Office of Information Technology

Technology Advisory Board (TAB)
Minutes of Meeting of November 15, 2000

Location: 4th Floor Conference Room, Andy Holt Tower
Time: 2:00 - 3:00 p.m.

Attendance:

Members: Eric Beaty, Bill Britten, Brooks Brown, Allen Cain, Will Carver, Jim Gehlhar, Ray Hamilton, Nathan Hammer, Steve Keys, Dewitt Latimer, Joshua D. Morrison, Keith Morton, Faye Muly, Marla Peterson, Jim Schwab, Matthew Thigpen, Brock Thomas, Fred Tompkins (for Jerry Stoneking), Zoe Hoyle (for Ken Walker).

Others: Chris Cimino, Marleen Davis, Julie Little, Robin McNeil, Nancy Gnilka, Allen Taylor, Judy Travis.

Telephone Switch Update

Steve Keys, Telephone Services Director, announced the PBX based telephone system on campus will be replaced by a new central system. New features include: call waiting, caller ID, and DSL service in rental properties. Implementation is planned for June 2001. There will also be custom calling features including text messaging and a new conferencing system "Meeting Place" with arrangements made via e-mail. These should be up within six months or so if they are able to stay on schedule.

The billing method will change and should be easier to read. Telephone Services will also be offering a prepaid debit card service, as well as an 800 service to students. All of these features will be available at or below what BellSouth and other phone companies are charging. The new cards can be used for international dialing. Also an option, called fast-feature platform, will provide web access to control the features on your phone.

Students asked whether the technology fee would subsidize any of the new phone services. Steve responded Telephone Services is an independent service center and will not use any technology fee funds.

Jim Gehlhar asked if there would be any improvement in the long distance international rates. Steve indicated UT is getting better rates from Qwest now, however, each international long distance company has their own rate for each foreign country, and they constantly change. Telephone Services utilizes one vendor at the overall lowest price. Steve said, after meeting with some students last year, he was able to help in some individual cases.

In response to a question, Steve said faculty and staff will be getting new phones which will support the caller ID function, but installation will be gradual, probably by department. He also indicated the instructions for use of the new telephones will be the same as those printed in the front of the BellSouth telephone book so Telephone Services won't have the expense of printing user guides.

Marleen Davis suggested cell phones for everyone. Steve replied cell phones are not cost effective yet; however, as prices come down, they will probably be reasonable for everyone in the future.

Networking Update

Dewitt Latimer, Director of Computing and Network Services (CNS), discussed various networking concepts, new applications, and the status of the campus-wide VOLNET project.

NetID: A NetID is nothing more than a common user ID and will be utilized by as many campus applications as possible. This will enable users to move beyond having to remember many different passwords. The systems which DII operates will adhere to the NetID standard. A NetID will be assigned to everyone at the time they are associated with the University whether becoming a student or employee. It will be created for the individual and will become a part of the individual's permanent record. It can be changed, however, to avoid frequent or frivolous changes, it will not be an easy process. Exceptions can be made in extreme cases, e.g., divorce, stalking, etc. As many existing ID's as possible will be grandfathered in, even though some may not adhere to the algorithm which will be used. (New algorithm: first name initial followed by the first six characters of the last name.) This new algorithm will be used universally by The University of Tennessee entity which includes Knoxville, Memphis, and Tullahoma so there will be network mobility across the different physical campuses. Presently there are a few identical IDs at Memphis and Tullahoma for different individuals, but they should be resolved soon.

Email Applications

Web Mail: The web based email access application is a victim of its own success. When introduced eighteen months ago no one anticipated its overwhelming popularity. At any given time, there are over 4,000 simultaneous users of web mail. The present version of Web Mail was not designed for this level of activity. A more robust version is now available, and the upgrade installation is scheduled during the December break.

SIMS: This new email system, which uses the NetID as the login ID, will replace the present email system in January. Email continues to grow rapidly for many reasons. Some departments are getting out of departmental email systems and moving back to DII's centrally administered email systems. The robustness and high reliability of the new system is expected to be able to provide uninterrupted email service, 24 hours a day, unless it has to be brought down for maintenance or system catastrophic failure such as hardware.

Systems with the newer technology, such as SIMS, can efficiently accommodate the use of email as a form of mass communication. With the present email system, when a message is sent to 20,000 people, there are 20,000 copies of it. SIMS will keep only one copy on the system when a message is sent to 20,000 people. This saves both disk space and processing time. Such features, however, will have to be managed so that unwanted "spam usage" does not occur.

VOLNET: In December, the process of cutting 130 plus buildings over to the new backbone will begin. The plan has ten buildings per month scheduled for cut over for the next 13 months. The dorms are on the schedule for the December/January period since they will be vacant.

DHCP: This acronym stands for dynamic host configuration protocol. Put simply it means mobility. This protocol allows computers to be plugged into the network anywhere on campus, and they will be able to access the network successfully. This will be particularly attractive to faculty and students who have laptops and might want to move between areas such as the library and the classroom. Any Ethernet address that is registered in the central database will be able to move anywhere on the Knoxville campus. When each building is cut over, DHCP will be enabled, and it will allow dynamic access anywhere in the building.

Installation of High Speed Networking Link: The campus commodity internet link has been saturated for the past six months. Much of this saturation is associated with Napster. CNS estimates (depending on day and time) about 30 -55% of the traffic is associated with Napster-primarily Napster in the dorms. When the dorms are cut over they will be served by a separate internet link. The separate commodity internet link will isolate this traffic from the rest of the campus. This approach will provide redundancy so the campus will have a backup. The two connections will be coming from separate carriers and separate geographical paths.

Dewitt stressed the university cannot continue to add networking pipes to provide access for "entertainment," and it would benefit the university for the student leadership to spread the word that campus access is primarily for educational purposes of the university student. There are plans to embark on a mission to educate students about use of bandwidth so they understand how their use affects everyone.

Modem Pool Changes: The free model pool which was originally set up eight - ten years ago primarily for access to the University Libraries resources has been eliminated. The equipment, very old and difficult to maintain, took up much needed floor space by the new network which hastened the decision to eliminate it. Only a few faculty and students, who can now set up an ERA account as needed, have been affected.

Faye Muly indicated there are many parallel developments in network access and email. She is encouraging people to call the Helpdesk if they have any problems or don't understand what needs to be done as a result of the network changes and/or new email system.

New Meeting Schedule

Will Carver requested a change in the meeting time from 2-3pm to 3:30-4:30pm for next semester (same day of the month and place). All agreed, therefore, the meetings on February 21, March 21 and April 18 will be held at 3:30 p.m. in the 4th Floor conference room of Andy Holt Tower. In July, the meetings will resume at the 2:00 - 3:00 p.m. time.

Minutes Prepared by: Judy Travis