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1/24/2008 11:35 AM

Matthew.Budwill (Faculty)

ITAC Budget Summary

Project Title

Ready for ITAC Review?

General Description

Initial Bond Allocation

Total ITAC Budget Requested for Complete Project

Admin - Actual Expenditure Amount

CIO Allocation

Sum = $95,000,000.00

Sum = $89,193,319.80

Sum = $1,021,382.34

Fiscal Year : 2005-2006 ‎(12)

Sum =

Sum = $17,308,470.00

Sum = $335,406.00

Status : Approved ‎(12)

Sum =

Sum = $17,308,470.00

Sum = $335,406.00

MCTV 2006/2007 Capital Improvements

Yes

MCTV, a digital television channel, is a partnership between the Maricopa County Community College District (MCCCD) and Cox Communications.

MCTV serves as the primary television media outlet for MCCCD, the largest community college system in the United States, with over 200,000 students in 10 colleges and numerous learning centers throughout Maricopa County and the greater metropolitan area of Phoenix, Arizona.

Any subscriber to Cox Digital Television in Maricopa County can view MCTV on Cox Channel 115. Currently, more than 330,000 households in Maricopa County subscribe to Cox Digital TV.

Maricopa Now is a PM Magazine-style, 30 minute news program of topical MCCCD interests featuring current events and activities. The program is produced every month and is scheduled for airing on MCTV, Cox Cable and Channel 115 every day.

This proposal request is for a one time capital equipment upgrade and will assist with MCTV Mission Expansion.

$335,406.00

Server Consolidation

Yes

New applications and expansion of existing applications is driving significant growth in the number of servers supported by ITS. The server room in the district office is near capacity from both a space and a cooling perspective. For example, we currently have physical room for only two more racks of computer equipment. Recognizing these limits, ITS proposes deploying a consolidated server infrastructure based on VMWare to continue to support new customer requests for services.

As an added benefit, consolidated servers reduce deployment costs of individual servers. A large number of the applications we host use only a fraction of the processing power of the servers they run on. By using server virtualization, we can use the idle part of servers to host other applications. This has been demonstrated in two pilot projects reducing the purchase cost of a server and associated systems from approximately $8000 to $3900 each.

Upon approval, ITS will create a shared hardware system supporting virtual servers for development, district wide departmental work, low impact applications, and legacy hardware. This eliminates the need to purchase 1 server for 1 application. Using VMWare and 3 HP Opteron servers we would build a near high availability system to support 100-150 virtual servers.

Several colleges have similar projects in progress. Technical staff at the various sites are exchanging data about them and our experiences. However, a single system or district wide site license is impractical at this time.

In summary, this project:

reduces deployment cost of some new systems,
reduces replacement cost of older systems,
reduces operational costs including heating,cooling, and system administration,
and allows for servicing a larger number of customer requests.

$390,000.00

Yes

SoftChalk Version 3

Yes

This is a request for (1) a district purchase of a perpetual site license for LessonBuilder's SoftChalk Version 3 for Maricopa System Wide Use (excluding Phoenix College and Estrella Mountain College who already purchased SoftChalk V.3 this year to expedite its arrival to their campus and RIO who does not wish to use this program). In addition, this request is for (2) an additional 1 year of support and updates for all nine colleges using the software in the district (beyond the first year included in the base quote – PC and EMCC are included in this) and (3) college branding for the 9 colleges using the software, as well as, MCLI, and the Maricopa District Office.

LessonBuilder’s SoftChalk allows easy creation of interactive, web pages for online, hybrid, and face to face learning, requiring no web design knowledge. SoftChalk allows users to engage their students by easily creating pop up text annotations, quizzes, and interactive learning games.

SoftChalk Version 3 provides more template options, more design features, now allows for the inclusion of video and other multi-media components, and more user options when creating interactive activities. Future releases of SoftChalk v.3 will also include the ability to embed flash media, pop up windows with audio capabilities for images, and more.

SoftChalk is designed for easy creation and uploading of content into Blackboard for content delivery. This allows for more interactivity in Blackboard content.

By collaborating in a district purchase we have become eligible for discount pricing for college branding. SoftChalk will create and supply within the program, customized stylesheets using each college campus' supplied logo.

This District purchase will upgrade most campuses who already use SoftChalk Version 2 to Version 3 and will provide campuses not using SoftChalk as well as the District Office with a perpetual full site license. In regards to the 2 year support and update agreement the 7 campuses and District Office will get this and EMCC and PC will pick up a second year of support and updates. In addition, the users throughout the district will be able to use campus style sheets when designing interactive web pages.

$32,675.00

HRMS Hardware Environment - Upgrades

Yes

These upgrades are part of an ongoing hardware maintenance and enhancement effort for the HRMS environment. These upgrades total $41,280, including hardware, tax, and contingency. This upgrade is relatively minor and includes the following components:

Additional Development Disk Space ($7,100). This additional storage gives the department flexilbility to create additional development instances associated with new funcitonality and ongoing software upgrades.
(2) Linux Web Servers($15,100). HRMS is in the process of migrating to Linux web servers for improved performance and stability. These servers will allow this migration to be completed for both the production and development environments.
Replace HRMS Production Tape Library ($4,700). This new tape library is faster and has a higher capacity. It will also allow using the current tape library on the Disaster Recovery server enabling a homogenous tape libraries across Production and Disaster Recovery.
Replace HRMS Disaster Recovery Server ($7,500). The current DR server is old, expensive to maintain, and is only supported through November 2007. The new server will be more reliable, faster, and have a maintenance lifespan consistent with our other hardware in the environment.

$41,280.00

AZTEC

Yes

AZTEC has content in many fields. The pilot institutions are looking at using it in the following areas:

HS population - test prep and review for ACE, dual enrollment, and charter students
Adult basic education
Workforce development
GED
ESL

All content is configurable in such a way that each institution can create their own groups of classes or coursework specific to their needs.

The initial deployment would be a lease for 18 or 30 months. ITAC is being asked to fund:

At least one year, preferably two years of pilot (i.e. Total for two years lease would be$250k for 30 months)
If the product is widely deployed and adopted at additional campuses then ITAC will be requested to purchase the locally hosted solution with an maximum expense of $700k for a district wide license (to be reduced by a to-be-determined amount that was already applied to the lease). The colleges would then have to maintain the $70k annual operational maintenance.

District ITS would be required to purchase the hardware and take on operational support

If the pilot does not generate a large amount of interest or it's usage drops below original estimates, after 30 months, the campuses using the system take over financial ownership of the product.

(2/2/07: Please also refer to the admin notes for changes to this proposal in January 2007. Actual funding will be provided in the 2006-2007 business year.)

$175,000.00

Network Upgrade Proposal (Cisco)

Yes

This project was a district wide networking upgrade which was submitted and approved prior to this ITAC format proposal form and approval process.

$4,900,000.00

Network Health & Security Package

Yes

This project was a district wide networking upgrade which was submitted and approved prior to this ITAC format proposal form and approval process.

$545,325.00

DO Desktop Renewal Project

Yes

This project was submitted and approved prior to this ITAC format proposal form and approval process. Each VC area at the District Office received funds for desktop, peripheral, and upgrades.

$2,080,320.00

Environmental Management Software (HP OpenView)

Yes

This project was submitted and approved prior to this ITAC format proposal form and approval process.

$820,391.00

Blackboard Learning Enterprise System (Content Mgmt System)

Yes

This project was a Blackboard Alliance upgrade which was submitted and approved prior to this ITAC format proposal form and approval.

$87,000.00

Anti-Spam Device

Yes

This project was a district wide anti-spam solution (Ironmail) which was submitted and approved prior to this ITAC format proposal form and approval process.

$116,073.00

SIS Implementation Completion

Yes

This request covers funding for the completion of the New Student Information System implementation project. MCCCD cancelled the previous go-live date for the project in October 2005 and reorganized the project. Part of this reorganization was the formation of a Project Oversight Group (POG), which was tasked with considering a number of strategic issues concerning the project. Several of these issues have funding impact. The POG is considering several issues including the go-live date, technical infrastructure, and overall project approach. The total amount being requested is $6.2 million. This amount covers license costs for the Oracle database, other license costs, additional consulting support, additional hardware, and other potential costs. See associated document ‘POG SIA – Go-Live Date’ for additional detail.

$7,785,000.00

Fiscal Year : 2006-2007 ‎(40)

Sum =

Sum = $5,179,765.67

Sum = $685,976.34

Status : Approved ‎(34)

Sum =

Sum = $4,469,765.67

Sum = $685,976.34

Elluminate Webinar Proof of Concept

Yes

This proposal is to pilot a webinar software. Elluminate is a live eLearning solution & collaboration solution software. It can be used by faculty to teach in a synchronous, live manner. It can be used by anyone in the District to attend meetings. It allows the user to share things on their computer, push applications to other users, show things with a webcam, use voice over internet and direct messaging to share ideas. The software works very well with low bandwidth, so students and faculty can join in sessions from home, even if they only have dial-up modem speed.

This project would be a pilot where 8 Maricopa Colleges would utilize a 230 user license for meetings, instruction, etc to determine how Maricopa can best use a collaborative webinar software package, collect data about its use and propose a collaborative webinar solution for the District.

$107,304.00

Charon VAX proposal

Yes

This is a request to purchase 12 CHARON-VAX software licenses to provide VAX emulation to each of the 10 colleges and the District Office. In addition to the license purchase, this request would also cover two years of software support, installation, and on-site data migration services.

At present, each college and the District Office have one or more VAX computer system(s) manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation. These VAX computer systems are the hardware which runs the “Legacy” Student Information System (SIS). The Legacy SIS is arguably the District’s most critical business application because it is the application used to register all students attending any of the Maricopa Community Colleges.

All of these VAX computer systems are over 10 years old. This creates several problems: (1) System components such as hard drives, hard drive controllers, and network interface cards are failing at an increasing rate; (2) Replacement parts are no longer manufactured; (3) It is becoming increasingly difficult to get field-support engineers on-site in a timely manner in an emergency situation. These circumstances have led to several multi-hour periods of down time at several of the colleges over the past year. These periods of down time are considered a major emergency because registration, tuition and fee collection, advisement, and other essential services cannot continue without these VAX computer systems.

Faced with these circumstances, the Technology Leadership Counsel and the Counsel of Vice-Presidents of Administrative Services has endorsed implementing a technology solution that will emulate the VAX computer environment on current server hardware. Software Resources International’s CHARON-VAX family of products are VAX replacement systems, running as a software application on industry standard server hardware.

The CHARON-VAX systems will do the following:
• Eliminate risk of finding obsolete VAX hardware and spares
• Eliminate VAX hardware maintenance contract cost
• Speed up performance of system
• Preserve Legacy SIS environment through the “New Student System” Implementation

Salem Automation Incorporated has submitted a Sole Source proposal for the licenses, support, installation and on-site data migration. The software licensing, implementation costs, and one year of 24 x 7 x 365 support for the first year and 8 x 5 support for the second year, the total requested funding would be $610,529.

This project proposal does not include the necessary server hardware to implement the project. The Technology Leadership Counsel recommends that each college should be responsible for the hardware as they will retain it upon retirement of the Legacy SIS application.

$610,529.00

CFS Upgrade / Fusion Migration - Patch Release Request

Yes

CIO Approval List - The current College Financial System, Oracle E-Business Suite 11.5.8, was implemented in December 2003. Since that time there have been may patch releases, including security patches. Due to a variety of factors, especially limited human resources, we have been unable to keep current with these patches. It has now become critical that we upgrade to version 11.5.10.2 as soon as possible. This will not only bring us up-to-date with patch releases but will also provide enhanced functionality that our business users desire.

$50,000.00

Yes

CMS Hardware Environment - Gradebook Request

Yes

CIO Approval List - Using consultants from Blackboard, Inc. and Maricopa personnel develop a two step process to extract grades from the Blackboard Learning System gradebook and import them into SIS at each college where appropriate.

The first step of the process is to write an extension to the Blackboard Learning System in the form of a Building Block that will export final grades from Blackboard into a text file.

The second step is to parse the text file and convert Blackboard course IDs and PeopleSoft EmplIDs into SIS course/section numbers and student IDs at each college into a text file for each college. The text file for each college will then be sent to the college VAX for import into SIS. The file to be imported in SIS will be in the standard grade import format currently used by MIDAS.

With the future of MIDAS at Maricopa uncertain this will be a good incentive for instructors who are currently using MIDAS primarily for the grade interface to move their courses to Blackboard.

$38,000.00

Yes

EIMS Development/Enhancement - Phase I

Yes

CIO Approval Item - This capital request is being made to support the continued development and expansion of Maricopa’s EIMS (Enterprise Identity Management System) project. EIMS is Maricopa’s Enterprise Identity Management System (IdMS) whose aim is to provide students and staff with a holistic technology resource access method. EIMS provides the authentication support for SIS, HR Self-Service and campus HRMS access; the Maricopa Business Intelligence Applications (MBIA), which includes Decision Support System (DSS) and enterprise reporting; R25, Blackboard, and the Oracle Enterprise Calendar among other enterprise-wide applications.

Recent new requests for campus authentication support includes Chandler-Gilbert’s iTunes University pilot and EIMS provides directory authentication source data for the All College Repository (ACR) directory integration initiative; as well as other campus based employee and student based client services initiatives.

Prior to now, the source for capital for this project was the new student system project. It is now desirable to create a separate project code/cost center for this project and provide further funding aside from the SIS capital budget.

With the emergence of the Internet comes the ability to serve students without the boundaries imposed by distance or geography. Yet, as this technology enables Maricopa to reach out to more students in different ways, it also creates increased competition for students. From this competitive situation comes a drive to provide exemplary service while leveraging all of our technology investments across the District. This is the value of Identity Management Services (IMS). IMS identifies the people we serve, and enables us to provide them with services that are personalized to their needs and preferences, while ensuring the security of their information.

Our vision is that each student, faculty and staff member has the ability to be identified to Maricopa in ways that are easy and infrequent. Having been identified, we want that person to have access to services and activities that are relevant based on the things we know about him or her and about his or her previous activities with us. Our ultimate goal is for the people we serve to be presented with a seamless experience where we bring them reliable and secure interactions with Maricopa, without needing to specify over and over again who they are and what their relationship is to us. Behind the scenes, we know that the Identify Management System provides a low cost, and institutionally effective foundation for accomplishing our vision.

This capital request covers necessary hardware for EIMS to support SIS during and after go-live as well as for mid-term or interim live testing of the processes and application prior to SIS go-live. Because of the volume of data and therefore the expansion of the scale that is necessitated by it, SIS becomes a baseline for performance, and other resource allocation issues. This capital request also includes necessary consulting development costs, and costs for system software licenses. In addition, this request makes recommendations for further funding for this project, including the projection of ongoing capital and operational costs.

$209,260.00

Yes

CFS Hardware Environment - Disaster Recovery Server

Yes

CIO Approval Project - It is critical for disaster recovery purposes that MCCCD have a current backup of the CFS production instance located outside the District Office building. Prior to our migration to a new operating system in December 2005, our production backup instance resided on one of the Alpha Servers located at SMCC. Since our migration, our production backup instance has resided on one of the new ProLiant servers located at the District office. It was recently discovered that we are unable to move the backup ProLiant server to SMCC because it is not compatible with the available rack at this location and there is no additional space for another rack. (As a disaster recovery function, it is essential that we have this additional resource off site as part of contingency planning.)

Costing detail is included in the attachments for this proposal.

$7,200.00

Yes

Network Hardware Spares - Capacity Increase

Yes

CIO Approval Project - Wide Area Network Internet Upgrade

The District Office Internet router is only capable of supporting 100MBps to the Internet and is now at maximum capacity. This capital project increases the capacity of this device to allow for 1 Gbps to the Internet (500MBps of which will be used). This extra capacity will allow us to increase service to the colleges from between 6 and 15MBps to 40MBps each. This capacity should eliminate network congestion.

$25,500.00

Yes

Network Hardware Spares - Firewall Router Replacement

Yes

CIO Approval Project - The main security component of the MCCCD connection to the Internet, the Firewall, must be replaced to maintain the ability to secure the additional throughput. (This accompanies a previous request for internet bandwidth increases for the colleges.)

$18,155.40

Yes

VMWare - Districtwide

Yes

Server Consolidation is a common strategy to address the large numbers of servers needed in modern IT infrastructure. The current best practice to accomplish this is with a software product called VMWare. VMWare allows a single physical server to be divided up into a number of servers sharing excess resources among them.

VMWare provides value in three ways. First, consolidating logical servers onto fewer physical servers, fewer servers need to be purchased reducing procurement and support costs. Second, VMWare clusters are inherently redundant. This allows for very limited outages of departmental systems due to hardware failures without the cost of duplicate hardware. Third, VMWare provides robust disaster recovery capability allowing services to be offered from multiple facilities avoiding scheduled maintenance downtime and allowing quick recovery in response to a catastrophic event at a primary facility.

$735,000.00

$75,447.34

HR Hardware Environment/BDS Hardware Environment - BDS Portion of Fund Split

Yes

CIO Approval Item - The BDS & HRMS systems currently share a server. The SUN System has been in service for approximately eight years in varying capacities. It currently runs the Solaris 8.0 Operating System. The service is currently used by BDS for development and testing of new functionality as well as upgrade testing. HRMS uses this server for database tuning and HRMS demos. This request covers the cost of replacing the existing server hardware (including the storage array) with newer equipment and includes 3 years of support and a Solaris 9.0 Operating System upgrade.

$15,945.00

Yes

HR Hardware Environment/BDS Hardware Environment - HR Portion of Funding Split

Yes

CIO - Approval Item - The BDS & HRMS Systems currently share a server. The SUN System has been in service for approximately either years in varying capacities. It currently runs the Solaris 8.0 Operating System. The service is currently used by BDS for development and testing of new functionality as ell as upgrade testing. HRMS uses this server for database tuning and HRMS demos. This request covers the cost of replacing the existing server hardware (including the storage array) with newer equipment and includes 3 years of support and a Solaris 9.0 Operating System upgrade.

$15,945.00

Yes

HVAC Upgrade for DO Data Center

Yes

CIO Approval Item - This proposal recommends adding an additional 30 tons of A/C to the computer room in the District Office. In addition, an external electronic controller will coordinate all four A/C units to optimize their operation. The project will include adding an Air Conditioner to the room, electrical work, adding equipment to the roof and plumbing in-between.

$137,400.00

Yes

Data Center Payroll Printer Replacements

Yes

CIO Approval Item - This proposal recommends replacing the existing printers with the contemporary equivalent. This will include 4 printers:

2 - HP 9050 for conventional printing

2 - HP 9050 modified for check printing

$55,000.00

Yes

SA Hardware Environment - Additional DB Capacity

Yes

CIO Approval Item - This request is for purchase of additional database capcity by adding a new Itanium 4640 and upgrading the exisiting one. The upgrade keeps both machines in a similar configuration allowing for flexibility in disaster recovery and avoiding some support costs.

$88,000.00

Yes

SA Hardware Environment - SAN Disk Upgrade

Yes

CIO Approval Project - Growth in data estimates for SIS have exceeded the capacity of one of the storage arrays. Purchase additional 48 disks for EVA3. The 14GB 15K disks will add another 4TB to the array. 36 Slower 72GB Disks would be available for deployment in the EVA2 for expansion of Blackboard if needed.

$92,607.00

Yes

HRMS Hardware Environment - Upgrades II

Yes

CIO Approval Item - These upgrades are part of an on going hardware maintenance and enhancement effort for the HRMS environment. The upgrade is relatively minor and includes the following components:

1) Increased capacity providing the system an additional 50% processing capacity to support additional functionality specificly the roll out of Time & Labor to 8,000 employees.

2) Memory Expansion

3) Additional application server to off-load the primary database server, which currently serves as both database and application server.

$50,172.40

Yes

Blackboard Building Block - Campus Packs (Learning Objects)

Yes

This request is initiated by the Blackboard Alliance Building Block Sub-Team who is committed to the learning environment of 7 colleges through research, testing and implementation recommendations of innovative tools. While 7 colleges are in the Blackboard Alliance, Phoenix College will be piloting a move from WebCT to Blackboard in mid 2007.

Learning Objects provide Campus Pack, a suite of social learning applications such as, Teams LX, Journal LX, Podcast LX, Expo LX, Search LX as modules inside Blackboard.

"Teams LX uses wiki technology to provide students and instructors with tools for collaboratively creating rich media websites. Sharing a common online workspace, users author content, assemble research and present their work product."

"Explo LX is a dynamic personal website building and blogging tool. Highly flexible and easy to configure, Expo LX allows users to create rich media websites for a wide array of purposes."

"Podcast LX integrates podcasting into an institution's online course environment without requiring additional infrastructure. It allows instructors and students to instantly create and subscribe to audio and video feeds."

"Journal LX gives instructors and students the tools to create rich media journals within a course. Journal LX provides the classroom community a forum to reflect on course related topics, projects, thoughts and ideas."

"Search LX empowers users to perform full text searches of all content in their courses. The application searches all types of uploaded files, including DOC, PDF, and HTML, and respects user access rights."

$57,200.00

Blackboard Building Block - Cleartxt (deltaTXT)

Yes

deltaTXT is a mobile messaging tool for faculty to student communication. Students can have up-to-date details about school events and class information sent directly to their mobile phone.

$104,902.40

DO Desktop Management Tools - Altiris Mgmt

Yes

CIO Approval Item - The Altiris product is a system management solution that will reduce TCO for desktops, notebooks, PDA, and printer support. It is developed for IT professionals who support & manage computer related devices on a regular basis and enables administrators and support staff to deploy, manage and troubleshoot system issues from virtually anywhere. This request will cover the purchase of a new server, Altiris application, Support Incident Pack (5 Incidents), Deployment Solution (5 day), e-learning subscription for one year and certified training.

$59,313.97

Yes

EIMS Development/Enhancement - Consulting Phase II

Yes

CIO Approval Item - Highly Skilled Developer Extension to continue work with EIMS Project. Along with consultant, EIMS team will begin to review MIIS and Middleware code to interface with Oracle, such as invoking what was ADO.net calls to MS SQL/T-SQL to the equivalent Oracle remote procedures. Also, the EIMS team along with the consultant will be completing functional and performance testing including any related modifications related to that activity. The anticipation is for minor functional code changes with most of the efforts focused on communication, data cleanliness, and performance related issues. To adequately prepare for performance testing and SIS integration testing (simultaneously) exisiting consultant hours need to be extended.

$34,180.00

Yes

Utility Servers

Yes

CIO Approval Project - This is a request to purchase two G5 DL365 servers at a cost of $9,000 each. These are general purpose servers used for most services. However, they are a newer generation and have 64 bit processors. Upon receipt, we would use them for testing a problem we have with the Blackboard file store. When that testing is complete they would be used to replace File1, an aging system that supports file sharing in the building and between district office and the campuses. We anticipate that this would be developed in the late summer/fall and deployed at the earliest opportunity with respect to the SIS project.

$18,564.88

Yes

Network Hardware Spares - Capacity Increase

Yes

CIO Approval Item - In trying to meet bandwidth demands from the colleges, there continues to be significant growth in network capacity in the Maricopa WAN. The WAN is composed of 2 core upgrades and 10 edge routes at the colleges. The capacity of the core routers must meet or exceed the aggregate capacity of the edge routers. As capacity increases, this will be done by adding new high capacity devices to the core and cascading the lower capacity routers to the next lowest location on the edge. During the last upgrade, December 2006, MCCCD exceeded the capacity of the Internet Firewalls. One was replaced with the other anticipated to be in the dual ISP proposal. That proposal has since been postponed/canceled. This request recommends purchase of 2 new core routers to be placed at Mesa and Glendale to accommodate growth at these campuses, a second firewal for the ISP connection and three switches.