DRAFT Minutes
ITANA Conference Call
October 19, 2007
 
 *Attendees*
Jim Phelps, University of Wisconsin-Madison (chair)
Michael Enstrom, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Keith Hazelton, Wisconsin
Jim Rupert, St. Louis University
John Ashby, St. Louis University
Kevin Ballard, St. Louis University
Michael Cerda, University of Texas
Gary Chapman, New York University
Chris Phillips, University of Maryland-Baltimore
Steve Mullins, University of Alaska
Sue Sharpton, University of Alaska
Herbert Dias-Flores, University of California-Berkeley
Mark Poepping, Carnegie-Mellon University
Steve Olshansky, Internet2
Dean Woodbeck, Internet2 (scribe)

**Agenda**

(0) Roll Call. Agenda Bash.

  1. Accept minutes of last call
  2. EDUCAUSE Constituent Group meeting - Seattle, October 25  (Jim P)
  3. Results (so far) of CIO Survey on Enterprise Architecture(Jim P)
    1. You can see the summary here:  http://www.itana.org/wp-content/CIO_EA_Survey/SurveySummary.html
  4. Report out of Architecture Tool presentation (Dave P)
  5. St. Louis University's Pillars and Value Chain Documents - see Value Chain and Pillars (Jim H)
  6. Items on the shelf review

Items on the shelf:

  1. Paul's piece on Standards for Arch Documents -  standards for architectural documentation (Paul H)
  2. Mellon ESB Assessment - goal? is there date on this? (Mark P)
  3. Mellon New Initiative: Framework for scholarly studies tools (Keith H)
  4. Web CMS RFPs (Jim P)

(99) Next steps, next call

**EDUCAUSE Meeting**

Jim Phelps has begun building an agenda for the ITANA constituent group meeting at next week's EDUCAUSE conference. Please review the draft on the wiki and edit the document with any additions (or you can email Jim directly). The address is: https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/display/itana/Face2Face+Meetings
The meeting will be Thursday, October 25, 4:55-6:10 PM

http://www.educause.edu/E07/Program/11073?PRODUCT_CODE=E07/CG26

**CIO Survey**
Jim has posted a summary of the CIO survey to the ITANA web site:[
http://www.itana.org/wp-content/CIO_EA_Survey/SurveySummary.html]

To date, there are approximately 80 unique responses, with a good range of university size and centralized/decentralized IT operations.

**St. Louis University Pillars/Value Chain**
Jim Hooper guided the working group through a PowerPoint developed for a presentation to a vice president at St. Louis University. A PDF of the presentation is athttp://www.slu.edu/Documents/its/value_chain_1.pdf. In addition, the enterprise architecture group has a web site (ea.slu.edu) with a number of other documents. The value chain concept was developed by a private company in St. Louis, as a result of their need to refocus on their core business and focus on business process management. Page 6 of the presentation demonstrates the business model, called the Porter Value Chain Model. St. Louis University adapted the concept to fit a university setting. The presentation describes the business and support activities at the university with the goal of supporting SLU's value proposition.

Key points and visuals are on pages 8 and 9.

Page 8 details the primary and support activities at the university. Page 9 maps the applications (in the light blue boxes on the chart) to those activities. Not all applications have been added to the chart, as staff members continue to review stakeholder interviews. Areas of overlap identify opportunities for more efficient architecture. The EA staff is also working with stakeholders who own these businesses process to make sure the framework is complete. (In the yellow area, for example, is everything there?).

The discussion of applications raised the topic of ways to identify all applications used on campus. This is particularly challenging at a large university. Tom Barton at the UniversityofChicago has developed a taxonomy, but it involves interviewing people (rather than some sort of self-reporting mechanism).

Jim Hooper said that, going forward, there is a technical business manager that receives information, through a Banner queue, about software and hardware purchases. This will allow the development of campus-wide application information and provides a place for IT staff to intervene, if necessary, before the purchase.

**Pillars and Value Chain**

Jim Hooper reviewed the "pillars of technology" document (http://www.slu.edu/Documents/its/value_chain_to_pillars_080207.2.pdf).

This chart shows the 12 pillars that drive central IT and how they relate to four major areas: services, staffing, policy/procedures, and technology standards. The EA staff has started to work with each of the 19 domain architects in developing a life cycle of applications. The idea is to list applications and determine how each fits with the enterprise architecture, both now and into the future. Part of this process is to determine where each product resides on a life cycle continuum. This process allows enterprise architects to look across technology domains and across time so they can plan.

Hebert said that UC-Berkeley is undertaking a similar process, focusing on about 20 core technology areas. The purpose is to determine the applications people currently use, where investment is needed, and which products are at the end of their life cycle. Staff members will create a timeline from 2007 forward and track technologies (including versions of programs). All of this is tracked on spreadsheets and wiki pages. That way, anyone can edit the page to add elements (such as desktop OS, server OS, databases, etc.).

Jim Hooper said that, at St. Louis, a technology "standard" means the preferred choice. It doesn't rule out options, but it helps determine where IT will focus.

The working group gave positive feedback to the visuals and how technology fits with the core businesses. It provides the opportunity to demonstrate to campus stakeholders the benefits of standards and the importance of maintaining standards. Such standards and assessments can also be used to allocate resources - they provide roadmaps for the direction of the university's IT investments. This process can also demonstrate whether additional capacity exists for taking on additional projects.

Sue Sharpton said that the Alaska system is looking at which applications are common across all campuses and which applications should be standardized across the system.

**Next call: November 2, 2007, 2:00 pm (EDT)**.

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