Technical Support & Repair

LITS Annual Report 2002-2003

What We Do:

The Department of Technical Support and Repair (TSR) is responsible for the purchase, installation and maintenance of all College computers. Our mission is to facilitate and integrate technology within the College Community. Our responsibilities are spent in researching new technologies, configuring and installing new machines, inventory tracking, reallocating equipment, repairing hardware, providing software support and technical consulting services to the members of the Mount Holyoke College Community. We maintain the help2600 maillist and phone support. We provide consulting on both the hardware and software level and in collaboration with other LITS departments develop hardware and software standardizations for the entire campus. TSR is also responsible for providing, maintaining and supporting all of LITS public machines and LITS labs located in Kendade, Cleveland, Reese, the new Informations Commons*, SPL in the Dwight connector, Library Reading Room, Skinner and Blanchard, plus 20 dorm labs. We coordinate with Media Services, on the purchase and installation of all mediated classroom computers and work with the Dean of Faculty on purchasing the equipment for individual departmental labs. The total amount of equipment supported on campus for the year 02-03 is 1800 cpu's with monitors and 100 printers.

This is our current listing of lab locations. 02-03 Kendade and Cleveland were still under construction and Lab A still in Dwight connector.

We have implemented a 3-4 year upgrade cycle in updating our desktop machines. Sue Rusiecki from TSR is responsible for compiling the list of those who are eligible for upgraded machines and for purchasing all of our computers. We usually are looking at a figure of about 300-400 machines a year. She has successfully automated this process by creating a web form which is available on-line (http://www.mtholyoke.edu/lits/tsr/status/forms/request.shtml) Requests should be submitted by the end of the year in order to be considered for the next budgetary cycle.

In an effort to provide equitable service across campus and to set manageable expectations, two policies were drafted and presented to the LITS Advisory Committee and Department Chairs for approval:

1. Guidelines for Computer Software & Hardware Requests
2. Guidelines for Upgrade and Service Requests: Computer Equipment Purchased with Grant Proceeds

Our web pages were updated this year for on-line viewing of the guidelines, as well as requests and installation progress tracking:

Summer of 2002
While a lot of offices and folks are on vacation, summer is extremely hectic for TSR. With the campus emptying out to enjoy the summer months, this is our chance to get into departments and offices to perform the computer upgrades. Our major challenge in doing so is trying to orchestrate with departments and faculty times when offices will be available to us. Our request list revealed 351 computer upgrades and 21 printers. We were faced with more departmental moves to allow for renovations that were being made on campus, reeking havoc with our inventory database on tracking where equipment actually is housed. Campus construction, which seemingly engulfed the entire campus, making areas inaccessible, became an obstacle by hindering our ability to deliver equipment making it necessary for us to deliver machines with handcarts.

Despite these hindrances, by the end of August, we managed to install 280 computers.... approx. 80% of our goal. The last 20% were those departments, which requested that we hold off on their upgrades until they were back on campus for the fall. In reality, we did complete what we needed to do within the time allotted. Great job by the team!

As August was waning, we were relieved to learn that Kendade Visilab would not go on-line until January of 02. We would only have to work on getting the 6 mediated classrooms within Kendade ready for the fall - with the classroom on the "Carr" side going in later. This gave us the feeling of some breathing room...there were plans to add on 15 new wireless computers in the Reading Room of the Library and replacing the existing 5, providing a total of 20 new machines. With Kendade postponed, it sounded like this could be successfully accomplished before the beginning of the school year and with a week to spare!

Helpdesking calls during the summer subsided considerably with the absence of folks on campus. Our database stats show that during the school year, we normally receive anywhere between 250-400 calls a month, during the summer, we saw a decline of approximately 100 problems reported:

June totaled 113
July totaled 117
August ended with 190

Fall 2002
September is always a rush for TSR along with other LITS departments in assisting new students on campus, along with returning students to campus - all eager to connect their machines onto the network as quickly as possible. Questions and problems with configurations issues, software support issues, hardware driver issues and resnet connectivity issues are the most common questions/ issues resolved at the Helpdesk. Our tracking statistics show a considerable increase in Sept and Oct.

Sept.........369
Oct...........386

The number of students requesting walk-in support was on the rise and we worked with approximately 300 total for September thru October - quite an increase from our average of 30 per month during the school year.

By October, 87% of the students were on-line with registered computers. This was a number that in the previous year of 2001 was not reached until November.

Winter 2002-2003
By winter, things began to settle down to their normal pace. Calls requesting support from the Helpdesk remained at the norm:

Nov.........269
Dec..........233
Jan...........283
Feb..........270

Interesting to note that the calls went up somewhat in January due to the return of students who received new computers from home during the holiday or needed to have their computers reconfigured for the network upon returning to campus.

A near calamitous issue occurred in November, which commanded close to 90% TSR staff time. Several systems were hacked, launching a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack and bringing the network to a grinding halt. This event commanded costly hours of staff time within the Networking and TSR departments. Networking focused on tightening up security issues on the windows machines and TSR focused on assisting users in the reformatting and restoration of complete systems to rid them of the hack attacks. While some of the security issues could be dealt with remotely, considerable hours were spent on securing the systems and aiding users in getting their machines back on the network.

The setup of Kendade Visilab was once again pushed back until the summer of 03. Carr went on-line and the last classroom in that area was setup. The remainder of our installs designated for the 02-03 year, were completed during the winter of 02 and the spring of 03, along with 21 new printers.

The academic year of 02-03 also marked the beginning of offering faculty a choice of either a laptop or a desktop as their office machine. 20 faculty took advantage of the choice. Both Mac and PC platforms had to be manually configured due to the fact that both product and operating systems were changing and we did not have a standard model or image for either.

Apple Computer announced a change in their architecture that would affect our Mac upgrades. They were planning on eliminating the ability for operating Macintosh computers in OS9. This new hardware was supposed to begin shipping January 1, 2003. Realizing that many of our academic offices along with the Development Office were not ready to be moved to OSX (because of possible application incompatibility issues and training), we decided to purchase most of our Macintosh upgrades in December 2002. We took advantage of end-of-quarter and end-of-year discounts and Sue Rusiecki was able to negotiate a 22.5% savings amounting to $30K. We were able to upgrade the Development Office (39) users during a less busy period for them and for us. It also gave us three years to transition them to OSX and compatible software, saving us an additional $6000 that would have had to be spent on Filemaker Pro upgrades which would have been necessary under OSX.

Spring 2003
A second purchase for Macs was made in June. This purchase was necessary for us to meet the influx of requests we received from new faculty. We made the purchase again during end-of-quarter and saved an additional $12K.

Calls tracking statistics remained static and then begin to show a decline as the school year ends:

March............259
April..............259
May...............212
June...............172

The process for determining hardware and software standards that will be supported on campus for the 03-04 year is done each spring to prepare for the upcoming summer installs. This process is an interdepartmental project encompassing several LITs departments: CSIT (now RIS), TSR, Networking and Desktop Technologies. A lot of research and development time goes into investigating new technologies testing and integrating them into our environment. Meetings this year were held on Feb 20th and March 20th to decide hardware standards and April 4th and May 28th to determine software standards.

Supported Software for 2003-2004:

Production Software - This class of software is used by some of the MHC community. Some Helpdesk Consultants, Student Lab Consultants, Local Experts, and the staff of LITS can support these products. Response time will be based on the availability of staff members familiar with the product.

McAfee antivirus software was renewed again for another 2 years, providing the campus with a site license and allowing faculty, staff and students to install the software and update the dat files on all campus owned as well as personally owned computers.

Supported Hardware for 03-04:

Our Labs:
Marc Boucher is the Lab Manager whose responsibilities are to maintain and manage our lab operations.

During the fall 2002 and spring of 2003 semesters, over 15,000 students and alums made use of the Dwight computer labs. Over 4000 users (conference participants and students) were checked into the labs during the months from June to August 2002.

During the summer of 2002, we supported a number of conferences on campus including Summer Math for Students (SMS), Summer Math for Teachers (SMT), P.L.A.Y., Musicorda, Gordon Research, Center for Talented Youth (CTY), and American Mathematical Society (AMS). The Gordon Research and AMS were heavy Dwight lab users often needing help connecting to computers at their home institution and translating files from varying formats. CTY used Skinner 318 almost exclusively. Both SMS and SMT used both Reese and Dwight labs and special software was installed in Reese for them. A four-computer Mac lab was setup in Torrey for SMT and a five-computer pc area was set up especially for CTY officials.

Lab Upgrades done in the summer of 2002:
During July and August 2002, Dwight Lab A was upgraded. 15 PCs were upgraded and imaged. The new image was an upgrade from Windows 98 to Windows 2000 and included many updated versions of production applications. 15 Macs were also upgraded, most running Apple's new operating system OSX. Running OSX put us into a small group of schools experimenting with Apple's new UNIX base OS. For more information about the difficulties of moving OSX, see: http://www.macosxlabs.org

During the same period, the 8 PCs in Skinner 318 were upgraded to the same level as the Dwight Lab A PCs. The six Macs in the Skinner lab were not upgraded but were reimaged with updated software.

All of the G3 Macs in Reese were upgraded with G4s that were removed from Dwight Lab A. All of the PCs and Macs were reimaged with updated versions of production applications.

20 Dorms were upgraded. The IBM300GL PCs (Win95) in each dorm were replaced with Mainboard PCs removed from Dwight Lab A. The Performa 6214 Macs were replaced with G3s removed from Reese. All of the PCs and Macs were reimaged with updated versions of production applications.

In addition all images on the lab machines in Reese, Skinner and Dwight Lab A & B are reset at the beginning of each semester, meaning that each machine is reimaged at the start of each semester. Marc also manually configured all of the OSX machines (approx 15) and created and updated all Mac images that we have on file. These Mac images are also used by CSIT as a base for their classroom and lab computers.

Hiring and Training:
During the year of 02-03, we employed 40 + students to support the labs. 19 of the 40 + were new consultants that were hired and trained during the fall 2002 semester. 9 more were hired and trained during the spring 2003 semester.

Additional Accomplishments:

Repairs:
Angel Suarez, our Hardware Repair Technician, puts much effort in cost comparison and competitive pricing which pays off. This year, he saved the college approximately $6000 in purchasing standard parts - a 30% savings to our hardware budget!

We began to revamp some of our repair practices and make changes on how we could more creatively manage them while saving money. A large savings was found in the Apple Services. This past year we purchased 37 Apple Studio Display Monitors. Unfortunately, that model is prone to have factory defects that involve certain symptoms such as "popping" and eventually leading to no video. Our old practice was to contact Apple who would require us to ship the monitors back to them and then charge us $399 for repair and $100 for shipping - a total of $500 dollars per monitor that needed repairing. Marc and Angel happened to be researching Apple's Knowledge Base and saw that the company acknowledged this as a defect. The knowledge base information published a number to call where the defective monitor will be recalled for free; if it could not be repaired, it would be replaced. Our total number of Apple Studio Displays that were returned with this defect was 20, saving us $10000 in repair costs.

This past year, we also terminated our participation in the Apple Service Provider Program that was an annual expense to our budget of $799 plus $125 annually in certification fees. As part of the Apple Service Provider program, we were authorized to repair their computers. Considering we have little repairs with the Mac cpu's themselves, the cost did not justify the need. Our alternative solution was to purchase our new systems with the 3-year Apple Care warranty. Under this program, if a machine has a problem, Apple Care will pay to have our nearest Apple Service Provider, in this case Yes Computers in Northampton, to come out and repair the machine for us. This saved us on staff time and repair costs.

Computer "Rotation" and Donations:
Ivy Tillman is in charge of recycling our old computers either as refurbished rollovers, donations/lottery or prepped for disposal. She is also in charge of maintaining the equipment inventory database. Considering we are replacing on an average of 300 + computers and with the limited storage that is available to us, she has developed an efficient process for cycling equipment in and out.

This year was our last year for donations. Unfortunately we felt that we could no longer invest time in cleaning, reformatting the equipment and arranging and advertising the donations. Our records show that in 2002-2003, we donated 55 CPUs, 55 Monitors and 2 printers. Those organizations receiving the donations were to be non-profit. 5 College Women's Studies Research Center, Alice Beal School in Springfield MA, Daniel Larson Foundation, Grace Episcopal Church, Petro Foundation, Mount Holyoke College Student Government Organization (SGA) were among the recipients.

Purchasing:
In addition, Sue Rusiecki negotiated an 18.2% discount on 15 high-end workstations for the Chemistry Department amounting to a savings of $12K. This lab will be open in the fall of 2003, replacing Carr Mac Lab and will be open for public use during the evening hours.

Due to staff changes in the College's Purchasing Department, the number of requests for assistance with college and personal purchases for hardware/software that are not LITS expenses has increased. The TSR staff assists other departments, faculty and staff in all phases of their technological purchases. Requests for assistance this year came from the Dean of Faculty, project managers, SIS implementation team, faculty with grants/startup funds, and department chairs and assistants. During this past year, we assisted with approximately 40 college purchases that are non-LITS related, totaling to 74 desktops, 12 laptops, 35 LCD non-standard monitors, non-standard ergonomic keyboards and mice, and non-standard software such as Voice Dictation. Providing this service is a time-consuming effort on Sue's part, involving meeting with the individual purchasers, researching products/vendors/quotes, completing paperwork (purchase orders/journal entries/reconciliations) and handling (receiving/inventory/setup and perhaps some installation).

Requests from a personal nature come from faculty, staff and parents of students who need help in figuring out what to buy, where to buy it and how to get it serviced. Our most prominent person whom we assisted this year was Chairwomen of the Board of Trustees, Eleanor Clause, who took advantage of our on-line buy-in with Dell providing a 10% discount on personal computer purchases by faculty, staff and students.

Imaging and Configurations:
Bill Graham is responsible for building our images on the PC platform. This year, he had to manually configure 20 laptops, which was very time consuming. Imaging, in this case, was not an option because of the constant changes the factory continued to make in hardware. He is also responsible for storing and maintaining all PC images. This year he updated all of them to the latest software versions. His images are also used by CSIT as a base for their classroom and lab computers on the PC platform. Bill also provides EMS support and administers the EMS server. He worked closely with networking this year on updating EMS and Delphi, installing an application update and the latest security patches. He also worked along with Marc in providing extra computers for all the various conferences.

Research and Development and Adaptive Needs:
A major part of our responsibility is to research "fringe" technologies and to consider how these trends will impact our service. Micah Desjardins has shown exceptional interest in researching the latest technological developments. He is especially interested in PDA pocket and mobile technologies, International and Language Support, and Adaptive Technologies and has been working to integrate them on campus. He is responsible for the support of Dragon Naturally Speaking Software and is the support person for the student Adaptive Technology Lab that is managed by John Body. This past year, he worked with John on upgrading the ATL and has worked closely with several faculty on configuring their computers and providing support with specialized adaptive software. This year a subgroup of TSR met with Lauren Turner on providing a process for supporting the adaptive needs of faculty and staff. Micah was part of that subgroup.

Summation:
All and all the year was a very busy one and we accomplished a lot of our goals and objectives. One thing remains outstanding however, that the work was accomplished through the collaboration, teamwork and motivation of a dedicated staff pulling together to make things happen.

Technical Support and Repair