IT Briefs
AV Upgrades: Newer, Better, More
Classroom Technology and AV Services Director John Jessoe has been at UMass Boston long enough to know that it is not a matter of if the university will commit to upgrading AV systems each year, it is just a question of where the state-of-the-art upgrades will be. In 2023, the focus was on five Campus Center meeting rooms and three University Hall classrooms. All eight rooms were significantly upgraded, but most of the work was done in the three larger Campus Center rooms so that they could host hybrid meetings that can be attended both in-person and remotely at the same time. It is only when John describes what was included that one gets the sense of how spectacular these upgrades are.
The two larger meeting rooms and the Alumni Room were those outfitted for hybrid meeting capabilities. “100-inch displays in the front and 75-inch displays in the back in the first two rooms, and the Alumni Room received two new 85-inch displays in the front, with the two existing 75-inch displays being repurposed in the back of the room and the adjoining overflow space. Additionally, all three rooms also now have front and back cameras, ceiling microphones and new wireless microphone systems to support hybrid meetings and events,” John said, before adding more detail than there’s room to include here. The main point to know is that at UMass Boston, AV upgrades are continual, not occasional, and with John Jessoe at the helm along with his team of seasoned AV professionals, their quality will be unsurpassed by any other university.
Network Upgrade Nearing Completion
In last year’s IT Outcomes, Director of Network Services Jamie Soule described the planning and initial stages of the Campus Network Upgrade project that began near the end of 2021. In 2023, Soule was pleased to report that the project is progressing on schedule and nearing completion.
“The ISC, Healey, McCormack, University Hall, and Campus Center buildings have all been upgraded and are using the new Aruba hardwired network infrastructure. The Wheatley building has all new Aruba hardwired equipment installed, and the only remaining buildings to migrate over to the new Aruba equipment are Service and Supply, Clarke, and the Quinn administration building. These buildings will be upgraded, and users migrated starting in late September 2023 and we expect them to be fully cut over by November 2023.”
“We have also installed all new data center network equipment in our critical server room facilities on campus, and we’ll also be upgrading the entire Wi-Fi network in all buildings. All core back-end Wi-Fi equipment has been installed and is awaiting the data center portion of the upgrade and we’re also installing over 1,000 new local area Wi-Fi antennas that provide the Wi-Fi signal everyone relies on across campus. The installation of these Wi-Fi antennas is underway and anticipated to extend into the fall semester with a completion in November 2023 and activation targeted for January 2024.”
Upgrading a campus network requires careful planning and a fastidious approach, which has been the case at UMass Boston, and thanks to Jamie Soule and the Network Services team soon students, faculty, and staff will be able to enjoy the benefits of their collective efforts.
Self Service Password Reset
The IT department works to improve the IT experience for everyone at UMass Boston, and sometimes it is the simpler things IT does that help our community the most. For example, everyone needs to change their password at some point, but when that is more difficult than it should be it creates a problem for more people. So, when Chief Information Officer Raymond Lefebvre saw that our system for resetting passwords was inefficient and complex, he knew it had to change.
As Ray describes, “When I joined UMass Boston in 2019, I inherited a custom written password reset utility, but it was hard to use and was considered a cybersecurity risk.” This led to the IT service desk receiving a steady deluge of calls from people asking for help in what should have been a fairly simple task. The good news is that Ray realized there was an easy solution to the problem already available to the university. “I put forward a formal project called Microsoft Self Service password reset,” Ray said, knowing that because UMass Boston had a licensing agreement with Microsoft and used Microsoft Outlook email (umb.edu), it would be simple enough for the university to transition to Microsoft’s password resetting system. “The commercial Microsoft password reset is easy to use and it’s not going to be hacked anytime soon,” Ray added, pointing out some of the advantages Microsoft’s system offered.
The system only became operational in July and there’s already been a 15% decrease in people contacting the help desk for password reset assistance. That number is expected to grow very quickly “as people become familiar with the Microsoft way of resetting passwords,” Ray said, and with that added familiarity self-service will be exactly what it should be. Fewer help desk calls also means a much smoother and efficiently running IT department as a whole. So, while this may be considered a simple solution to a simple problem, the university benefits in ways far greater than it seems.