Dear Vanderbilt IT Team,

We have made substantial progress in our transition and are ready for the next phase of our evolution at Vanderbilt and within VUIT.  By now, your managers should have met with you to discuss your future role and placement in either the university or medical center.  You may recall from my July email that I had mentioned jobs would be created as a result of the transition.  Over the course of the next few weeks, more than 50 new job positions will be posted, and we will make the new organizational charts available on the website soon.  As we look forward to the future, we must stay focused on our present tasks and commitment to both the university and medical center by continuing to work on assigned projects.  You will be notified by your current and new managers when it is time to begin work for your future organization.

In light of our hard work, it is timely that we celebrate service in the fall.  The Vanderbilt University Service Awards took place Sept. 29 at Langford Auditorium in honor of those who are hitting milestones, recognized below.  Congratulate these folks as you see them around campus!

On Oct. 15 from 9 to 11 a.m. at the VUIT All Hands Meeting and Service Awards Celebration, we will come together to celebrate our team members on a divisional level in the Student Life Center.  This meeting will include updates on the transition, ERP, and other major projects.

If you would like to share suggestions or concerns with me, please stop by my office hours on Oct. 27, from 3 to 4:30 p.m. at 3401 West End, Suite 600, Rm. 627.

Sincerely,
John

SERVICE AWARD HONOREES

5 years

Jennifer LeBlanc, Hosting Services
Daniel Sutton, Hosting Services
Jeffrey Loudon, Distributed Technology Services
Anthony Coon, Distributed Technology Services
Dane Vick, Distributed Technology Services
Joseph Melvin, App. Dev.
Tony Storm, App. Dev.
Christopher Foley, App. Dev.
Brett Echerd, App. Dev.
Andrew Cole, Customer Relations
Phoebe Zhang, Customer Relations
Rafiq Nelson, Core Infrastructure
Lacy Blanton, Core Infrastructure
Paula Masci, Core Infrastructure
Tristan Lowe, Core Infrastructure

10 years

Boyd Fulton, Hosting Services
Patrick Hammock, IT Service Management
Dan Nanto, IT Leaders
Heather Mitchell, Distributed Technology Services
Fran Spurrier, IT Leaders
Todd Dodson, Distributed Technology Services
Thomas Chandler, Distributed Technology Services
Dianne Wehlage, VUIT Administration
Steven Hansen, Data Network
Roger Bostian, Data Network
Victor Herbert, Data Network
Alan Zhang, App. Dev.
William Erickson, App. Dev.
Loc Le, App. Dev.
David Daniels, App. Dev.
Eric Bossman, App. Dev.
Uma Narayanan, App. Dev.
Amanda Jacob, App. Dev.
Kelly McGill Barrett, Customer Relations
Steve Bryant, Customer Relations
John McCammon, Customer Relations
Myrna Watson-Weinzetl, Core Infrastructure
Sunthy Vongnarath, Technology Support
Scott Hogan, Core Infrastructure
Jeremie Smith, Technology Support
Robert Leffler, Core Infrastructure
Eric Pyles, Technology Support
Jeffrey Weiss, Core Infrastructure
Randolph Williams, Core Infrastructure
Eric Ondrey, Core Infrastructure

15 years

Michael Smith, Hosting Services
Jane Knight, Hosting Services
Stephen Price, IT Service Management
Marcell Troupe, VUIT Administration
Dennis Rash, Data Network
Jeffrey Flint, Data Network
Barry McCurry, Data Network
Aldrea Vertison, App. Dev.
Nicole Oeser, Customer Relations
Larry Byrd, Customer Relations
Craig Hampton, Customer Relations
Dennis Boswell, End User Services
Cliff Wilson, End User Services
Michael Harris, Hosting Services
John Haendel, End User Services
Charles Hitchcock, End User Services

20 years

Jeffrey Sublett, Hosting Services
John Kilbourne, Distributed Technology Services
Steven Walker, Data Center Services
John Brassil, Hosting Services
Kim Scott, Project Management Office

25 years

Ronnie Eastes, Hosting Services
David Chontofalsky, IT Service Management
Lori Kinney, Distributed Technology Services
Darryle Rutledge, Distributed Technology Services
David Linn, Distributed Technology Services
Glenn Pitts, VUIT Administration
Karen Montefiori, VUIT Administration
Patrick Hawkins, Hosting Services
Taj Wolff, End User Services

30 years

Roland Bailey, IT Service Management
Esfandiar Zafar, IT Leaders
Sylvia Thompson, Security Ops

35 years

Kim Mallory, IT Leaders

40 years

Daniel Sulkin, Distributed Technology Services
Sandra Ford, VUIT Administration

45 years

Charles Thompson, Data Center Services

OUT AND ABOUT: CUSTOMER-FACING UPDATES

How to properly protect your password

Phishing and identity theft have become more rampant in the digital age. Since online email accounts, bank accounts, and other shopping sites hold sensitive information about users, it is important to understand what makes a secure password and how to protect it.

October is National Cybersecurity Month; as such, Vanderbilt IT relationship managers and technicians will help educate customers about the steps that they can take to secure their passwords and take care of their digital footprint during the month of September. The “Did You Know?” slide on the IT homepage corresponding to this month’s featured offering will link to the “Secure Password” website.

As part of next month’s cybersecurity campaign, a handful of articles with case studies and takeaways will be featured in myVU and on the VUIT News Blog.

Contact: Leslie Schichtel Buchanan, leslie.buchanan@vanderbilt.edu

Takeaways from last year’s Vanderbilt IT Satisfaction Survey

Last year Vanderbilt IT released its first-ever customer satisfaction survey. Survey findings showed that customers desired more education about VUIT services, as well as a more consistent experience. As a result, VUIT created the “Did You Know” campaign and launched its Customer Service Mentality Training sessions. However, these are not the only major takeaways to be gleaned from the resulting metrics.

The survey team has compiled key findings into a PowerPoint presentation, and Kara Sundar is available to present at your department’s team meeting. If interested, please contact her directly by email.

The 2016 satisfaction survey will be live online for customers to give feedback in December.

Contact: Kara Sundar, kara.sundar@vanderbilt.edu

Academic Affairs Relationship Management team assist library with email set-up

The Vanderbilt University library recently approached the Academic Affairs Relationship Management team for assistance with its upcoming library quality survey. Ultimately, the library needed an email box from which the Dean of the Library could send and the Quality Survey team could receive responses. The university library used to use the legacy mail-enabled public folders in Exchange. However, the Relationship Management team created a shared Exchange mailbox to replace these legacy public folders. The Quality Survey Committee was very satisfied with this solution and is looking forward to taking advantage of this mailbox for the upcoming survey.

Contact: Chris Contos, chris.contos@vanderbilt.edu

Operator Services’ key role in answering system

Most know Operator Services, but few know all that this team is responsible for or the depth of its responsibilities and accomplishments. The Operator Services team comprises 23 representatives who answer more than 35,000 calls per week for Vanderbilt University, Vanderbilt Medical Center, and the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt and answer internal calls placed to the operators when callers dial “0.” Its core services range from paging and facilitating critical lab alerts to messaging, overhead paging for the hospitals, and scheduling and facilitating conference calls. In doing so, the team maintains a contact database of more than 50,000 listings of faculty, staff, and students.

In 2014 alone, the team processed more than 1.8 million calls, scheduled and facilitated more than 16,000 conference calls, processed more than 7,500 emergency alerts, processed more than 10,000 on-call scheduling changes, and forwarded over 240,000 pagers for physicians and providers on-call.

The assistant director is Ronnie McDowell and manager is Cliff Wilson. Together, they oversee a staff of representatives, senior representatives, supervisors, and systems coordinators.

Contact: Ronnie McDowell, ronnie.mcdowell@vanderbilt.edu; Cliff Wilson, cliff.wilson@vanderbilt.edu

Policy change freeze to accompany SunGard Juniper SRX firewall lifecycle; users required to test

As part of the overarching Next Generation Network Data Center project initiatives, the SunGard Juniper SRX firewall is required to undergo lifecycle process due to its limitation in capacity and performance. The current firewall appliances (Juniper SRX-3600s) will be lifecycled with Palo Alto Network firewalls (PA-5060s), and the new hardware will be preconfigured to include the migration of the current policy. Due to the change in platform type, extensive system testing is required by all application and system owners or support personnel shortly after the cutover on the change date. Failure to test with the change could result in delayed response and resolution to any issues that might occur.

A temporary service interruption is expected during the cutover. At the same time as the cutover, the virtual private network tunnel that is currently between the Vanderbilt University Hospital (VUH) and the SunGard Juniper SRX firewall will also be removed.

Vanderbilt IT recommends a slow down on policy change starting Oct. 12 and will instate a firewall policy change freeze for the SunGard Juniper SRX firewall Oct. 19 to migrate the firewall policy to the new hardware. Only emergency rule changes can be made during this freeze in order to minimize impact on the cutover.

The change is currently scheduled to start at midnight on Oct. 24, and a two- to five-minute service interruption is expected. Testing will start shortly after 1 a.m.

VUIT personnel will notify already identified system owners to plan testing. A conference call bridge will be set up for testers to report issues during the change. The project team has scheduled two Q&A sessions on Oct. 5 and. Oct. 19 from 10 to 11 a.m. Contact Phoebe Zhang (phoebe.zhang@vanderbilt.edu) to RSVP.

If you know of any application or system that touches applications or systems behind the SunGard Juniper firewall and have not been contacted by VUIT relationship managers or Application Infrastructure managers regarding this change, please contact Phoebe Zhang for assistance.

Contact: Phoebe Zhang, phoebe.zhang@vanderbilt.edu

Vanderbilt IT teams assist with SEC Nation broadcast support

Multiple teams within Network Services worked to provide voice and data network connectivity to the SEC Nation staff to facilitate a broadcast from the Commons Lawn. This effort involved support from the Network Security and Voice and Data teams and was an excellent display of Vanderbilt IT working together to provide services for a highly visible campus event.

Contact: Mike Krusbe, mike.krusbe@vanderbilt.edu

Network Services launches Voice over Internet Protocol emergency phone pilot

A new Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)-based emergency phone was deployed at 1415 17th Ave. South as a pilot. This equipment has worked flawlessly for four weeks now. This conversion of emergency phones to a VoIP-based solution moves the institution forward by upgrading its voice technology and offering better management and support of emergency phones. Additionally, these phones can integrate with a camera, which is a capability the Vanderbilt University Police Department hopes to implement in the future.

Contact: Mike Krusbe, mike.krusbe@vanderbilt.edu

THE INSIDE SCOOP

Vanderbilt IT infrastructure project updates; new communication channel available

Vanderbilt IT’s Infrastructure team meets bi-weekly to coordinate and discuss V2MC transition-driven infrastructure projects. These meetings, facilitated by the Practice Improvement team, encourage leaders from groups such as Data Network, Voice Network, Data Centers, Security, ADI, Hosting, and Collaboration to discuss and decide on key factors moving forward. Each session involves a review of the high-level project dashboard, timeline updates, and next-step collaboration for major ongoing infrastructure projects.

As decisions are made and put into play, the Practice Improvement team will update this Box site with the slides used for discussion in order to better communicate the details for all involved.

Contact: Fran Spurrier, fran.spurrier@vanderbilt.edu; Dan Oliver, dan.oliver@vanderbilt.edu; Ben Frazee, ben.frazee@vanderbilt.edu; Dylan Platz, dylan.platz@vanderbilt.edu

The deployment of uninterruptible power supplies complete

Network Services deployed uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) in various university buildings, including Stevenson Center buildings 2 and 4, Hobbs, One Magnolia, Wilson, Benson, Kirkland, Lupton, Vaughn, Scales, Gillette, Power House, Wesley Garage, Tarpley, and Carmichael Tower 4. These deployments will allow the network to stay active during brief power outages by transferring power loads to batteries. Widespread Lync Voice over Internet Protocol phone deployments accelerated this UPS project.

This project was deemed necessary when monthly generator testing in Stevenson Center caused power outages that, in turn, caused Lync phone service interruptions.

Contact: Mike Krusbe, mike.krusbe@vanderbilt.edu

URL protection service extended to clinical workstation systems

The Network Security team leveraged the Next Generation Network control point in order to extend content filtering and malware and virus protection for clinical workstation systems. This effort will result in cost savings by replacing the existing content filtering system, in addition to centralizing security protection and monitoring.

Contact: VUIT Network Security, VUIT.Network.Security@vanderbilt.edu

New site-to-site virtual private network tunnels established

The Vanderbilt IT Network Security team established two new site-to-site virtual private network tunnels. One is for the VU Enrollment Management vendor in order to support the new Vanderbilt University housing system, and the other is for the Enterprise Data Warehouse.

Contact: VUIT Network Security, VUIT.Network.Security@vanderbilt.edu

UPDATE FROM HUMAN RESOURCES

VUIT Referral Eligible Positions

Sr Business Intel Developer, 1503005
Business Intelligence Analyst, 1503342
Business Intel Developer, 1503074
Application Developer, 1504911
Application Developer, 1506095

VUIT New Hires

Katie McCartney
Troy Barksdale
Michael McAllister
Beth Winslow
Jake LaRue
Heidi Ervin
Kenneth Hammonds
Mark Swain
Peter Perez

VUIT Transfers

None

VUIT Departures

Kevin Mobley
Carlos Trenary
Jaynee Robinson
Teri Creech

VUIT Job Postings

Application Server Admin, 1502455
Sr Business Intel Developer, 1503005
Business Intelligence Analyst, 1503342
Application Developer, 1504911
System Administrator, 1504912
Database Administrator, 1505779
Application Developer, 1506095
Executive Assistant, 1507011
System Administrator, 1507382
Sr Technical Support Spec, 1508076
Operator Svcs Rep, 1508074
Sr System Administrator, 1509480
Manager System Administration, 1508445
Principal IT Consultant, 1508444
Director, 1508446
Assoc Collaboration Admin, 1508629
System Engineer, 1509257
Sr Technical Support Spec, 1509573
Sr Media Support Specialist, 1509534
Sr Bus Intelligence Analyst, 1510052

Contact: Laraine Caldwell, laraine.caldwell@vanderbilt.edu

LEARN SOMETHING NEW

Complimentary Gartner Webinars: October

Each month, Gartner offers free webinars that are open to everyone.  Below are the options scheduled for October.  Please feel free to attend as many as your time allows.  If you have any questions or have trouble accessing the training session, please email gartnerwebinars@gartner.com.

October 1, 2015
Enable Hybrid Cloud Through IaaS Mobility Lock-In Limitation

October 6, 2015
Five Steps to ‘Failure Proof’ Mobile Security
IT Spending Forecast, 3Q15 Update: Four IT Innovations You Missed

October 7, 2015
Five Ways Cloud Can Transform Your Business
Adopt a Bimodal Approach for PCs to Broaden Device Support

October 8, 2015
The Path to High-Impact Security Awareness

October 12, 2015
Cost-Effective Security for Small and Midsize Organizations

October 13, 2015
Hype Cycle for Cloud Computing, 2015
Personal Technologies: Devices and Apps Fusion Creates Opportunity

October 14, 2015
Too Much Data, But Too Few Good Decisions?
A Platform Approach to Websites, Portals and Mobile Apps

October 15, 2015
Governance Best Practices for Midmarket IT Leaders
Hadoop 2016: Moving Into Mainstream

October 19, 2015
Cost-Saving Opportunities in the Midmarket

October 20, 2015
Best Practices for Effective Governance
Leveraging Use Cases to Validate IoT Opportunities and Spur Adoption

October 21, 2015
Implementing Bimodal IT – Delivering on the Promise
User Experience Design: From Web to Mobile to Social

October 22, 2015
Gartner’s Top Predictions: The Future Is a Digital Thing
How to Take a First Step to Advanced Analytics

October 27, 2015
Planning Your EFSS Strategy to Pursue a Digital Workplace
Data Loss Prevention: Key Trends in a Moving Target Market?

October 28, 2015
Driving Successful Customer Engagement With Content in Context

October 29, 2015
Embedding Knowledge Management Into the IT Service Desk
Preparing the Supply Chain for Digital Business