Thursday, October 11, 2007
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Protect the Data
October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month, which provides a great opportunity to announce new and updated University Information Technology (IT) policies. The University Information Technology Advisory Council (ITAC) has implemented a new structure for the development, approval and distribution of IT policies. The new structure includes policies, standards, procedures, and guidelines as defined below.
- Policy
- Broad general statement or principle
- Changes infrequently
- Institution-wide application
- Approved at senior level (President)
- Broad general statement or principle
- Standard
- Focus on requirement and controls
- States how to accomplish policy
- Detailed processes that require conformity
- Approved by ITAC
- Focus on requirement and controls
- Procedure
- States how to comply with standard
- Documents step-by-step process
- Operational
- States how to comply with standard
- Guidelines
- Documents best practices
- Recommended, not required
- Documents best practices
The policies, standards, and procedures are the basis for our IT security program. OCCS leads the effort to develop and monitor the University IT security program to meet federal and state compliance requirements. Implementation of the IT security program is the responsibility of the entire campus community. We are all responsible for protecting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of University data.
Every aspect of the IT security program serves to “Protect the Data”. The policies apply to all IT resources used to conduct University business or used to transmit or store sensitive data. For the most part, the policies are based on recognized best practices in IT management and security. In some cases, the policies are very prescriptive to comply with a new Commonwealth of Virginia security standard. The policies are not intended to restrict academic instructional or research activity. However, no activity should place University data at risk. We don’t want confidential data exposed or stolen, the integrity of our data questioned, or to lose any important data. We must “Protect the Data”.
A full listing of the updated and new policies and standards is available on the OCCS web site at http://occs.odu.edu/policies/index.php. The policies are also available on the University Policy and Procedures web site at http://www.odu.edu/ao/polnproc/. I hope you will take the time to read and understand the policies and standards. I want to conclude with some recommendations that you can implement to help secure our IT environment.
- Store sensitive data on University servers. If you are storing sensitive data on departmental servers or other media, make sure that appropriate security practices are in place.
- Let the TSP be the administrator on your computer. A single compromised machine increases the risk for other University IT resources. If you must be the administrator of your machine, we recommend the following minimal actions.
- Use a normal user account for daily activities
- Only use administrator access when necessary.
- Enable the Windows firewall
- Use strong passwords
- Install operating system and security patches through the University WSUS server
- Use anti-virus software
- Disable file shares
- Minimize network services
- Use a normal user account for daily activities
- Block spam email by using SpamTrap
- Browse the Internet wisely
Monday, October 8, 2007
Budget Cuts
Dear OCCS Colleagues,
Back on August 27th, President Runte informed the campus that Old Dominion University was required to implement a 5 percent budget cut. In providing guidance to the campus, the President stressed the importance to "buffer all areas central to our mission, our academic core." This guidance is truly understandable when you consider that a significant budget impact to our academic core could have negative consequences to our students and on tuition revenue. In our decision-making process, the goal of the OCCS management team was to protect the services associated with our core instruction and research activities.
The budget cuts for OCCS were significant, however the budget decisions were made with a perspective of the full range of technology services provided to the campus and also with a long-term view of current and future services. The cuts we made will still allow us to make investments to support future technologies, trends, and services to meet the requirements of the campus. At the same time, the cuts will require us to "tighten the belt" and reduce some existing services.
We also implemented cuts that would also provide for future cost savings or cost avoidance. For example, the cut to the printout delivery service announced to the campus was as much cost avoidance as a budget cut. The direct cost savings from the cut are a result of reducing part-time labor, gas, vehicle maintenance, etc. The cost avoidance comes through avoiding the increased print volumes to central printing during budget reductions. We continue to notice a shift of printing to the central printing service from academic units. The central printing volume is increasing and the volume on academic unit copiers is decreasing. From our experience during budget reductions, this shift increases. We cannot afford any increase cost against our printing budget. The yearly central print volume for the six instructional academic colleges is over 3.7M. And, we are frequently printing 1 - 5 page jobs, printing a cover page, putting the printout in a bag and then delivering it. I believe these print jobs will shift back to local printers, which is an appropriate use of resources.
The following details the budget cuts for OCCS.
• Eliminated Dial-up Service for Faculty
• Eliminated guest dial-up services
• Eliminated IT Research Services (Gartner Core Research, Faulkner Information Services)
• Terminated fiber lease between main campus and CCPO facility on 52nd street.
• Eliminated printout delivery service
• Reduced student lab consultants
• Abolished vacant IT Training position
• Abolished vacant Desktop support position
• Reduced Infrastructure budget by $250K
We will continue to look for cost savings that can be applied back into our budget. We are also asking for your help to identify areas that would provide for cost savings. Please send me your ideas and suggestions.
Our focus in OCCS will still be to provide quality, reliable and cutting-edge technology services and support to the campus. Thank you for your dedicated effort and creative solutions that are a big part of making ODU a top university.
Thanks, Rusty
Back on August 27th, President Runte informed the campus that Old Dominion University was required to implement a 5 percent budget cut. In providing guidance to the campus, the President stressed the importance to "buffer all areas central to our mission, our academic core." This guidance is truly understandable when you consider that a significant budget impact to our academic core could have negative consequences to our students and on tuition revenue. In our decision-making process, the goal of the OCCS management team was to protect the services associated with our core instruction and research activities.
The budget cuts for OCCS were significant, however the budget decisions were made with a perspective of the full range of technology services provided to the campus and also with a long-term view of current and future services. The cuts we made will still allow us to make investments to support future technologies, trends, and services to meet the requirements of the campus. At the same time, the cuts will require us to "tighten the belt" and reduce some existing services.
We also implemented cuts that would also provide for future cost savings or cost avoidance. For example, the cut to the printout delivery service announced to the campus was as much cost avoidance as a budget cut. The direct cost savings from the cut are a result of reducing part-time labor, gas, vehicle maintenance, etc. The cost avoidance comes through avoiding the increased print volumes to central printing during budget reductions. We continue to notice a shift of printing to the central printing service from academic units. The central printing volume is increasing and the volume on academic unit copiers is decreasing. From our experience during budget reductions, this shift increases. We cannot afford any increase cost against our printing budget. The yearly central print volume for the six instructional academic colleges is over 3.7M. And, we are frequently printing 1 - 5 page jobs, printing a cover page, putting the printout in a bag and then delivering it. I believe these print jobs will shift back to local printers, which is an appropriate use of resources.
The following details the budget cuts for OCCS.
• Eliminated Dial-up Service for Faculty
• Eliminated guest dial-up services
• Eliminated IT Research Services (Gartner Core Research, Faulkner Information Services)
• Terminated fiber lease between main campus and CCPO facility on 52nd street.
• Eliminated printout delivery service
• Reduced student lab consultants
• Abolished vacant IT Training position
• Abolished vacant Desktop support position
• Reduced Infrastructure budget by $250K
We will continue to look for cost savings that can be applied back into our budget. We are also asking for your help to identify areas that would provide for cost savings. Please send me your ideas and suggestions.
Our focus in OCCS will still be to provide quality, reliable and cutting-edge technology services and support to the campus. Thank you for your dedicated effort and creative solutions that are a big part of making ODU a top university.
Thanks, Rusty
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