ITAC -- Cyber Meeting
November 15, 2001 -- 11:00am - 12:00n EST

ITAC membership email abbreviation:   GS-W ITAC

Attendees:

Following is a list of expected ITAC meeting attendees/invitees accepted, declined, delegating an alternate, or did not response to meeting invitation (indicated below as "unable to participate") for the conference call:

Agenda:

• Review of ITAC action items - McCallum
• Cyber Seminar - Publishing System Requirements - Greg Allord
  (will not be present for this meeting)
• ITAC Membership Replacements - McCallum
• Information Technology Exchange Meeting 2002 (ITEM 2002) - McEwen and Alvarez
• System Administrator (SA) Training Needs document - Alvarez
• Report out on WRD Senior Staff Meeting - Merk, Lins, Alvarez, Wood

Discussion Notes:

1. Review of ITAC action items - McCallum

• Action Item (Sep2002.AL.1):   (IN PROGRESS) RCS to draft Home Computing guidelines. Scott has just sent out draft to ITAC and needs feedback from group. CA has been through this already and developed guidelines. Scott is incorporating their guidelines and ideas into his draft. CO also has a home support policy and he has include the link in the draft. Katherine wants us to stay in compliance with bureau policy. Scott is reading the flexi-place policy that addresses home computing. The bureau policy requires users bring computers into office for support. Grady mentioned that the NY policy is that users use government computers. They pay for ISDN line. Katherine says this makes sense for people that do it frequently but what about the ad hoc user?

ADD "Still in Progress"

• Action Item (Sep2002.AL.4):   HASS feedback -- Jessie emailed Audrey Ishii and is waiting for her reply. Sonja was also gathering input form field.

Katherine: Senior staff believes they have dealt with this by giving responsibility to disciplines. Lorna is working in a draft so that WRD can put pressure on the disciplines. I no longer have a unit to provide this support. I think it is important for Senior Staff to understand ramifications of their decision. There is a new team, Science Support Review Team, to handle these issues. Bill Sexton is the chair. (Bill Alley opinion is that if you develop a model you should support it but NRP does not want to do this, they do not have the support staff.) We will end up with varying levels of support now that disciplines have to support models.

Scott: It's going to take lots of attention. He likes Sonja's approach; she alerts the disciplines when they put a report out referencing a specific model. The disciplines have to work with the authors of the models to make sure documentation is in place and updates are made available on the HASS page.

Somebody at NRP needs to get grounded as to what is going on out in the filed in regard to these models.

Modification to action item #4:   I should send Ishii's feed back to Bill Sexton with cc Katherine Lins and Bob Hirsh instead of just sending this feedback to Katherine.

DISCIPLINE OFFICES ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR HASS MODELS AND SOFTWARE PROGRAMS. KATHERINE LINS WILL TAKE TO SENIOR STAFF A MEMO BEING DRAFTED BY MICHELLE, LORNA AND ARLEN. HEADQUARTERS REVIEW TEAM WILL BE ADDRESSING THE HASS ISSUES. THIS ACTION ITEM IS COMPLETED.

• Action Item (Sep2002.AL.5):   NWIS-RT will brainstorm strategies and issues related to the non-GOES telemetry - this is the AFS idea sent to NWIS-RT from Jessie. Susan will ask the team to add this to their agenda when they meet with the NatWeb team at their first meeting in 2003 (1st quarter) and report back to NWIS.

NO PROGRESS to report. NWIS has not had time to address it. Colleen: The group will definitely brainstorm this. Jessie requested they at least spend 15 minutes brainstorming or she could email the group for feedback on the approach she suggested to Susan. Colleen will pass on the concern to NWIS.

THIS NON-GOES TELEMETRY ISSUE IS NOT A PRIORITY ISSUE FOR NWIS. THERE WILL BE A TIME-LIMITED AGENDA ITEM AT THE PORTLAND, OREGON MEETING IN JANUARY. SUSAN HAS ASKED THAT THE PROBLEMS AND REQUIREMENTS BE DRAFTED AND PRESENTED TO HER. NEED DESCRIPTION OF VARIOUS INPUTS.

• Action Item (Sep2002.AL.6):   Mike & Charlie will add agenda ITEMs for next ITAC meeting including "Election of Vice Chair" and "Publications" (Greg Allord).
PENDING
• Action Item (Sep2002.AL.7):   Jessie will send out her suggestions on site administrator training and ask ITAC members and Regional Computer Specialists for feedback. The audience is intended for Site Administrators. Final guidelines should go to DCs in addition to SAs.
Site Admin Training. (IN PROGRESS) Jessie: I got feedback from Scott, Graig McHendrie and Nelson. Need to incorporate on their comments to make it final. Grady said that his Comp unit looked it over and though it was good. Modify action item to show that final guidelines should go to DCs in addition to SAs. -- MARK THIS ACTION ITEM COMPLETED. { CITE AND LINK IN JESSICA.S EMAIL FROM THIS WEEK. }
• Action Item (Sep2002.AL.8):   As part of staff development plans/planning, NWIS will work with the Regional Computer Specialists and Joel Johnson to develop a list of needed Computer Training for Water Database Administrators. -- the audience is intended for District Chiefs and Managers. The product would be an Office of Information memo???
Scott:   has been talking to Joe. They will work on it as soon as NWIS 4.2 conversion is done. Scott asked Colleen if the goal is to develop training for DBA. She agrees that this issue is on their radar screen. They hope to spread out the load of putting this training together. Colleen does not know how much time Greg Shank will have to work on this because his top priority is to handle NWISRT implementation. Colleen needs to find someone other than Greg to teach the course. She has someone in mind but has not discussed it with the person. -- LEAVE THIS AS PENDING
• Action Item (Sep2002.AL.9):   Nelson will find the NWIS Data Base Administrator duties document and send to the ITAC members.
Scott's part is DONE. The second part of this action item was for Alan Lumb to distribute the NWIS DBA duties that Scott found. Modify action item so that Susan takes this new action item and distribute to A & B, DC, CD, NWIS DBAs and ADs.

Nelson:   The reason this document is written up was because Districts had lost their DBAs and DCs did not know what to put in the PDs of the new DBAs. The list Scott found is up to date and still applicable. The email Susan sends out should point out the importance of having a DBA at each district specially now that NWIS involves many user access a file aging issues.
--- THIS IS COMPLETELY DONE!

  (Nov2002.Cyber.1) NEW ACTION ITEM: SUSAN TRAPANESE WILL SEND OUT THIS EMAIL AND ATTACHEMENT TO THE DISTRICT CHIEF
• Action Item (Sep2002.AL.10):   Scott will seek SLEDS programmer salary maintenance funds for FY03 and FY04 from the OSW and OGW.
(COMPLETE for FY03) No plans for 04, this issue will come up again. -- KANSAS SLEDS PROGRAMMER'S SALARY IS EXHAUSTED IN JANUARY. THIS ACTION ITEM IS PENDING FOR FY04.
• Action Item (Sep2002.AL.11):   Loren will contact Dan Hippe and Tim Miller to locate additional funding and possibly take responsibility for the direction of SLEDS to some office rather than OSW.
NO PROGRESS to report. Loren was not available for this con-call --- pending. BRIAN MCCALLUM WILL FOLLOW UP ON THIS ACTION ITEM.
• Action Item (Sep2002.AL.17):   om will put together a DIS Organization Chart showing the DIS personnel and their functions who work from the field units, such as NT TAC, SUN TAC, Security Teams, etc. Including the personnel who now work for the GIO Office but continue to have functions that matrix to the DIS Program Office.
(IN PROGRESS) Tom has recently revised the chart to include links to technical teams. No team members are listed but it shows the matrix. Do we want to see the list of members? This action item was for the benefit of ITAC in case we have to explain it to others. Katherine suggested this chart be posted on ITAC web page so that we can point the GIOs and Regions and other disciplines to this page. -- MARK THIS COMPLETED.
• Action Item (Sep2002.AL.19):   MARK AS COMPLETED.
• Action Item (Sep2002.AL.20):   Jessica and Loren will will send out instructions through Mike McNally (Security, Reston, VA) on implementing wireless access points.
PENDING
• Action Item (Sep2002.AL.21):   Prepare a draft ITAC position statement for the migration of district web content from local servers to NatWeb. 11/18/02 rewrite of AI by Nelson Williams.
(IN PROGRESS)THIS ACTION ITEM IS UNCLEAR and should be reworded or scrapped and a new AI created. ITAC was going to put together a document explaining what moving a document to Natweb involves. Some material is already in place on Natweb page. This should be an agenda item for our next meeting. How do we promote the use of Natweb servers? Nelson volunteered to take the lead on this action item. Nelson will take the lead on developing a position paper. --- IN PROGRESS

CALIFORNIA AND NEW MEXICO HAVE MOVED TO NATWEB FOR THEIR DISTRICT WEB PAGES.

NELSON WILLIAMS WILL LIST THE PROS AND CONS OF THIS EFFORT.

ITAC WILL DISCUSS THIS AT THE NEXT MEETING.

• Action Item (Sep2002.AL.22):   Mike Slifer will give a presentation to the Senior Staff Meeting in October.
PENDING, to be completed on Tuesday, Oct. 22. Charlie will give presentation instead of Mike.

Katherine: Mike provided slides from the last presentation and Charlie is working on it.

MARK THIS COMPLETED.

• Action Item (Jun2002.Cyber.3):   Mike will present an ITAC status report at the next WRD Senior Staff meeting.
COMPLETED, 10/22/02 -- Charlie Merk presented the status report to Senior Staff.

2. Determine date of next meeting.

  (Nov2002.Cyber.2) NEW ACTION ITEM:   Brian will poll group to find out best date for next meeting. January 14-16, February 11-13, or February 19-21.

3. We need more info on the DOI MS contract.

  (Nov2002.Cyber.3) NEW ACTION ITEM:   Tom Wood will report on DOI MS contract at next conference-call.

MINUTES:   There is not enough information from DOI on the DOI MS CONTRACT. $206 cost recovery per FTS for MS Contract for FY03. This will need to be cost recovered. { INSERT TOM WOOD'S EMAIL HERE }

4. Discussion of IT Infrastructure Funding

There is a need to get the GIO Office to fight for FY04 funding on Information Technology Infrastructure. Katherine Lins and Tom Wood will meet with Karen Siderelis to discuss DIS funding sources that used to come from district overhead or surcharge (1.1%). Water Programs will have to fund some of the DIS functions or OI will need to drop these functions. Put DOI MS Contract as an agenda item on December, January, and February meeting.

5. Oct2002.Cyber.3 -- Scott will send email to RCSers to contact HR to find out which districts have not converted their employees and notify appropriate DCs. Scott will cc the RGIOs so that they can notify other disciplines.

COMPLETED { LINK IN SCOTT MCEWEN'S EMAIL HERE }

6.   NEW ACTION ITEM (Nov2002.Cyber.4) -- Charlie Merk will design an additional new format for the ITAC action items. The suggestion is to list the action item ID number a status of "completed" or "pending".
7. GREG ALLORD

• Greg indicated that he made a commitment last week at ITEM to offer a cyber seminar the first quarter of calendar 2003 on system requirements for publishing.
• This will include software and some hardware.
• It may be best to list as an official action item.
8. ITAC Membership Replacements -- McCallum

Email from Bill Carswell dated November 5

Charlie--At a recent meeting of the Regional Hydrologists, we decided that Western Region would provide the SA; Southeastern Region the AO; and CR the District Chief replacement members for ITAC. It is my understanding that Western Region will have Margaret Bunch serve as the SA representative on ITAC. I am in the process of finding a CR DC who is an appropriate replacement member and is willing to serve. Hope to have someone by next week.

  NEW ACTION ITEM (Nov2002.Cyber.5) -- Brian McCallum will follow up with Bill Carswell on the new District Chief ITAC member.
9. Information Technology Exchange Meeting 2002 (ITEM 2002) - McEwen and Alvarez

  NEW ACTION ITEM (Nov2002.Cyber.6) -- At the next RCS meeting, Tom Wood, Jessica Alvarez, and Scott McEwen will decide which of the concerns are appropriate for ITAC to address from the NR/SR ITEM 2002 defriefing meeting.

• Highlights from Tipton and Gallagher presentations
• Issues from ITEM Debriefing with NR and CR SAs

It would be good to review/brainstorm a list of issues resulting from ITEM Jessie and Scott will forward the list, as soon as it is finalized.

• Follow-up actions

It would also be good to review the list of actions that various ones of us discussed with Kevin Gallagher and/or others; at the top of the list is the need to fund the Active Directory Admin Team and the proposed HelpDesk structure.

We may need to put this item on the agenda for our (ITAC) meeting in Rapid City; or invite Kevin to join the Dec (?) conference call.

10. NEW ACTION ITEM:

  NEW ACTION ITEM (Nov2002.Cyber.7) -- TO BE ADDED AS OCTOBER 2002 (.4) ACTION ITEM --- Brian McCallum will review and redraft the ITAC goals and approve the subgoald at the February ITAC meeting.

11. NEW ACTION ITEM:

  NEW ACTION ITEM (Nov2002.Cyber.8) -- Katherine Lins will suggest a GIO Leadership Team agenda item:   to address the FY03 and FY04 Information Technology costs and the associated budget initiatives.

12. NEW ACTION ITEM:

  NEW ACTION ITEM (Nov2002.Cyber.8) -- Brain McCallum will reschedule the December Conference Meeting.

13. System Administrator (SA) Training Needs document - Alvarez

• Email from Jessica Alvarez, 11/14/2002 06:07 PM:

TO:   WRD District Chiefs
FROM:   Information Technology Advisory Committee (ITAC)

It was brought to ITACs attention that Districts may be having difficulty determining which courses they should be considering for System Administrators. With input from DIS , DIS technical advisory committees and the Regional Computer Specialist, ITAC has put together a document which we hope will provide guidance as to what expertise SAs need, and help you locate training centers near you.

During our research, we ran across a number of IT training resources appropriate for all employees and have included the list at the end of the document under "User Training".

This document will be posted on the ITAC home page (/cpac/) for future reference.

As always, feel free to contact ITAC by emailing GS-W ITAC.

14. Report out on WRD Senior Staff Meeting - Merk, Lins, Alvarez, Wood

• Email from Jessica Alvarez dated October 31

Just thought I'd share with you all some of the comments Bob Hirsch made during Charlie's presentation.

• Bob encouraged us to brief, in person, the GIO and RGIOs, not just through letters.
• Bob wants us to help the Bureau understand field issues. Take the out on field trips when possible.
• Bob supports a group like ITAC traveling to Districts including PR, AK, etc.
• Bob supports security even if it means restricting the creativity of scientist. He agrees and quoted Kevin Gallagher "The internet has become a scary place."
• NDES and Bob agreed that Sioux Falls is the place to put the backup DOMSAT/DRGS. Sioux Falls to be a "key" gateway.
• Bob and Bill Carswell recommend that we do not have a fixed RGIO as a member of ITAC but instead invite RGIOs to our meetings when held in their region. This will ensure we keep in touch and educate all three.
• Bob wants us to show Hord Tipton that we can lead the way. We don't have to be passive. "We have to find ways to impact the Department."
• Bob:"Issues like streamgages, GOES, RTD are the unique things that ITAC needs to deal with."

Charlie you did a great job...Thanks!

• See ITAC Report given to the WRD Senior Staff meeting on October 22, 2002 by Charlie Merk.