Old mainframe poses problem
By Geremy Carnes
News Writer
Notre Dame students should prepare themselves for far-reaching changes in campus computer technology.
In October, Hewlett-Packard announced that in five years it will discontinue support on the mainframe the University currently uses. As a result, the University must replace its computer hardware and software by January of 2007.
"The Hewlett-Packard announcement came as a surprise to all of us," chief information officer Gordon Wishon said. "We're still in the early planning stage."
Since the software that runs the University's administrative applications is dependent upon the Hewlett-Packard mainframe, both hardware and software must be replaced.
The Strategic Systems Replacement Steering Committee (SSRSC) was formed to oversee the transition to new systems.
"[The SSRSC] has begun forming multiple subcommittees that focus on individual elements of the overall program," Wishon said.
These subcommittees will be assigned to various offices on campus, including admission, financial aid, registration, human resources, housing, security and health services.
The subcommittees must first identify the needed application functions of campus offices. Then an application can be selected from a vendor and implemented.
The Department of Development has already begun implementation of a system that will support the University's fundraising activities. Other University offices will follow suit in the next five years.
In order to minimize the impact on students, replacements for student utilities will generally be implemented when students are not on campus. Other offices may be updated on calendar or fiscal-year boundaries.
"It's a very tight schedule," Wishon said. "Projects of this magnitude generally stretch out very far beyond the five-year window."
The changes will affect many of the systems students rely upon regularly, but it is too early to say exactly how those changes will manifest themselves.
"The differences won't be known until the vendors are selected," Wishon said.
"There are no students on the [SSRSC], but I expect there to be student representation on multiple application-specific subcommittees that are being formed," Wishon continued. "Several of the systems supporting the Student Services area will require student participation in the planning phases. Similarly, the Student/Faculty Information System effort will benefit from student participation."
The Office of Information Technologies has a plan to help the transition occur more smoothly for students.
"We're trying to build a Web-based interface through which [students] can access most services," Wishon said.
Such an interface would allow the University to implement changes to software without any obvious changes for student users. Updates would be done behind the interface, so students would never notice them.
All News Stories for Friday, February 22, 2002
