As the current issue is devoted to sustainability, primarily of energy and physical/natural resources, I thought I would share with you a sustainability story of a different kind.

There was a longstanding initiative-that-should-have-been-a-project (you know the kind; hopefully soon to be extinct) to move Emory Shared Data processing from an old AIX server to the new Linux platform. The changes involved were multiple and complex: new operating system, new hardware platform, new Oracle client, and a migration from MicroFocus Cobol to NetCobol. In addition, over 200 Cobol programs, 30 DataStage ETL jobs, and many Korn shell scripts, had to be converted in the process. Conversion and testing required many hours and focused effort.

However, time to focus was hard to come by, since several times a week Russ Havard would get a call in the middle of the night from the Data Center Operators that there was a problem with the ESD nightly processing. The root cause could not be identified. It was happening so often that Russ’s “sustainability” was at risk!

The workaround was to develop a script so that the Data Center Operators could resume nightly processing without having to wake up Russ. With lots of teamwork involving Systems and Data Center staff, and a good dose of scripting expertise by Bruce Anderson, we had a working process and procedure in place in short order. This enabled the migration to the new server to be completed successfully – after many additional hours of effort by Russ, Barbara Anderson, and Elizabeth Bell – and we were finally able to turn off the old, power-hogging server!

This example drives home the message many of us are starting to get from our ITIL v3 training:

• The goal of incident management is to restore service to normal operations as quickly as possible, even if that means we institute a workaround.

• One key metric for any IT organization is MTTR, or mean time to resolve/repair.

• Empowering and trusting employees is a recurring theme for improving IT operations.

• Event Management – filtering, categorizing, and responding to events in the environment – is something we do, but often the response is not by the people who are closest to the event. With both the Service Desk/Call Center and the TOC/Data Center we are hoping to respond to events faster and more completely without escalating to higher support tiers. This scores well in all of the above categories. We need more of this.

Kudos to all involved in this effort!

- John O. Ellis, Director, Integration

While conversions from the Nortel to Avaya platforms have occurred across campus, there has not been an example of a conversion quite so unique as the Emory Conference Center Hotel. 

If you think about it, there is only one of these on campus, so there is no real experience to draw upon when it comes to changing technologies in that situation. Not only was the project team challenged in placing three separate buildings (the Conference Center Hotel, Emory Inn, and Houston Mill House) on the same voice switch, but they also dealt with unique hotel management functions. To make matters “worse,” the new four-story hotel addition going online this spring was part of the overall project scope, so planning for it had to be factored in all along the way.  

Among the greatest challenges to this conversion was either moving or replacing existing systems and interfaces, such as the Property Management System, the existing and outdated hotel operator consoles, messaging/voice mail, and other guest functions. This was a new animal for the group to get a handle on without the benefit of experience.

As for myself, watching the project team gather information, identify the various tasks, and come up with direction and solutions was quite impressive. When observing team discussions among Joe Massey, Joe Head, David Topper, Laura Smith, and others, one couldn't help but be impressed with their knowledge, skills, and focus on the success of this project. There were several issues, challenges, and things that needed to be addressed that I would have never thought of:

• Replacing the functionality of a hotel that includes not only reservation systems, but critical issues that could affect the safety of the guests
• Room service, room-to-room calls, wake-up calls, or – worst case – obtaining 911 service from the room

Again, while I have always respected my coworkers and acknowledged their skills, I was truly impressed with what I saw on this project. Each of these folks rose well above and beyond any performance I have seen to date. Joe Massey dug out from memory, experiences and skills from many years in the business. He raised questions and solutions unique to the hotel environment that only those skills and experience would have allowed.

In the end, the conversion was very successful, beyond what the project team thought was possible. Part of this success is due to the work from several engineers in the switch room, James Crosby from data engineering, Ann King as coordinator, and several more from Field Services. After an all-day, well-into-the-night conversion, the hotel staff (who had themselves been given training as part of this process) came to work the next morning to a new and fully operational system. Needless to say, our friends at Emory Conference Center Hotel were not only impressed with the effort, but also pleased with the results. To quote one of my fellow project team members, “This was possibly the best project I have been on.”

- John Stiles, Project Manager

Think Green!... If done properly, Emory’s Division of Enrollment Services’ Integrated Imaging Software Solution will not only save lots of paper and space, but time and money as well. It seeks to automate common business processes of all student service offices within central administration. Today, there are several imaging solutions across the campus with little or no integration. Furthermore, there are massive paper storage requirements, numerous paper items collected by multiple offices, and inherent bottlenecks which exist with paper driven processes.

This effort ensures paperwork will be electronically and/or digitally submitted and then shared. It will increase efficiency and productivity, improve data accuracy, reduce Emory’s liability by minimizing document loss, and simplify disaster recovery planning by reducing the need for shadow systems. Moreover, it is scalable to meet the needs of both large and small offices.

Later phases of the project will include a campus-wide enterprise solution, capable of integrating with University PeopleSoft implementations to include, but not be limited to, Financial Aid, Oxford College, Human Resources, Development and University Relations (DUR), Emory Alumni Association (EAA), and Finance & Administration. An integrated document management, imaging, and workflow solution will help Emory University conserve and reduce the University's impact on the local environment.

- Trisha Wilson, Project Manager

Over the last several months, UTS has configured and deployed Sun Java System Directory Server Enterprise Edition to replace the current LDAP infrastructure. This was done as part of a normal upgrade process as well as to address intermittent service failures due to misbehaving clients and improve overall availability and reliability.

The architecture was reviewed by several OIT groups and was designed to institute failover in all parts if the LDAP architecture.

On March 14th, 2009, UTS moved to the Sun Java System Directory Proxy Server. The performance metrics have been very favorable: during testing, the number of successful searches/second was 5,995 and the successful authentications/second was 800. In addition, the new environment has mitigated the issues with clients that caused the service to fail. UTS was able to release the OctetString software for a cost savings of $8,800 annually.

- Felicia Bianchi, Project Manager

Project Compass is now four months away from implementation and a great deal of energy and time is being expended to bring all the pieces together. We are working our way through integration testing to verify that the various modules allow data to flow through the system properly. We are also preparing to begin the first of three Dry Runs starting in May. A Dry Run will allow us to emulate as closely as possible an implementation in a controlled environment. It will also test the validity of the Cut Over Strategy so that we can determine the amount of time each task will take during implementation and that everyone knows their job during Cut Over on September 1, 2009. We are preparing to perform Stress Testing on the production environment over the next two months and User Acceptance Testing will also begin in May. We have contracted with a stress testing company to provide software and consultants to help simulate up to a 1000 users on the system to ensure that the environment will perform properly under a load. The project team is fortunate to continue to receive a great deal of help and support from UTS people throughout the organization, many end-users across the enterprise and our consulting partners. Please continue to go to the project web site to get updates on project progress.

- Scott Swann, Technical Coordinator, Compass Financials Project