From the Director

by Erik Wieland

at the Desert Botanical Garden with my nephew

Welcome to the DOM IT Services Winter 2012 newsletter.

Each quarter we put together this newsletter to keep the Department of Medicine informed about the latest in IT policy, projects, security and more. We have a lot of fun writing these articles, and we hope you get something out of them, too. We get most of the ideas from you, so please let us know if there's something you'd like to see. You can also see past issues of our newsletters, in case you enjoy this one so much that you want more!

Operational Excellence IT Update

With all of the activity around the new HR service clusters and the expansion of Research Management Services, it's easy to forget that IT is undergoing significant changes, too. OE IT efforts are being handled service by service, with some early efforts now bearing fruit. For example, the IT Procurement recommendation to form a technology purchasing consortium with UC Berkeley has been operational for 8 months, and both campuses will soon announce a Joint Administrative Computing Standards program designed to improve support while saving a significant amount of money. The UCSF Wireless Project has expanded to Laurel Heights and even shuttle buses (more on that in Marlon's article below). The Email Consolidation Project is nearly finished, with MedCenter clients moving to the new servers in the next month. The consolidated Service Desk is providing 24/7 support, student support, and an improved employee self-service site.

Other, lower-profile efforts include the expansion of MyAccess single sign-on to SalesForce, HBS, and PeopleSoft, and the recent update of the UCSF Mobile app and website. There are also efforts underway to create regional IT services meetings to better address the issues and concerns of faculty and staff at each campus. Finally, impressive progress is being made on expanding and integrating UCSF's collaborative technologies, like MOVI, Chatter, and instant messaging applications.

Changes to the DOM IT Backup System

DOM IT currently backs up over 16TB of user data, or an average of 32GB per user. When you add in the backup media that we rotate offsite (to comply with HIPAA and other security regulations) we have a lot of data at various locations around San Francisco and the Bay Are at large. Data storage is fairly cheap, but managing millions of files for hundreds of users has become a time-consuming and expensive proposition for the department. Until there is a campus-wide solution that leverages cheap cloud storage, we are making some small changes to how and what we back up. Abby explains the changes, and reminds us why backups are so critical.

Specialty Websites: Presenting a Unified Picture of Divisions

The Department's Strategic Plan identified the need to create and promote a "Unified DOM," both to leverage our collective strengths and to improve collaboration across sites. To support this effort we created the new Department of Medicine website, and we're extending the new web design and features to the divisions. Since the majority of visitors to DOM websites are from outside of UCSF, and the majority of outside visitors are looking for information about our training programs, it makes sense to present a unified picture of a division's activities. So, rather than launching or revising websites for each division at each medical center, we are creating unified specialty sites which present all division activities at all sites. The first examples of these new, unified specialty sites, Nephrology and Cardiology, will launch soon. Ed and Erin explain how these sites will better serve the divisions and the department.

Yuri Mazur

Ellie Laidlaw

Profiles

The average DOM IT staff member has worked at UC for over 10 years, so sometimes we forget what it's like to be new to campus and just figuring things out. Edel talks to Ellie Laidlaw, a finance assistant in the Division of Hematology/Oncology, about her first month on the job.

The DOM IT Services group works with a lot of IT partners, collaborating with programmers and IT staff all over campus. In this issue Kenton decided to keep things close to home and interview Yuri Mazur, programmer in the DOM Business Office. Вітаю! Як справи?

Mac Outlook vs. Apple Mail: Is There a Clear Choice?

We've come a long way since the days of Eudora and Meeting Maker, but Mac users are still forced to accept less than full-featured Exchange clients. The latest version of Outlook for Mac is a great advance over Entourage, but it still suffers from Entourage's fatal flaw. Apple's Mail, iCal and Address Book applications offer a compelling alternative, but do you give up too much in the switch? Kristan gives us a thorough overview of the current state of Mac Exchange clients.

Making Good on the Promise of OE: Ubiquitous WiFi

Standing at the shuttle stop in front of the Parnassus library, you take out your iPhone to check your email. As soon as you open the mail app, you are presented with a popup listing a dozen wifi networks. After marveling at some of the clever names people come up with for their networks, you cancel the popup in disgust and use your 3G connection instead. Why does UCSF have so many wifi networks, none of which you can use? The OE IT Network workgroup was asked that same question in 2010, and decided to do something about it: create a ubiquitous UCSF wifi network in every building at every campus. Marlon gives us a glimpse of the future of UCSF's wifi infrastructure.

What is Google Chrome, and Why Should I Care?

Oh please, not another web browser. I thought the browser wars were over, and Internet Explorer won. Well, in case you missed it, Internet Explorer is down to a 20% market share, and Google Chrome has caught up with Firefox as the world's most popular browser*. Google Chrome is quickly becoming the browser of choice for many reasons, as Andrew explains in this month's edition of You asked for it....

Thanks for taking the time to read this far. Your reward is our service calendar for the next three and a half months. Enjoy!

— Erik, on behalf of the DOM IT Services team

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