisfactory or very satisfactory, this is out of the 3102 service request that were completed this year.     This did not meet the goal of 95%.

Action
Continue To Monitor Communication
In the ISS area, Communications to clients had dropped from previous years.  However, we also so a significant decrease in satisfaction survey being completed from over 600 to 220.  We will continue to monitor and communicate to the team the importance of proper communication and also evaluate the Cherwell process to meet this goal.


Objective
Provide Service Delivery That Is Timely And Efficient
Infrastructure and Support Services will utilize the work order survey to evaluate the client's perception of the duration to complete service requests.

KPI
Client Perception Of Time To Complete Service Request
A work order survey will be delivered to the client upon completion of the request.   ISS will target  to have a Client Perception to time to complete service request at 95% or better satisfaction rating.

Result
Client Satisfaction Survey Results - Timeliness
ISS achieved a rating of 88% satisfaction, from the 222 responses out of the 3,102 Service Request closed this past year, regarding perception of overall services as satisfactory or very satisfactory with the time to complete the service request.  

Action
Monitor And Improve Timeliness To Complete Service Requests
We significantly dropped in this area however the number of clients responding to the survey also dropped.  We will continue to monitor and communicate the importance of monitoring Cherwell incidents that are assigned and how individuals are using the Cherwell system.  We may need to look workloads assigned to individuals see if work can be distributed or if we need to increase staff.

Goal
Provide Quality Professional Development Opportunities For Staff
Provide time and funding for staff to attend professional development through training and/or conferences.


Objective
Provide Professional Development Opportunities To Infrastructure And Support Services Staff
Infrastructure and Support Services will allocate funding and time for staff to participate in professional development activities, which will enhance staff value to students, faculty, staff and alumni.

KPI
Provide Professional Development
100% of ISS staff will satisfy the SHSU Human Resources Staff Professional  Development requirement, which includes 8 hours for staff and 12 hours for managers.  


Result
Satisfaction Of Professional Development
The HR requirement for professional development was implemented in Januaary, and with this for the FY14, 77% of all ISS staff have attended at a minimum 8 hours or 12 hours of professional development. 

KPI
Provide Opportunity For High Quality Professional Development That Enhances Value
ISS will provide high quality professional development that will enhance staff value to students, faculty, staff, and alumni.    90% of all Professional Development that is attended will target operational improvement related to ISS functions.


Result
Results Of Professional Development That Enhanced Value
81% of all staff attended at least one course/conference/seminar that enhanced value to the organization.  All recieved benefit from these events so the KPI was met to of 90% of all professional development offered to staff will enhance value to their position.

Action
Continue To Promote Professional Development
ISS is committed to offer and encourage professional development that will support staff in the ever changing environment of technology.   We will continue to monitor and offer professional development to staff that enhances the value of their position.   The remaining six ISS staff will have their 8 hours of professional development completed by December 2014 to achieve 100% of the HR requirement.

Goal
Analyze Opportunities To Increase Campus Efficiency
Infrastructure and Support Services will continuously analyze processes to increase campus efficiency in one or more of the following areas:  costs, operations, and communications.

Objective
Evaluate Processes To Increase Campus Efficiency
ISS will evaluate at least one process within the ISS area to increase campus efficiency.

KPI
Evaluation Of New Software Implementation Process
ISS and CS have jointly made some changes to the software deployment process.  We jointly drafted and implemented a workflow within our Cherwell system so that teams would be assigned tasks when work needs to be completed.   This process in the past has taken up to 180 days to complete all tasks.  With these improvements we have reduced the time to deploy software to approximately 90 days,  depending on the size and difficulty of the packaging needed for the software.  Workflow between internal and external areas has improved and the fall 2014 semester denotes the first time that all software requested for fall 2014 was deployed before the semester started.

On the external side, communication with clients regarding software request deadlines has been improved as well.  Direct communication with the deans and department chairs prior to deadlines has been sent regularly over the last year.  Department meetings have been established to talk about the software needs of each academic department.


Result
Evaluation Of New Software Implementation Process
ISS and CS has jointly made some changes to the Software deployment.  This process implemented a workflow in our Cherwell system so that teams would be assigned task when work is needing to be completed.   This process in the past has taken up to 180 days to complete all task, we have reduced the time to deploy software to approximately 90 days depending on the size and difficulty of the packaging of the software.

KPI
Evaluation Of Server Monitoring
ISS will work to implement tools to monitor the data center activity to be able to proactively respond to alerts that could cause interruption of services to campus.   The team will capture the current process and evaluate how to optimize processes for operations and communications.

Result
Evaluation Of Server Monitoring
Currently ISS use Zenoss, a SNMP-based monitoring solution, to monitor all servers with at least a basic network heartbeat.  This will indicate for the most part whether a server is communicating on the network, a good indicator that it is working as expected.

However, due to the fact that this does not indicate whether a particular service is working on the server, ISS is extending the monitoring on Linux servers with additional SNMP profiles in Zenoss.  Additionally, ISS installed Microsoft SCOM for in-depth Windows Server monitoring, providing a copious amount of monitoring and automated actions to correct detected issues.  A test is currently under way to use SCOM on the Linux servers.

Dell OpenManage Essentials has also been installed and is currently being configured by the Data Center Operations team to better monitor the servers at a hardware level.

The APC (Schneider Electric) monitoring system has been upgraded to Stuxureware Data Center Expert.  This system monitors the power and cooling in the Data Center.



Action
Assess Software Implementation Process
ISS plans to enhance this software implementation workflow process to include tasks that can be completed at the same time are assigned simultaneously.  We estimate that on average, this process can be reduced by 30 days for new software implementation.

Action
Assess Server Monitoring
IT@Sam will plan to enhance  monitoring system of the chillers, diesel generator, and Automatic Transfer Switch to augment the current enunciator panel which only provides a visual indicator of generator status inside the Data Center itself.  These new systems will have dashboard and e-mail alerting capabilities so that the Data Center Operations Team can better handle issues concerning power and cooling.


Update to previous cycle's plan for continuous improvement

Infrastructure and Support Services has aligned our strategic objectives with our internal motto of communicate and collaborate; and being client centric.  ISS continues to strive to treat the client the way they expect to be treated and provide them with the tools to meet their business needs with technically qualified staff assisting with their requests.


ISS has implemented monitoring tools that help identify issues prior to clients calling to report issues or allow us to fix potential issues prior to affecting the clients.   

IT@Sam increased internet bandwidth from 1G to 10G to support internet demands of campus.


Plan for continuous improvement ISS continues to use the Cherwell ticketing system to document the work as well as provide enhanced communication to requestors.  We continue to make improvements and update to this system to meet the expectations of the clients and to support ISS team with daily work.


ISS will continue to evaluate internal IT process to provide better service.  This year we focused on increasing our internet bandwidth to provide the internet demands to SHSU.

ISS will continue to evaluate the Software deployment process and streamline this process.   We will work with communicating to clients as to prior to the budget cycle if new business and academic software is needed for the next fiscal year.

ISS will continue to focus on communication and service delivery to support the campus community for improved communication and collaboration.