Executive Summary
UCS Services
Staff Organisation
Accountability Report
Progress in Implementation of the UCS 2000/2001 Plan

University of Newcastle

2002/03 Planning Statement for the University Computing Service

Executive Summary

December 2001

• UCS’ goal is to provide, as far as funding permits, the high quality reliable communications and information technology infrastructure and services needed to accommodate current and developing requirements of the University.

• A major challenge facing the UCS remains the mismatch between University expectation and continued reduction in resource. The problem is exacerbated by a seemingly unbounded demand for MITS resources, inevitably at the expense of those needed to provide academic services. The result is a perceived attrition of services. The UCS is worryingly dependent on one main customer of its Data Preparation Service for a significant contribution to its core funding.

• With institutional restructuring imminent, the UCS believes that it is timely for the University to consider how to achieve more integrated planning in the UCS/MIDS, telecommunications, faculty, student accommodation, and building refurbishment areas.

• UCS will continue to develop the University network infrastructure to provide the high-speed resilient services that the University’s academic and business activities demand. Recent activities include discussions related to e-science and the Grid.

• UCS will continue with the strategic implementation of the Windows 2000 Common Desktop environment across student cluster PCs, and will extend it to staff PCs. The University is complementing the work by central funding of core Microsoft software. About 900 systems have been upgraded so far. Windows NT4 development has been frozen.

• Major effort will be required to update the 840 administrative and SAP business desktops to a centrally managed, unified Windows 2000 platform.

• The student to PC ratio has worsened to 9.9:1 as student numbers have increased, without a proportionate increase in space or equipment funding.

• Prospective students often ask whether there are network connection points in study bedrooms. The University lags behind competitors in this respect. The problem could be somewhat ameliorated by provision of laptop connection points in a special area in each hall of residence.

• There is continued strong demand for access to Unix time-sharing services, though demand for single user dedicated workstations is in decline. It should be noted that Unix systems underpin many of the most important UCS services, including email, web, printing and networking services, and that much work has gone into making these reliable and resilient.

• New services have been developed or piloted for authenticated web-based email access, student laptop network connection, and use of Microsoft Exchange to support email and electronic diaries.

• UCS will continue to provide high-quality specialist advice in support of teaching, learning and research. In conjunction with its users, UCS is carrying out a review of its software portfolio. However, the lack of graphics application and Microsoft Office support remains a problem.

• The disparity between UCS and commercial salaries in particular work areas (for example in networks and SAP) makes it difficult to attract and retain highly-qualified staff.

Appendix A

University Computing Service

2002/2003 Planning Statement

UCS Services

1. Introduction

The UCS provides a wide range of services to all members of the University in support of the organisation’s teaching, learning, research and management goals. Services include support for departmental computing. This document mentions the principal UCS services, of which there are about 20,000 registered users. A detailed breakdown of resources associated with all UCS services appears elsewhere within the Planning Statement.

2. Information Exchange

Information provision and exchange is an important UCS activity. UCS provides on-line and face-to-face advisory assistance, operates self-help mailing lists, and makes documentation available via the web. Because of the large numbers involved, and in order to make efficient use of resources, the current policy is to deliver as much training as possible by open learning methods.

The University’s Netskills project develops and sells mass network skills across the higher and further education sectors, and is thereby making a major educational and financial contribution to the University.

UCS monitors new developments and disseminates relevant information about these to users. A recent example is our testing of security vulnerabilities in users’ networked computers, and propagation of remedial information.

3. Network

An extensive network links computers in staff offices and computer cluster areas throughout the campus to one another, to central UCS services, and to the Internet in general. There are also links to student halls of residence. We provide docking ports for students with laptops, and operate a dialup service for users without direct network access. Most UCS services are delivered by, or make use of, the network. UCS also operates the NorMAN regional network, which provides Internet access to about 400,000 people in universities and further education institutions in the north-east.

4. Computing Facilities

UCS provides computing facilities through computer clusters and central multi-access computers, in accordance with the needs of the University. There are over 1,000 UCS PCs distributed over 20 locations on campus. These provide the user with a consistent and location-independent view of the file system, and are the main resource for student computing. The service is extended to about 200 PCs in department-owned clusters. High-quality monochrome printers are available in every cluster room, and colour printers and scanners at several locations. About 40 Unix workstations and a limited number of Macintoshes are available in other clusters. These services are complemented by powerful centrally located Unix multi-access systems, mainly used for research applications by postgraduates and staff.

Email and web services are among the most heavily used UCS services, Recent developments include provision of secure web access from anywhere in the world to email stored on UCS equipment, and local web-based email for students.

UCS is currently deploying a strategic set of services and software, the Common Desktop – currently based on Windows 2000, across all sectors of the University.

5. Applications Software

UCS makes available a rich portfolio of applications software on its computing platforms, and provides in-depth support for the most widely used of these to staff and postgraduate students. There are currently about 70 licensed applications packages in use, across PC, Unix and Macintosh platforms. UCS also installs, but may not have expertise in, minority interest software that may be heavily used for teaching or research by particular disciplines. CAD software used by engineering departments is such an example.

In conjunction with its users, UCS keeps its software under continuing review in order to ensure that top quality applications are delivered at the lowest possible cost to the institution. Members of the University can benefit directly from this by, for example, not having to pay licence fees for software installed on departmental equipment in some cases.

6. Support for Departments

UCS offers advice to departments about hardware, software and networking necessary to satisty departmental requirements. Informal discussion with departments is a regular UCS activity. Every two years UCS evaluates PCs for the University, which then selects a list of recommended manufacturers: University PC money may only be spent on equipment from these manufacturers. This is complemented by the selling of software and consumables in the UCS Shop, and by a cost-effective micro-maintenance scheme available for computers from recommended manufacturers. UCS also centrally administers the hardware maintenance scheme for Sun equipment within the University. Chargeable UCS services that are available to departments include data preparation and questionnaire, high volume print-room, and facilities management services.

7. Management IT Services

MITS provides support for all administrative IT across the University. This includes SAP-based applications, MAC-based Student Management and in-house Student Registration. It is also responsible for the operation of servers and support of a number of other core business applications. The Help Desk, originally set up to’ provide support for SAP Users, has been extended to provide desktop support for staff within Kensington Terrace and a number of other applications across campus.

[Extracted from Organisation Chart in Appendix D]

Director
P S Salotti
            Deputy Director (Academic Computing)
            D M Russell
                        Netskills (funded project)
                        D W Hartland – Manager
                        R S Allen
                        S Boneman
                        L Cornforth
                        H Conroy
                        D McAllingney
                        P B Murray
                        W R Cullen
                        C A Vincent
                        C J Young
                        IT Systems Security
                        M H Ellison
                        NorMAN
                        M R Lancaster
                        G Brown
            Assistant Director (Microcomputer Systems)
            C Gerrard
                        Client/Server Support Academic Computing
                        D J Clark – Manager
                        M Agar
                        T Betteridge
                        A Davison
                        A M Lamont
                        I Nicholson
                        J O Noble
                        R G C Pringle
                        D Slaven
                        H Smith
                        J Stewart
                        Administrative Computing
                        S Donoghue – Manager
                        J Donaldson
                        P Roberts
                        S Bowman
                        J S Snowball
                        L Stutchbury
                                    Hardware Maintenance & Software Support
                                    I Rutherford – Manager
                                    I Gibson
                                    M S Halpin
                                    A Murphy
                                    Vacant Post
            Assistant Director (Hardware & Unix)
            T J Ratcliffe
                        Operations Superv.
                        R E Broughton
                                    Shift Leaders
                                    J M Gaffney
                                    M R Paul
                                                Operators – Machine Room
                                                P Baggott
                                                A H Bush
                                                D Harris
                                                W Oldroyd
                                                G B Taylor
                        Operators – Cluster Rooms
                        H E Fleming
                        S K Minto
                        Unix Systems
                        R Kerr – Manager
                        Q G Campbell
                        B C Hamshere
                        P Lomas
                        P Haldane
                        Print Room
                        W D Foggo – Manager
                        H E Fleming
            Assistant Director (Networking)
            I D Doak
                        Network & Development Staff
                        J N Bain – manager
                        V J Bilton
                        P A Coates
                        I E Alder
                        K Heron
                        E Watson
                                    Technical Network Staff
                                    G A Brown
                                    J Craig
                                    D A Fox
                                    S Hay
            Assistant Director (User Services)
            D P Surtees
                        Applications, Information & Education
                        Vacant Post
                        Vacant Post
                        G Brown
                        S T Kometa
                        J A Law
                        G T Lynch
                        L M Scammell
                        G Shearing
                        J A Wheeler
                        C H Woodford
                        Data Preparation Service
                        C L Heller – manager
                        E Bron
                        S E Carrick
                        N Foster
                        L Grahamslaw
                        M Hopkinson
                        A Atephenson
                        Vacant Post
                        Approx 120 “outworkers”
                        WWW Infrastructure Support
                        S McCready
                        D Querry
                        W Sillito
                        Vacant Post
                        Cluster HelpDesks
Approx 45Postgrads
            Deputy Director (Management Information Systems)
            P R Phillips
                        Administrative Systems Technical Unit
                        T Lawrence – Manager
                        M Bell
                        C Burns
                        G A Younger
                        G Parker
                        S Winter
                        Applications Development Unit
                        M Stephenson – Manager
                        R Booth
                        M Brown
                        S Farmer
                        A Griffiths
                        P Hitchens
                        C Newbigging
                        R Phillips
                        F Reynolds
                        S Tucker
                        J Ramel
                        Vacant Post
                        Help Desk/Support
                        A J Burn – Manager
                        J Bolt
                        J Butterworth
             M Embleton
                        A Proctor
                        C Schneider
                        Smart Card Manager
                        A Fisher
            Departmental Administration (Admin Assistant)
            M L Coleman
                        Supervisor
                        J A Hull
                        J H Coulson
             P A Boyle
                        C Brown
                        A Taylor
                        Vacant Post
                        Reception & User Registration
                        R Dickinson – Supervisor
                        L Jamison
                        M L Patterson
                        Porter
                        R McRae

Appendix E

University of Newcastle

University Computing Service

Accountability Report 2000/2001

UCS is pleased to provide this report on the highlights of our 2000/2001 activities. As in previous years, this summary document covers the main achievements, changes and developments.

Once again, despite a very successful year, demands on UCS have been such that the staff resource available for some activities has been overstretched because of a number of major simultaneous demands on time. ASSA is also asked to note significant resource input to activities which were deemed essential but not part of UCS’ formal Planning Statement for 2000/2001, for example, the early implementation of Campus Management had a large knock-on effect in terms of SAP upgrades and there was further delay in the archiving project. In another example of external and uncontrollable demands, we note the vastly increased security activity caused by hackers and viruses on the Internet. We were able to defend the campus effectively against these attacks, but at significant cost in staff time across the UCS and delays in planned authentication and other developments.
During the year, a Deputy Director for Academic Services was appointed in December 2000, and an Assistant Director for User Services was appointed in June 2001.

Appended to this report is an interim “Progress in Implementation of UCS 2000/2001 Plan” presented to Computing Service Committee in May 2001. As will be seen, a large part of equipment spend and staff changes had been completed by that date.

In compiling this report, for the sake of brevity, we have attempted to mention each activity only once. In some cases (e.g. Webmail and Security) this may obscure the fact that its implementation involved the detailed co-operation of several groups across the service.

1. Support for Management Information Systems

As in previous years, the infrastructure support necessary for the maintenance and further development of the MAIS SAP-based applications involved enormous effort from UCS.

• Campus Management caused much upgrade work, which was done in close cooperation with MIDS. Though this work was completed to plan, the archiving project was postponed again.

• Upgraded the production system from R3/3.1h to R3/4.6B.

• Upgraded the high availability cluster software, and the Oracle database.

• Developed Campus Management on a separate R3/4.6C landscape.

• Merged two separate production landscapes (a first!).

• Yet again the Basis team lost a very experienced member and staff turnover and training of new members is a significant on-going problem.

• SAP GUI software upgraded to 4.6C, and the new GUI was delivered to some 800 PCs.

• 220 NT SAP departmental PCs were upgraded to at least 192 Mbytes.

• 170 new PCs, 7 laptops, 30 printers and 6 scanners were configured and placed in Administrative areas.

• Three additional servers for MIDS, the Finance Office, Research and Innovations Services and the Careers Advisory Service.

• The burgeoning number of servers was reorganized into the main machine room.

• The section is now responsible for some 620 PCs, 20 Servers, 140 Laser printers and 20 local printers, plus, in departments, 220 SAP Business Units and 140 SAP printers.

• Support of two high profile exercises: CVCP visit in March and the Centralised Clearing Exercise in August.

• Provided a PC with Internet access for QAA visits across the University.

• The Applications Development Unit introduced a process with MIDS to capture management information development requests campus-wide. Accepted requests are prioritised, scheduled and tracked to completion.

• The ABAP team, continues to develop, maintain and support bespoke software for the University’s HR, Finance and Campus Management SAP systems, and was heavily involved in the system upgrade and the Admissions system implementation.

The Client/server and web-based application development team delivered the following:

• A web-based enquiry management system for Research and Innovation Services, Regional Development Office and the Careers service.

• Automation of many more administrative procedures for Accommodation Services.

• A competitor analysis and management statistics system providing senior management with key performance indicators comparing the University with competing institutions.

• The front-end registration system was upgraded to include 2001 functionality.

• Web-based personal and academic record system (PARS) with collaborative facilities for tutors and their students.

• Web-based system for workflow and document management of module outline forms.

• Web-based system to manage enquiries to the Admissions Office.

• The MAC systems team supported Student Management and the distributed on-line Registration system was used to perform Registration 2000. Smart Card issuing to some 4000 new students went smoothly.

• The Help Desk moved to Claremont Tower and expanded to support staff users of Blackboard and Staff Common Desktop. 24308 telephone calls generated 10448 new logged requests. The first point of contact closure rate rose to 80%, and SAP calls to 90%.

2. Network

• The Bedson, Agriculture, Daysh, and Percy buildings were recabled, the new network commissioned, and users’ computers connected to the upgraded network.

• Recabling of Claremont Bridge, Claremont Tower, and the Drummond buildings is now nearing completion. Preparatory planning work, including liaison with network users, for the recabling of Architecture, Bruce, Cowen, Porter, and Merz Court buildings started and is well advanced.

• Work started on planning the development of the network to operate at much higher speeds, on carrying out PC cluster upgrades to further new uses such as deployment of Windows 2000, and on investigating the complex router configurations to facilitate this, while continuing to run a reliable production network. Two staff were sent on week-long courses to increase network group expertise.

• We completed work on recabling the UCS Computer Room in Claremont to provide higher speed network access to approximately 250 computers that provide campus users with services such as email, file storage and web access.

• Work started on network design and development to allow use of an HEFCE-funded second central network switching room in the Old Library building. The two network rooms will provide core campus network production services, with the long term aim of each being usable alone in the event of a major disaster in the other.

• There was a steady growth in the use of the laptop docking service. Provided network design and budgetary information for the University’s e-science SRIF bid, and liaised with Estates and Accommodation in connection with links to the International Centre for Life, and Leazes Terrace. Participated in the University’s Telecommunications Working Party.

• Reduced recument charges for maintenance of network equipment by £20,000 pa.

• Moving to a different dial-up service provider (Thus ple) reduced charges by 64%.

• A member of staff left for a more highly paid post in the non-academic world. In the last few years we have been fortunate to recruit two excellent staff but the overall quality of applicants has declined. In networking there is a large disparity between University and extemal salaries.

• The resilience for NorMAN was installed, though the contractors ran late. The resilience has worked in practice as well as under test.

• It has been agreed that NorMAN should continue as a consortium led by Newcastle, and with Newcastle as the network operator. The agreement between UKERNA and the MANs has been refined, and is now acceptable. The agreement between the NorMAN partners is being updated. NorMAN continues to set a balanced budget for the network operator (Neweastle), with the five partners contributing equally.

• During the summer of 2000 NorMAN was extended to deliver service to 17 FE colleges. An FE observer was invited onto the to NorMAN steering group.

• The SuperJANET 4 service was introduced on time in January 2001. Its introduction, and the planned upgrade to NorMAN were timely in view of the advent of e-science and GRID activities in Newcastle.

• The work of the security coordinator in orchestrating the University’s defences against increasing attacks has been very successful. However, the continued need to defend against attacks has slowed progress on campus-wide authentication. Security and computer misuse activities are a significant drain across the whole of the UCS.

• Negotiation has reduced the annual cost of Secude, but its replacement is still seen as an important target. Some progress has been made in restricting access to vulnerable systems, but it remains a serious challenge to balance the risk of unfettered access against the reduction in function and convenience of increased controls.

3. PC services

• UCS funded clusters TARN (31, Robinson Library), Tyne (33, Robinson Library), LOCH (40, Herschel), POND (18, Herschel), MOSS (26, Herschel) were replaced. A new cluster BANK (12, Herschel) was introduced to replace old e-mail stations, and small numbers of PCs (16) were replaced in the clusters at student halls of residence. The old PCs were redeployed as appropriate in departmental and open clusters.

• With the UP&RC “Adopted” cluster funds, UCS replaced the GALEN (38 Ridley), ORACLE (40, Merz Court); displaced PCs from these locations were rolled down to departmental clusters.

• As part of the pilor Windows 2000 service, UCS converted TURF (20, OLUA) and WEAR (30, Robinson) to Windows 2000. In addition, a small number (12) of Windows 2000 PCs were distributed around campus and halls of residence.

• The NT4 desktop has been frozen for a full academic year to permit development of the pilot Windows 2000 service and all requests for new software were re-directed towards Windows 2000. UCS built, tested and piloted a Windows 2000 desktop ready for the major rollout to clusters starting in summer 2001.

• Additional servers were purchased to support the pilot Windows 2000 service domain infrastructure – five domain controllers, four software servers, two RIS servers and one IIS server. A very large amount of staff effort has gone into designing and configuring the Windows 2000 “Active Directory” that runs on these servers. Older servers were collected to construct a “test domain”, but this has proved inadequate for the purpose.

• The two oldest Netware filestore servers were replaced, and six new Windows 2000 servers were installed: by June 2001 there were over 2000 active users.

• Four more thin client servers were purchased and added to the Windows 2000 system.

• UCS developed a strategy for a Common Desktop (initially based on Windows 2000) for all staff. This has been enthusiastically supported and adopted across the University.

• The number of requests for help on PC related queries continues to increase. These are mostly in relation to PCs managed by inexpert IT users.

• A pilot Exchange service was set up to support Microsoft Outlook (e-mail and diary functions). By June 2001 there were over 150 active users including several senior officers of the University.

• The MMS had a second successful year of contracted-out hardware maintenance.

4. Unix based services

• Upgrades took place to both hardware and software for electronic mail, WWW servers and caches, and other infrastructure servers.

• Development work was conducted on the provision of the back end mail-store for the new student email service, including the Webmail service.

• Much effort to improve email traffic capacity, resilience and virus resistance.

• Support for the transfer of the national Mailbase facility to JISCmail and for the continued Mailbase functions at Newcastle.

• Revision of the computing account administration system to extend its capabilities and improve its support to staff handling these accounts.

• Upgrading of the hardware and software systems which now cope with the throughput of up to 7000 print jobs per day.

• The total number of charged b&w pages printed in the year increased by 16% to 3.2 million, and the number of colour pages increased by 11% to 78,000.

• Software revisions to enable the withdrawal of expensive line printer facilities.

• Provision of Windows 2000 print support.

• Development of monitoring and diagnostic facilities for Operations and technical support staff.

• Upgrading and developing various aspects of file system backup including off-site contingency provision.

• Additional software support caused by the loss of the Graphics Adviser post.

• Introduction of two systems to monitor behaviour and anticipate faults on the 40+ systems providing infrastructure and direct user support.

• On-going monitoring, maintenance and improvement of file servers, mail hubs, web server ews server, workstations, timeshared systems, etc.

• Technical support to UNIX users and interaction with other UCS functions with regard to networking, database support, software licensing, documentation, etc.

5. Reprographics

• The new printer/copiers installed in the Reprographic Service have proved very reliable and demand for the service continues to increase. We printed just under 4 million pages during the year up from 3.3 million in the previous year.

6. WWW infrastructure support for Inter- and Intranet

• Two new proxy servers went into service to improve response and resilience for off campus WWW and ftp traffic.

• Because of the remarkable success of the proxy service, Newcastle’s trans-Atlantic charges reduced rather than increased during the year. Newcastle is the most successful University in the Russell group at reducing networking charges.

• A Streaming media server went into service, and has already been used by Press and Publications to enhance the public face of the institution, by lecturers across campus to provide learning materials to their students, and provided the means by which the meeting of Convocation in June 2001 could be broadcast to alumni worldwide. This service was the result of a close collaboration between UCS and AVC.

• The new University web site went live in September 2001; UCS provided a new hardware platform, and developed the underlying database and scripting languages. The huge task of migrating the old site to the new took place smoothly and on time.

• Continued to deliver a high quality help and information service by means of the webmaster mailing list.

• This was achieved against a background of very limited staff resources, with 60% FTE being seconded to assist LTSU and the Blackboard virtual leaming environment.

7. Academic User Services

• Continued, high quality support for specialist applications.

• Thorough revision and rationalisation of the UCS documentation scheme, involving 60 documents. This was made possible by employing a temporary summer student to assist in supporting the exercise.

• The software administrator enabled a much-improved administrative control of software and licensing matters.

• Negotiation and signing of the Microsoft Campus agreement on behalf of the University.

• Began a review of the UCS software portfolio.

• Lack of a Graphics adviser has continued to cause problems, particularly in the area of GIS, but also affecting CAD, visualisation, Web and general graphics support. This is a growing gap in UCS’ support for users.

• The Data Preparation Service continued to exploit its marketability during 2000/2001 and achieved an income from users in excess of £655,000. Full recovery of salaries (achieved annually since 1994-1995) plus a significant additional profit continues. £420,000 of DPS profit contributed towards the departmental core salary bill during the year.

• In August 2001 we successfully negotiated an increase in prices for DPS work.

• UQS has designed and analysed some 60,000 questionnaires for University departments and the University of Edinburgh. Interest in using or mirroring its services has been shown by several Universities over the past 12 months.

8. Mailbase

• In November 2000 the national Mailbase service ended.

• The fee paying Mailbase service continued at Newcastle, and 0.5 FTE was employed to provide administrative, technical and helpline support to this popular service.

• Local Mailbase continues to be heavily used.

9. Netskills

Netskills met its planned targets for the year 2000-2001:

• Over 250 Netskills workshops took place at venues throughout the UK, providing places for over 4000 people.

• Income from sales of training materials was £70,000 exceeding the target of £60,000 with over 80 institutions holding licences.

• Training was provided for a large number of Newcastle University staff through the Staff Development and Quality and Standards Units and the Registrar’s Department.

• An extensive programme of training for lecturers on using BlackBoard was also provided on behalf of the Learning and Teaching Support Unit.

• Netskills was able to contribute £270,000 to UCS funds from surpluses built up over the previous 5 years.

• A new business plan for the forthcoming 3 years was submitted to, and approved by, ASSA and the JISC.

Computing Service Committee

May 2001

Progress in Implementation of UCS 2000/2001 Plan

This interim report is based mainly on Section 9 of the UCS Planning Statement for 2000/2001. At year end UCS will, of course, prepare an Accountability Report for ASSA as well as an Annual Report. This document concentrates on progress to date against spending plans. The Executive Summary from the Planning Statement is also attached as an aide-memoire.

1. Capital equipment replacement and recurrent costs

As always, the 2000/2001 Planning Statement requested funding to allow for replacement of capital oquipment levels on a five year cycle – this is the funding required to keep central computing provision in a ‘steady state’. This is included in the list of items below. Items requested in the original Plan are in normal type, Comments on progress in italic.

• Funding for recurrent costs for both academic and administrative IT – Hardware maintenance, software licensing and maintenance costs (including MAC items but not SAP). minor facilities and departmental equipment. Current estimate £598,000. Shaved by £30k+.

• Funding for SAP server related recurrent costs – Sun hardware maintenance, Secude software license. Current estimate £1 15,000. Recent negotiations have resulted in large savings on Secude licence (£50k → £I6k approx).

• PC and Unix filestore replacements: £100,000. Small overspend of £107k.

• Norman contribution: £10,000. Complete.

• Expected SuperJanet charges: £60,000. By virtue of our early caching work and careful monitoring, our actual costs are around f8k – a lower bill than any of our NorMAN regional partners. When the basis for charging changes, this low level of spend may not be maintainable!

• Computer Room network cabling: £S0,000. Almost complete.

• Network Switching equipment: £14,000. In progress.

• Other infrastructure support service machines: £30,000. £20k allocated but may be able to make significant saving by recycling machines.

• Funding for SMS servers for MITS: £10,000. Complete – £8k spend.

• Replacement of 5 year old cluster machines: £315,000. In first round of ASSA funding, UCS was only able to allocate – – -&nbsp:-240k which was spent and machines put in place for start of 00/01 teaching. In April 2001, 1SSA allocated a further £250k in response to CSC and UCS concerns over student seats. This is now underway.

• Replacement Air conditioning plant: £80,000. ASSA ‘loan’ of £35k to be ‘repaid’ over 3 years. Estates finalising estimates.

• Batch service improvement: £15,000. No funding available for this item.

• Thin client servers to upgrade “far” clusters: €25,000. No funding available for this item.

• Time domain reflectometer: £9,000. Complete and in use.

• Windows 2000 Advanced Server: £25,000. £20k spent.

• Modern Unix work stations: – – -&nbsp:-20,000. No funding available for this item.

• Network management equipment: £15,000. In progress.

• WWW based e-mail server: £20,000. £10k spent.

• Higher power p/g workstations: £30,000. No funding available for this item.

• Specialist Unix machines: £30,000. No funding available for this item but note that ASSA made £20k contribution to compute intensive machine now housed in Maths but available to other users.

The Plan also requested additional equipment for a number of ‘new’ items

a. Continuation of campus recabling programme (UPRC): £220,000. In conjunction with Estates, the planning and survey for a number of buildings is well underway (Drummond, Agriculture, Bruce/Cowan/Porter). In addition to this funding, PCA funding is also available for use in the network support of reorganisation in the Claremont/Bridge/Daysh complex. The Daysh work is well underway and Claremont/Bridge are into the planning stage.

b. Continuation of departmental cluster replacement (UPRC): £150,000. Complete – used for Galen, Globe and Chart clusters (85 machines).

c. Additional machines to maintain student/PC ratio (machines 5 years old or less) at 8.4:1 during first year of Widening Participation: £230,000 plus space/furniture costs. No initial allocation but see “Replacement of 5 year old cluster machines” above.

d. Forward spend to reduce 2001/02 PC replacement: £80,000. No funding available for this item – but see above.

e. Funding for Archiving hardware for SAP: £40,000. No funding available for this item.

f. Possible hardware upgrade to support later versions of SAP etc: expected cost is in the range 20,000-40,000. Disk to support 3.1-> 4.6 SAP upgrade – £28k paid by MIDS

g. New separate computer room: £ requires Estates input. As a result of PCA bid (see above) a limited amount of network/server resilience space is being made available in Old Library Building.

2. Additional staffing needs identified for development of services

a. 1 FTE administrator for software licensing. Now in post.

b. 0.5 ALC FTE for security work (including Secude and beyond). No progress.

c. Review staffing arrangements for Web support. Some improvement in Web resource available to Faculties. Return of D Surtees from Mailbase but currently losing 50% of S McCready to LTSU Blackboard support. UCS internally reviewing need for Web skills and staff training.

d. 1.5 ALC FTE to support C&IT education and training. No progress.

e. 1 ALC FTE to augment Basis Team. Now in post.

f. I ALC FTE for Smartcard support. Now in post.