Early Adopters Campus Survey

A. Technical

The core technologies of middleware include identifiers, authentication, directories, and, increasingly, PKI. The use of these technologies at an institution depends on a number of critical factors: embedded base, tolerance for risk, funding, peer patterns, etc.

A1. Are there unified name spaces for key identifiers, such as email addresses, netids, etc.? Are there policies for revocation and reuse of identifiers? A separate identifier mapping worksheet will be provided in a subsequent message. Please use it in your analysis here and comment on how it might be improved.

A2. What are the current methodologies for enterprise-wide authentication on campus? (If separate colleges or schools have other schemes, please list them.)

A3. On what types of platforms (eg Unix on Sun servers, VMS on alpha boxes, Novell on PC-class systems, Linux) are current enterprise-wide services built (DNS and DHCP, Email, web, etc.)? (If separate colleges or schools have other schemes, please list them.)

A4. What products do you use or are you looking at for directories?

A5. Is there an enterprise-wide LAN? (i.e. a service that provides file sharing, printing, etc.) If so, what product is used? If not, what are the most prevalent LAN technologies in use and how extensive is their campus-wide coordination? Does the campus have a statement of direction in this area?

A6. What applications will be the first to be directory-enabled? Why were they chosen?

A7. For "Source systems" (Student Information Systems, Personnel, etc.), which provide data *to* the directory? Which will allow data to be updated *from* the directory? What are the guidelines for this data exchange?

A8. Do you have a person registry? If so, is it thin (an identifier resolution service) or thick (a database that holds a significant amount of individual information, and for which the directory may serve as a queriable expression)? An object registry (i.e. a database that holds information about servers, printers, groups, etc.)? What function(s) do these registries play within your architecture?

B. Political

Ownership and control of information are major issues within most campuses. Ownership of data is often fuzzy, distributed within multicampus systems, departmental authorities, etc. Access rights, for viewing or updating information, are unclear. The building of middleware infrastructure requires leadership and advocacy, consideration of legal issues, and collaboration among political powers and major IT players.

B1. Briefly describe your campus environment (single/multicampus, medical school, role and mission, extenuating circumstances). In general, what determines whether services are centralized or distributed?

B2. Briefly describe the organization of the IT functions on campus (Telecommunications, Administrative Computing, Academic Computing, academic department technical staff reporting lines, Libraries, etc.)

B3. Are there clear institutional policies or guidelines on who owns and who can access student information? If so, can you supply a pointer to them? Who enforces the guidelines and how?

B4. Are there clear institutional guidelines on who owns and accesses personnel data? Alumni records? Medical and patient records (if applicable)? Library materials? Who enforces the guidelines and how?

B5. Are there clear institutional guidelines on who can have email accounts, have access to modem pools, etc.?

B6. Have you given thought to the trust models that might be used for PKI within campus? If so, please explain.

B7. Are there policies or standards on naming objects (eg printers and file servers) and naming groups (eg mail lists)?

B8. Who is the campus champion for the effort? Why?

B9. Are there key players outside the IT department who are behind your efforts? If so, what departments are they in? What support do they offer (financial, technical resources, political, etc.)?

C. Financial

There are real costs (in time and in money), and real savings, associated with deploying an enterprise-wide coherent middleware infrastructure. These financial impacts affect both central IT organizations and departmental level resources. Monetary costs include systems and software, design and engineering the middleware infrastructure, operating costs, interfaces with legacy systems, and provisioning clients. Time costs include leadership, technical design staff, operating staff, and user support. Cost savings occur in reduced data entry, easier data administration, quicker application development, and lower user complexity issues.

C1. How has the campus traditionally funded infrastructural improvements? Are one-time and continuing costs handled differently?

C2. How does the campus intend to fund the out-of-pocket expenses associated with middleware?

C3. How will the campus address the time commitments required at the departmental level?

C4. Will the campus make an effort to recover the cost savings? If so, how?