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ITAC ACTION ITEMS - Status Report
December 6-8, 2005

Idaho Water Science Center -- Boise, Idaho

ITAC membership email abbreviation:   GS-W ITAC


Legend for AI Identifier:   Dec2005ID.1 = month, year, location, & action item number for each ITAC meeting.

AI Identifier

Person(s) Assigned / Description of Action Item / Status of AI/Comment

Dec2005.ID.1
COMPLETED

Person(s) Assigned: Jim Steverson

Issue: Automated tools to assist OAG-OAS asset owners in completing required C&A activities

Description of Action Item: Jim Steverson will request the GIO to establish a joint team to identify, evaluate, purchase, deploy, and train on a family of automated tools to assist OAG-OAS asset owners in completing required C&A activities.

Background: Currently OAG and OAS asset owners must enter IT hardware and software information and responses to the NIST 800-26 Security Questionnaire into the C&A Database, after which they must enter much of the same information into one or more of the four required C&A documents: Privacy Impact Assessment; System Security Plan; Risk Assessment Plan; and Contingency Plan. This is a labor-intensive task that can be eased by providing the asset owners with a capability to import and export data from the C&A database into their four required C&A documents. In addition, the asset owners need a family of automated tools that accomplish the following actions: (1) Automatically inventory all IT hardware and software located on a site’s IT systems; (2) Identify and correctly apply all required software patches to a site’s IT systems; and (3) Identify and correct hardware and software vulnerabilities on any IT system connected to a site’s local area network.

Status of AI/Comment:
1/27/06 update - ongoing. Katherine Lins sent Kevin Gallagher a memo on this topic on January 30, 2006. Update on response and results from this memo will be presented at next meeting.

COMPLETED

Dec2005.ID.2
COMPLETED

Person(s) Assigned: Jacque Coles

Issue: Cause of 2-week crash of StreamStats Web site

Description of Action Item: Jacque Coles will f ind out the cause and the fix for when StreamStats Web site went down for 2 weeks, and communicate findings.

Status of AI/Comment:

12/8/05 Jacque said she is already working on this.
1/27/06 update - COMPLETED

Dec2005.ID.3
COMPLETED

Person(s) Assigned: Katherine Lins

Issue: Request NGTOC workshop or birds of a feather session at GIS meeting

Description of Action Item: Katherine Lins will help pursue ITAC getting on an NGTOC listening session. Maybe it can be at GIS meeting in April 2006. Would like mapping people to respond to us as a customer. Al Rea can help work on this, to present it to the Workshop Committee for the meeting.

Status of AI/Comment:

12/7/05 Al Rea requested the listening session.
1/27/06 update - ongoing. Katherine Lins will follow up on this.

2/10/06 update -- Ongoing, Katherine Lins will follow up on this.

3/13/06 update -- COMPLETED

Dec2005.ID.4
COMPLETE

Person(s) Assigned: Terri Moore and Scott McEwen

Issue: Laptop Admin rights

Description of Action Item: Terri Moore and Scott McEwen will work on one-page e-mail and on guidance on setting up laptops. It will include direct link to info from GIO’s CTO Web site, as well as FAQs, and will also link to the FAQs from the field computer interest Web page. ITAC will show draft to OSW and ask them to send out to Data Chiefs, WSC Directors, Study Section Chiefs, and SAs.

Status of AI/Comment:
1/27/06 update - Ongoing. Terri will follow up on this.

Discussion: Work in progress. Needs to be done before AD. OKlahoma WSC has policies that address all these issues. Jess Griffin will do “show and tell” at next meeting. (Should include Paul Exter on this.)

Jess will join Terri Moore and Scott McEwen on this item.

2/10/06 update -- (Terri not on call, Update given by Scott.) People are working to complete the instructions. Terri and Scott will give an update in Oklahoma on the status.

Improved policy statement and improved instructions -- across the regions.

We should have a small presentation in Oklahoma.

ITAC is influencing procedures/instructions and cross skill sets for consistency and accessibility.

3/13/06 update -- Defer to Oklahoma City

Oklahoma Meeting -- COMPLETE -- Terri will send out on ITAC's behalf.

Dec2005.ID.5
COMPLETED

Person(s) Assigned: Scott McEwen, Jim Steverson, and Margaret Bunch

Issue: Priorities and benefits of C&A and Local AD

Description of Action Item: As soon as possible, WSCs to be informed by ITAC that C&A is to be done by April 14, 2006, and then stress that local AD must be established by June 30, 2006; December 31, 2006, for Bureau AD. E-mail from ITAC to be reviewed by Paul Exter before it goes out to Water REX-es, WSC Directors, and SAs. Jim Steverson will spell out benefits of C&A and Margaret Bunch will do AD (in bullets format) coming from a perspective of a WSC Director describing the benefits to their staff. It should document correct status of systems with the long-term security goals in mind rather than the bureau scorecard.

Status of AI/Comment:
1/27/06 update - ongoing. Team put together a draft memo. Terri Moore suggested sending draft onto Kevin Gallagher and Paul Exter.

Discussion: There was some confusion among members regarding dates, which may be different by as much as a year from those presented at Idaho meeting in December. Jim Steverson recommended Katherine Lins forward the draft memo to the GIO. Scott McEwen will send Katherine what he has so far.

2/10/06 update -- Katherine will take another look at it.

Wanted the message to get out about C&A core document that must be completed by April 14th and get local users prepared to transition to active directory. This would assist the Cost Center Managers in understanding the importance that resources have to be allocated and not just from the IT Specialists.

Scott and Terri will complete the draft - forward to Jim N. and Jim S. for review and ITAC will forward it on. Athena will speak to Jim N. to ensure he agrees.

3/13/06 update -- Defer to Oklahoma City

Oklahoma Meeting -- COMPLETED -- The draft charter is with the CTO's in all the regions at this time. Jim will be the Team Lead and work with Garry Neverdon. Recommendations and support will be brought back to ITAC. Once the Charter has gone through its review, it will be sent out to ITAC. No additional communication is needed at this time.

Dec2005.ID.6
COMPLETED

Person(s) Assigned: Chris Leeth

Issue: ColdFusion (CF) for Web pages

Description of Action Item: Chris Leeth will be rep. at 12/20/05 meeting on CF. He’ll also put together a white paper stating how it would be of value to the Office of Communications.

Status of AI/Comment:

1/27/06 update - Chris not present, but will give an update on next ITAC conference call.

COMPLETED

Dec2005.ID.7
COMPLETED

Person(s) Assigned: Jim Nicholas

Issue: Description of SA Priorities

Description of Action Item: ITAC members to send comments to Jessie Alvarez regarding her list of SA priorities. Jim Nicholas will make sure Jessie gets this out.

Status of AI/Comment:

12/8/05 - Jim Steverson (C&A) and Margaret Bunch (AD) have already commented on the list. (Ken Lanfear wrote a nice preamble.)

1/27/06 update - Ongoing. Jim will check with Steve King regarding Jessie’s schedule.

2/10/06 update -- Tim McElhone will work with Jim to complete. Monitor the load on SA's and need to get mandatory items completed along with day to day work load.

3/13/06 update -- Waiting to hear from Jessie.

3/23/06 -- Jessie reported on the draft memo. She will incorporate all suggestions from this meeting and resend to Jim and Tim M. for review. They will, in turn, distribute to ITAC for review. ITAC will distribute to the Water Science Centers.

5/11/06 -- Jim brought the issue back to Jessie last week. They still need to talk. Jim will take a look at it again.

6/21/06 - COMPLETED

Dec2005.ID.8

Person(s) Assigned: Brian Reece and Chris Leeth

Issue: Location of IIS servers for ADR, SIMS, and RMS

Description of Action Item: Coordinate with other IIS server applications like CF and StreamStats.

Status of AI/Comment:

1/27/06 update - Ongoing. Brian Reece will give update at March meeting. He sent note to Burl Goree (LA - Chair, Field Computer Group (FCIG)) about consolidating servers. He will give more detail at next ITAC teleconference.

2/10/06 update -- Brian sent out an announcement for ADR yesterday. He will update at the Oklahoma meeting.

3/13/06 update -- Defer to Oklahoma City. Add to agenda.

3/23/06 -- The initial solution will be an internal solution first. Continue on next call.

5/11/06 - Not on call to report

6/21/06 - Defer to next ITAC meeting.

8/11/06 update -- Brian will write up and get out to ITAC by next week.

9/8/06 – More details at the face to face. There is no formal SIMS server. They have 8 servers trying to get down to 3 servers.

Dec2005.ID.9
COMPLETED

Person(s) Assigned: ITAC Members and Jim Nicholas followup

Issue: ITAC Goals for CY 2006

Description of Action Item: ITAC members to send suggestions for 2006 goals to Jim Nicholas by the first week in January. Jim will compile. ITAC be ready to discuss during Jan. 27 th, ITAC conference call (Fri., 1/27/06 ).

Status of AI/Comment:

1/27/06 update - Ongoing. Jim Nicholas will incorporate ITAC members’ comments and send out the goals prior to next ITAC conference call.

2/10/06 update -- Jim requested write ups for specific goals -- everyone will send to Jim. Send by March 7, 2006.

3/13/06 update -- Defer to Oklahoma City.

Oklahoma Meeting - COMPLETED


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