ICT renewal at UCT

Since its inception the project has been engaged in several activities and implementations:

An investigation into product choice and vendor options was conducted. This focused on the areas of directory services, systems management, file services and print services. Motivations for product choice were formulated, and vendors went through a qualifying process. In December 2004, the Project Implementation Committee (PIC) accepted the ICTS proposal to use Novell's suite of products and in January 2005 Novell held several demonstrations on campus to show the power of the Novell Suite to ICTS and other interested staff members.

PIC also approved the recommendation that UCT adopt CISCO as the preferred product choice for network switches and routers. In January 2005, several companies were pre-qualified to provide structured cabling systems to UCT. As the work of the project progresses, these up to date products and hardware solutions will bring users improved network performance and increased availability.

As part of the goal to improve management of internet traffic, Packeteer Packetshaper was installed to control the distribution of applications on the UCT-Internet link.

Border Manager (BM) is another product that will assist in this aim. It monitors volumes of Internet traffic (but ensures your privacy). After the successful pilot of BM in the undergraduate labs of the Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, BM was extended to other undergraduate labs in other faculties. By December 2004, all undergraduate labs (except Faculty of Science labs) were using BM. In 2005, BM will be extended to the Faculty of Science undergraduate labs, the Student Housing network and all staff and postgraduate students. Users can expect less congestion on the Internet for essential applications like mail services, library services, web services, and download services.

The Electronic Directories Stream (EDS) is concerned with the management of identities on campus, making the authentication of legitimate users easier and the access to services more efficient. Workshops were held to develop an identity management design in consultation with key personnel across campus. Better integration between the different systems that keep identity information on campus will bring greater accuracy and quicker changes to identity information for users.

For more in-depth information on all these stories visit the supaTsela website at www.supatsela.uct.ac.za.