SUMMER 2007

The Newsletter of UF Computing & Networking Services  

In This Issue

Wall-Plate Project Launch!

Computing and Networking Services (CNS) now manages 40% of the local networks on the main campus (12,000 of 30,000 ports). On July 2, 2007 CNS begins a 3-year project to upgrade the remaining 18,000 ports. This OIT sponsored, centrally funded, strategic technology initiative is known as the Wall-plate Project.

Let CNS Free Your IT Staff to Focus on Your Real Mission

Your mission is to provide services to your users—not to operate a machine-room. Let us take care of the hardware, so you can concentrate your efforts—and your resources—on accomplishing your organization's primary goals. Can you afford a dedicated, controlled-environment machine-room? Yes you can, if you use ours!

"Virtual Tape" System Continues to Improve

As reported in January 2007,CNS has embarked on a project to replace the IBM 3480 magnetic tape cartridge drives storage technology with a faster, more robust hard-drive-based "Virtual Tape" system (VTS).

Charge Reduction: NSAM Backup Service

CNS is pleased to announce that due to increased usage of our Network Storage and Archive Management (NSAM) service, we have realized some economies-of-scale which allow us to reduce the charging rates for this service. The new rates represent an overall reduction of approximately 20%. Since the rates for data transfer and data storage are reduced by different amounts, some users may experience a reduction of a different percentage.

For details of the new charges please refer to the CNS Charging Algorithm. For more information on the NSAM Backup Service, please see www.cns.ufl.edu/nsam/.

Spamhaus Black List Data Available for E-mail Filtering

CNS now has a subscription to the Spamhaus black list data which can be used by local mail servers for filtering e-mail. This data can be accessed by e-mail systems within the ufl.edu address space to filter e-mail and reduce the amount of spam received and passed on to end-users.

GatorLink E-mail Service Enhancements

We are in the process of making changes to the GatorLink e-mail service and to GatorLink WebMail, our web-based e-mail client that many of you use to access your GatorLink mailbox. These changes are a direct result of responses to the Student Government (SG) Webmail Survey many of you responded to Fall semester. We'd like to thank the SG Webmail Committee for working with us to help us improve the GatorLink e-mail service.

Initial GatorLink Purge Frees 320 Gigs

The massive purge of any messages older than May 22nd has finished freeing about 320 gigs of GatorLink mail disk usage. "That means we shouldn't have to allocate new disk space to GatorLink e-mail for about 2 months," said Sandy McArthur, OSG programmer.

The initial purge process took a little more than 2 days to process over 230 thousand junk and trash folders. From those folders 21 million old messages were deleted.

Q&A: Difficulty with Junk Mail Handling in GatorLink WebMail

Q: I'm having difficulty with my junk mail handling. Dozens of e-mails come through the filter to my inbox daily (despite my having it set to a very restrictive level). At the same time e-mails from addresses that I have specifically and purposefully added to my address book continue to end up in junk mail. I've added the addresses, and I have also clicked on "report not spam" on the messages but nothing seems to prevent them from being tagged as junk mail. ANON

A: Thanks for writing to us. Our spam recognition software, SpamAssassin, works by reading messages that are sent to you, and then assigning them with a score based upon how much the message appears to be spam.

/Update Feature: How We Are Doing: A CNS Report Card

Each issue in this space, we will offer links to statistical information about CNS's services so that you can see...how we're doing.

One-Stop Shopping for On-Line IT Training

Recent changes in the on-line IT training world have resulted in a proliferation of different sites offering different courses to UF users. Where, in the past, we simply had one NETg site, now there are two different NETg sites, plus the Microsoft IT Academy site.

In an effort to simplify access to the available on-line IT training resources, we have created a consolidated Web-page, listing all available courses, so you can select the course you need, without having to search multiple sites.

Security Watch

IT Security & YOU: Copyright Infringement Incident Response

Any formal Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) complaints received directly from a representative of the copyright holder should be referred to UF's designated agent for DMCA complaints (dmca@ufl.edu). Upon receipt of a complaint, UF's DMCA agent will ...

Secure Application Development Workshop Available

Secure application development (SAD) is a vital part of IT security, and Jim Hranicky has details on how to make sure your applications do what they're supposed to do...and ONLY what they're supposed to do.

John Sawyer Judges Best of Interop Competition

In May, UF Security Team Member and Network Computing contributing writer John Sawyer attended the Interop Las Vegas 2007 conference and helped to judge the Best of Interop competition. "It wasn't easy," said Sawyer. "There were UFOs."

Hacking From The Inside Out

Web browsers are all the tool you need to use to break into many poorly designed websites, but even a web browser in the hands of an innocent person can be turned into a hacking tool just by surfing to a malicious website. This presentation highlights many of the advancements in web application security, how to defend against some common attacks, and demonstrates how an external attacker can reprogram a common home-router just by having someone on the inside of the router visit a website.

Jordan Wiens presented this talk to the GatorLUG (Linux User's Group) June 20, 2007. If you missed the talk, you can still access the presentation and raw files to replicate the demo.

Bridges Update, July 2007

By Dr. Michael Conlon, UF Director of Data Infrastructure and PeopleSoft Implementation Officer

Bridges continues to build and improve the enterprise systems. Over 900 updates and improvements were made to the systems in the fiscal year just ended. Read on for a baker's dozen of highlights from the year.

Telecommunications & Network Infrastructure

Telecom Rate Changes Effective July 1st

Computing and Networking Services has completed an annual review of our Telecommunications Rate Structure. Overall, CNS-Telecommunications operating revenue breaks even. However, some telephone services do not fully recover their fair share of overhead costs. Recent audits recommended that we eliminate such subsidies. To accomplish this, a few changes have been made to Telecommunications Operations as well as Telecommunications Rates.

Wall-Plate Project Launch

Back Issues 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994

Based on memorandum from Dr. Marc Hoit, Interim CIO, to UF Deans, Directors, and Department Chairs, 5/14/2007.

Computing and Networking Services (CNS) manages 40% of the local networks on the main campus (12,000 of 30,000 ports). On July 2, 2007 CNS begins a 3-year project to upgrade the remaining 18,000 ports. This OIT sponsored, centrally funded, strategic technology initiative is known as the Wall-plate Project. More information regarding project goals, schedule, and budget can be found at: www.cns.ufl.edu/wall-plate.

As announced last Fall, most academic and administrative units on the main campus are included in the Wall-Plate project. Externally funded auxiliary operations are not eligible. Housing, Shands, and the Health Sciences Center networks are self-supporting and not covered by the central funding.

The project will proceed building-by-building across campus. CNS will do the "quick and easy" projects first. Buildings with major wiring problems will be done last. To find out where your building(s) fit in the year-by-year schedule, please check the project web page. Units willing to provide additional funding to outsource the wiring upgrade can speed up their implementation.

Shortly before work in a building begins, all units that occupy the building will be asked to "opt-in" to the Wall-Plate Service, and select their desired service level. Some of the options are:

• Opt-out — Do you want continue to manage your own local networks at your own expense? Most units will choose to opt-in — to get free equipment upgrades and ongoing support.
• Gigabit — The standard port connection speed is 10/100 Megabits — provided at no charge. Do you need higher speed Gigabit connections? This is available at one time fee of $25 per port. For desktop workstations, most units will choose 10/100.
• VoIP — Are you ready to convert to VoIP telephone services? Your monthly phone bill will probably go down. But you need to buy a new telephone handset. Because VoIP is also a strategic technology initiative, CNS will subsidize some of these up-front costs:
  • POE port — a Power Over Ethernet switch upgrade — provided at no charge.
  • VoIP phone — some low-end basic models — provided at ½ price.
  However, the VoIP discounts are available only when the Wall-Plate project first comes to your building(s). If you decide to adopt VoIP at a later date, the pricing model may change requiring you to pay full-price.

For additional information regarding the centrally Funded Wall-Plate service and project, please see the Wall-Plate Project Home Page.

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