Preparations Underway to Convert Community Programs from Novell to Microsoft NetworksThe Device Integration and Imaging (DII) team completed preparations in the software discovery for the Community Programs department (Club Rewind). This department is spread out across the district. The main location which is out of CyFair Annex houses the administrative part of Club Rewind. The other centers are the Early Learning Centers (ELC). The ELCs have two main locations: ELC 1 at 11711 Falcon Road and ELC 2 at 13935 Smokey Trail. They have 4 other ELCs that operate out of portable building. These centers are at Barker on 17522-B Liner Lane, ELC Falcon on 11430 Falcon Road, ELC Eldridge on 7600 North Eldridge Parkway, and ELC Telge on 11010 Telge Rd. The main software used in this department is Child Care Manager. This department is scheduled to be converted on Tuesday February 25th. Additionally, the network discovery phase for Community Programs was completed and migration plans are in place. Also, some users of previously converted departments postponed their conversion due to business activity. These users are scheduled to be converted as well.

Plans are underway to lay the foundation for the next group of Service Center departments to be converted. The updated schedule is now available here.

Setup, Software Installation, and Configuration of the Windows 8 Tablet DevicesPrime has been imaging Helix Windows 8 tablets since last week. DII believes that all Helix tablets will be imaged and delivered to the High Schools by the end of the week. Josh Zhang was able to tweak the imaging engine to help speed up the imaging process.

Overall Status of Mobile Devices to be DeliveredClick here to see the latest schedule of the overall Mobile Device Management (MDM) implementation. Because of the network outage issues the team was not able to troubleshoot the issues with the tablets. The following issues still need to be resolved.

1) Some of the tablets have wireless issues and are on hold for delivery until a resolution is determined. Larry Barrios plans to work with Fred Brenz to isolate where the specific issues are. There are issues with iPads, Android tablets, on both Windows 8 and Windows 7 devices.

2) Tablets are on hold for installation of apps via Airwatch. Plans to update the Airwatch server will take place February 24th. This upgrade will provide the district to have the capability to retain Volume Purchasing Program (VPP) codes.

Training by Apple’s Senior Manager of Major Accounts to Determine a Better Means of Deploying Apple iPad TabletsThe Apple training at Owens elementary on February 17th was given by Apple, Alby Rose and Dina McMearn. In attendance at the training were Derly Buentello, Nancy Grella, Larry Barrios, Owens staff, technology coaches, Tim Crook, Michele Campos, Gloria Hawthorne, Sylver Gray, and Giancarlo Layme. The goal of the meeting was to learn and establish a foundation for other schools to follow in the setup and configuration of the iPads. It was clear to all those that participated in the training that the delivery of iPads is a complex process. The team will assess how the implementation is going and report back the findings next week.

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Evaluation of iSupport as a Potential New Service Request Management SystemExpanding the evaluation and pilot use of iSupport was on track for the week. Doug Baker created and distributed documentation to ALC-East and ALC-West so that they could begin evaluating the product. Approval was given by Mrs. Maggie Wiley to initiate the evaluation at Cypress Creek high school. Esmond DeSouza and Geoffrey Brown, both Technology Assistants (TAs) at Cypress Creek, will begin training the campus in their academy groups. Jennifer Miller, Karey Hoyt, and Janette Martinez worked with iSupport during a conference call to determine the best method to structure the needed reports. Additional Technology Services technicians will be trained in an effort to provide campus support. Click here to view the overall evaluation status. Lastly, Jennifer worked with iSupport on the pricing structure of iSupport, as we hope to be making a final recommendation in the near future, and budgets for 2014-2015 are being prepared.

Disaster Recovery Preparedness and Business Continuity Planning (eSchool Student Information Systems)The Information Services and Applications (ISA) Operations Manager, Rodney White, continues working with SunGard to reschedule the Disaster Recovery simulation test. As SunGard digs out from the snow covering the north east, they are making efforts to fill outstanding obligations. It is critical for business continuity that we exercise the disaster recovery plan.

Disaster Recovery Preparedness and Business Continuity Planning (Financial Management Systems)The Information Services and Applications (ISA) team continues to work with SunGard on an emergency disaster recovery drill for the current finance system (an IBM Unix system which will be replaced in March 2014 with a Microsoft SQL system) scheduled to run concurrently with the student information system. Because the team is converting to a new system with eFinancePlus 5.0, this will be less of a priority and focus will be shifting to the new system’s backup and recovery.

Analysis of the eFinance 5.0 Conversion ReadinessThe weekly project status conference call with SunGard was held Tuesday, February 18, 2014. The call report can be viewed here. The overall status of the project was discussed as well as the remaining tasks and milestones. SunGard’s Project Manager Lisa Horvath, concluded that the project is on schedule to successfully complete on time. The project plan may be viewed here, and the remaining task list may be viewed here. The next conference call between SunGard and Cy Fair is scheduled for Tuesday, February 25, 2014 at 1:00 pm.

This week, the conversion team focused on ‘bug-fixes’ in programs that failed the initial user verification testing. Of the 150+ programs converted by Rich Crishock and T Traweek, only 10 programs failed to run as expected. The Cy Fair Testing and Sign-off Document for these programs can be viewed here, and the SunGard Sign-Off Checklist can be viewed here. Each of these checklists must be complete prior to the final conversion. T Traweek also prepared the timeline for the final database conversion to begin Friday March 12, 2014. The final conversion schedule can be viewed here. As the ‘go-live’ date, March 24, 2014 approaches, the team is busy completing the final tasks in preparation for a successful go-live implementation.

SunGard eSchoolPlus Student Information Systems Expansion and StabilizationWith the approval for the eSchoolPlus infrastructure expansion server complete, Rodney White is working with the SunGard team to establish the project plan milestones and timeline. This new server will provide a faster and more reliable platform for eSchoolPlus users, which are primary teachers utilizing eSchoolPlus to administer the classroom. This server upgrade is expected to be installed by May 1, 2014 and be online and available for the end-of-year report card and graduation certification.

Supporting the Payroll DepartmentEric May, Assistant Director of Information Services and Applications (ISA), worked closely with Mark Flores, Director of Payroll and Insurance, to coordinate the payroll for the inclement weather days for all employees. Cy Fair had to account for the two days that the district was closed as bad weather days and pay the employees that did work. This week, they worked together to verify that every employee payroll was accurate in light of the bad weather school closure days and whether each employee actually worked none, one or both of those days.

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Supporting the Community Programs / Club Rewind ProgramFriday, February 21, 2014 John Crumbley and Eric May joined Kristina Perez, Director of Community Programs, and Melanie Dobney, Assistant Director, for the kick-off meeting of their new Program Management Application Suite. Cy Fair has contracted with NWN to design and construct a suite of web-based applications to that will serve as the management platform for all of the community programs. You can learn more about Cy Fair Community Programs and the wonderful things they do for the community here.

Hayes TIPWeb Technology Asset Tracking Implementation StatusThe training for the Hayes TIPWeb technology asset tracking system is almost complete. Leonard Chance and Ashley Katzenberger from the Acquisition, Assets, and Sustainability (AAS) team, with the help of Giancarlo Layme (one of the high school mentors), trained the high school Technology Assistants (TAs) on how to use the new inventory system. This training was presented on Tuesday February 18th, with two sessions, the first one starting at 8:00 and the second starting at 12:00 On Wednesday February 19th Leonard and Ashley with the help of Michelle Campos, Doug Baker, and Tim Crook (elementary TA mentors) trained the elementary TAs on the use of the new inventory system. Also on Wednesday Leonard and Ashley trained the service center technicians. All of the training went well. The middle school TA training was rescheduled for next week due to the problem with the air handler going out on Wednesday causing the server room to go down. In addition to the training, the Network Management Operations (NMO) team has been working with the Hayes team to address an issue with the configuration of the Single Sign On (SSO) client. This issue prevents the users from logging on to the inventory system. On Thursday there was a conference call with the Hayes team and our NMO team. The Hayes team said that this issue will be resolved soon. Once this issue is corrected we will issue scan guns to the TAs and the new inventory system will be ready to use. At the end of this training we are set to “Go Live.” Click here to see the implementation schedule. Also, pictures taken during training can be viewed here.

Phonoscope Fiber Reconstruction Project ContinuesThe Phonoscope reconstruction project continues on its course with the installation of fibers at all school facilities. The Enterprise Communications Network (ECN) team continues to work to finish the fiber ring construction. We have moved fibers in a majority of the school facilities that enables us to use the fiber ring. Phonoscope has had engineers in the field, at our school locations as well as in the Network Operations Center (NOC) facilities. Thomas Hollister, Oscar Villar, and MCA have been assisting in making sure these moves occur without problems. Roland Padilla is spearheading this project and is doing an outstanding job of coordinating Phonoscope movements with the district. To see an updated project scope and current status, click here. This project plan now includes the latest fiber movements occurring in the project and some of the notes provided currently by the project manager, Kevin Kane of Phonoscope. We are moving pretty quickly through the movement of the fibers as we work together as a team. Phonoscope also continues to work evenings at the ISC and remote facilities to make sure that all existing fibers are working properly for the rest of the ongoing fiber installations.

Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT) with Aruba’s Proof of Concept (POC) ClearPass SolutionSignificant progress was completed in the Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT) using Aruba’s Proof of Concept (POC) ClearPass solution. A meeting was held with Frankie Jackson, Fred Brenz, Aruba sales and engineering staff, and Layer 3 sales and engineering staff. This meeting had several items of discussion, including splash screens, testing schedules, roll out schedules, and deadlines for moving forward. Frankie inquired about the splash screens known as “skins” that a user will see when trying to gain access to the network with their wireless device. Several layouts were discussed and Aruba offered to obtain the layouts that Los Angeles Unified School District is using as a guide. Click here to view a sample mobile device login “splash” screen and here to view a laptop splash screen. We also discussed the needed testing that must be implemented before releasing the BYOT solution to the clients. We agreed to test at least one school that is connected to one of our 14 controllers by Spring Break. We had originally set on 3 schools for testing but have increased that number to include a school site on each controller to make sure proper operation will be obtained upon roll out of the project. We still have to get the process completed that will load the wireless network certificates on the clients and we have obtained the steps needed for security identification on the wireless devices. Aruba Networks and Layer 3 engineers are standing by throughout this process to make

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sure there are not any issues. Click here to view the updated project plan with draft screenshots of our initial “skins.” Lastly, The DII team will build a delivery package for Zen that will take care of the automated distribution and installation. We are getting very close to finalizing the project.

The Development of Enterprise Communications Network (ECN) RFPs and Preparing for E-Rate Funding for 2014-2015Tremendous efforts were spent gearing up to make selections for our outstanding Request for Proposals (RFPs) in preparation for requesting 2014-2015 e-rate funds. We are at a point in this process where the responses turned in are being evaluated and the RFPs’ that are still out on the street have a constant stream of questions coming in. We have also extended the deadlines on two of the RFPs. These extensions were posted as addendums on our website. These addendums can be found by clicking here at RFP’s. We have posted deadlines on questions so that we can stop answering questions and focus our attentions more on evaluations. We have been in contact with Region 12, EPS, and our purchasing department to coordinate efforts as our deadlines draw near. Fred Brenz was able to work with EPS to narrow down evaluations on five of the RFPs responded to and begin working on the 6th RFP. Also completed with the help of EPS are three separate question and answers postings that will finalize the questions on the RFPs. There are questions that have arisen as we go through all of the responses we have for evaluation. We will continue to work through these questions as they arise and set up further meetings to discuss each question. This coming week will see the deadline for the last four (4) RFPs. These will mark the last of the RFPs’ that we have on the street. There will be a very tight timeline from response deadline to Board readiness. We must be very focused on getting this process completed. Click here to see a sampling of the many questions that we get and are providing responses. These questions allow for the respondents to get more specific and design solutions that can better aid the district in our goal to build a world-class network infrastructure. A complete listing of all RFPS can be seen by clicking here. This listing shows all available RFPs that we have both completed and are still accepting responses.

EPS Inc., our e-rate consulting partner, has provided outstanding support. They are following all of the paperwork, and collection and correlation of data associated with all of these RFP’s. We would not be able to process this number of RFPs in the manner or rate at which we have completed, without their superior professional work ethic. The schedule we currently are running up against can be seen by clicking here. These RFPs will finish off our desire to encompass solutions that aid in bringing our network infrastructure to a place that will enable the district to provide the necessary technology tools to support 21st century learners while also providing a platform for future proofing those services that we have yet to even discover. Frankie Jackson has empowered her staff to reach out to the various industries and learning environments to acquire partners in design and implementation of an infrastructure able to support technologies of today, while reaching forward into the K-12 educational environments and develop the platforms necessary to carry the district into the future as a leader and catalyst of technical services in education.

Lastly, Frankie worked in between with EPS and ESC12 Works, our e-rate filing partner, to make sure we have a well-defined process in place for managing the overall e-rate filing for 2014-2015. Click here to view the process that has been set in place. This process provides the district support from EPS on the front end of the e-rate filing process to build technical requirements and RFPs, and ESC12 Works on the back end to help file the paperwork for the funding requests. Additionally, Frankie received approval from Stuart Snow to sign a contract with ESC12 Works for them to process e-rate priority 2 funding requests in 2014-2015. Under the e-rate program, E-rate funds are allocated according to rules of priority, with first priority given to requests for telecommunications services, telecommunications, and Internet access services; these services are listed in the "Priority One" section of the Eligible Services List (ESL). The remaining available funds are allocated to requests for support for internal connections and basic maintenance of internal connections; these services are listed in the "Priority Two" section of the ESL.

Working to Submit the District’s Technology PlanFrankie and Becky Cook met on Wednesday, February 19, 2013 to discuss the next steps for updating the District’s technology plan. Becky confirmed with Region IV that the plan should be submitted by March 30, 2014 to ensure the plan is reviewed and approved by the Texas Education Agency before July 1, 2014, which is needed for e-rate filing purposes. Additionally, The Long Range Planning Committee (LRPC) inputs for technology will now be used to support our ePlan in preparation for E-Rate filing for 2014-2015. Inputs to finalize the ePlan will be submitted if the Board of Trustees approves the Long Range Planning Committee’s recommendations for moving forward with a May 2014 Bond Election.

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Preparations to Support the District’s 2020 Vision: Long Range Planning ProcessThe Long Range Planning Committee (LRPC) presented the overall needs and costs to the Board of Trustees on February 12, 2014. On February 27, 2017, the Board of Trustees will vote on whether or not the district will call for a Bond election in May 2014. All technology requests for priority 1 are scheduled to be included in the Bond, which can be reviewed here. For planning purposes, Frankie provided Roy Sprague, Associate Superintendent of Facilities, Construction & Support Services, a list of summary technology items, showing what each campus will received as part of the technology improvements in the proposed Bond. In the upcoming weeks, Frankie will prepare a breakdown of specific technology improvements in the six key project areas. This will provide additional levels of detail that voters may be interested in learning about before they cast their vote.

Research in Using the Proposed Interactive Display Boards as Video Distribution and Security Devices in the ClassroomFrankie arranged for Cisco Systems to bring in a demonstration of the interactive display board with video distribution and network connectivity, which was discussed during the Long Range Planning Committee meetings. Specifically, Cisco engineers brought in the Cisco Telepresence Synch equipment, which brings video to the classroom by converting a standard interactive whiteboard into a multifunction collaboration tool. Included in the demonstration were Becky Cook, Fred Brenz, Jay Johnson, Frank Adain, and Kim Bowlin. Additional information about the technology can be accessed at these links.

● Frankie’s Recorded video of the demonstration with Cisco● About the Interactive Display Boards● Demonstration Lecture with Cisco's solution to easily capture, transform and share video in education and TelePresence

Synch, which transparently integrates interactive whiteboards with Cisco TelePresence.● Video about how to share content on Mobile Devices with Intelligent Proximity

Additionally, Cisco is interested in creating a partnership with CyFair, focused on technology based collaboration in the classroom. Cisco is inviting members of our district to join them in San Jose, California for an executive briefing to see what Cisco is developing, and to gain a better understanding of CyFair’s initiatives and how Cisco can create the classroom of the future. Becky Cook plans to discuss this with Linda Micias, to determine if she would be interested in this opportunity.

Preparations for Reconsidering Google as a Replacement E-MailThe second E-Mail committee meeting convened on February 17, 2014. Frankie Jackson worked with both Microsoft and Google to help prepare for the onsite demonstrations. Google presented from 3:00 - 4:00 p.m. and Microsoft presented from 4:30 - 5:30. With the help of Katie Hernandez, the committee was expanded to include all ISC department secretaries. As a result, the demonstrations included wider representation. After the demonstrations, Katie sent out this survey, to collect input from each committee member about their opinions about the two products. The survey will close at noon on Monday, February 24, 2014. We will then summarize the committee’s inputs and share the information to determine our next steps. The following are the primary questions asked in the survey:

● Would you be interested in participating in an online evaluation of Google and Microsoft e-mail?● Would you be interested in visiting another school district that uses Google and/or Microsoft?● Do you have specific questions to ask Google and/or Microsoft?, and if so, list them.● List any other information needed before you would feel confident in personally making a recommendation.

A summary matrix of the capabilities is being developed as shown here. Additionally, Frankie is working with Microsoft and Google to set-up live e-mail evaluation accounts so that each committee member can experience both products in a real-live e-mail environment.

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Technology Transformation Team (T3) Leadership MeetingThe Technology Leadership team met Monday, February 17, 2014. All leaders were available for discussions. Topics included sharing ideas about employee satisfaction versus employee engagement. We also discussed core values, goals, budgets, and project status. The full meeting notes can be viewed here.

Technology Transformation Tactical Team (T4) Meetings and Coordination Meetings with Instructional TechnologyFrankie met with all Technology Services teams. She also met with Becky Cook to discuss instructional technology priorities and prepare the high-level summary list of technology improvements. Project status for each team are as follows.

Jay’s Acquisition, Assets and Sustainability teamFred’s Enterprise Communications teamJohn’s Information Services and Applications teamPaula’s Network Management Operations teamLarry’s Device Imaging and Integration teamJennifer’s Customer Care Center team

Texas K-12 Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Council Board Meeting and Monthly Council Conference CallAs chair of the Texas K-12 Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Council, Frankie led the board meeting and monthly CTO Council conference calls on Thursday, February 20, 2014. The agenda item for the CTO Council conference call can be viewed here. Frankie is honored to serve as the chair this year, having the opportunity to lead the state of Texas in technology initiatives

Technology Services Organizational Values SurveyThe Technology Leadership team has been working the past several months to define a clear set of organizational values. These are values that shape the organizational culture and reflect what is important to us. In short, these values are the essence of our organization's identity: the guiding principles for how we provide service. Six categories of values are proposed. To find out if all staff members believe these values are important, this survey was sent to all staff. The results will be analyzed in the upcoming week.

2014-2015 Budget Preparations are SubmittedFrankie, along with Katie Hernandez and the Technology Services’ leadership team prepared and submitted our 2014-2015 budgets. Katie was instrumental in designing a streamlined process for collecting, reviewing, and update all 7 team’s budgets. She placed each team’s budget worksheet in a Google Doc so that each team could update and collaborate on budget needs for next year. Because it is the first year that the team leaders have managed their budgets. as well as Frankie and Katie being new in their positions, this was helpful in assuring all items needed were accounted for in the budget.

IBM Personalized Learning as a Potential Pilot Project for CyFair ISDOn Friday, February 21, 2014, Frankie met with IBM Vice President, Jeff Jordan, Application Innovation Americas Global Business Systems, along with Stan Biliski and Alex Kaplan to discuss a pilot project with IBM research as a first-of-a-kind project to improve student outcomes through big data and analytics. Click here and here to read more about this innovative technology. IBM would like to work with several districts to build a customized solution for education and CyFair is on their list! Currently they are talking to Gwinnett County Public schools (Georgia's largest school district) and Houston ISD. The next step is to talk to Ashley Clayburn and Linda Micias to determine if there is an interest, and to provide additional information.

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Voice of the Customer (VOC) Technology Assistants (TA) Meeting on February 26, 2014The Voice of the Customer, Technology Assistant (TA) meeting will be held on Wednesday, February 26th, 2014. The meetings will be structured differently due to the need for Telpas Testing training. The Novice and Mentor meeting will be held from 8:00 - 10:00. At 8:00, we will discuss the Technology Services portion of the meeting. At 9:00, the Testing Department will cover the Telpas Testing training session. The Progressive meeting will be held from 10:00 - 12:00. The Telpas Testing training session will be held at 10:00 with the Technology Services portion of the meeting held at 11:00. Requests for the next meeting can be entered through the form found here.

Building the Technology Services KnowledgebaseIncreased focus in working towards building a Technology Services knowledge base is in progress. As we work to create an environment where all staff can learn, participate, and be engaged, priority is being placed on creating a knowledge base of information where information can be accessed anytime and anywhere. The concept of moving to a "flipped" style of self-service is the direction of the department, including in all meetings. Click here to read about flipped meetings. Information will be posted in a knowledge base in advance. When the information is presented, it will be presented from that knowledge base (which may be wikia, or project share, or iSupport, or a website content management system - the concept is the same). Time in the meeting will be focused on questions, answers, innovation and opportunities for improvement. Then all information should be readily available after the meeting for easy access. These links show some of the efforts that are being worked on, as an initiative to get started in building the knowledge base.

● Wikia● Project Share - Customer Care Center● Project Share - Technology Services● Possibilities with iSupport knowledge base

Technology Services Staff RecognizedRead about Technology Services employees that are recognized for “Finding A Way” in providing EXTRAORDINARY technology service, which included for this week are: Fred Brenz, Paula Ross, Greg Rhodes, Lance Melancon, Mike Raspet, John Crumbley, Frank Adian, Carol Billingsley, Josh Zhang, Anthony Melton, Daniel Serwinek, Lillie Swearingen, and Derly Buentello. Also, click here to read about staff that received a “thank you” because their team greatly appreciated their work.

Device Imaging and Integration (DII) Team in Preparing to Support TabletsLarry Barrios and the DII team are very excited and proud to welcome Nancy Grella to their team. Nancy began working in CyFair in 2005. She worked as a food service cashier at Spillane and then Robison for two years. In 2008 she was a long term sub and started working for Kim Bowlin as an assistant and her duties involved doing Pick Up and Delivery Service (PUDS) and processing purchase orders. She started her technical career as a Technical Assistant in 2008 supporting CyLakes. She was an outstanding TA and excelled at servicing her school. She took a position as a software clerk and Technology Assistant for Technology Services in 2012. In this role she organized the software for all technology departments and supported software licenses for all services contracts. In this position she also served as TA for the administrative areas and supported other TAs as needed. As the district started purchasing tablets, Nancy took on the task of working with Derly and taking care of the tablets. This area has grown and as we move forward, the district recognized a need for someone to manage and oversee the tablet implementation and deployment. She is now promoted to serve in this area as a Technology Software Specialist. The DII team would like everyone to take a moment to congratulate Nancy and wish her the best in her new role!

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Frankie Jackson’s Meetings and Conferences Scheduled for February 17th through February 21st, 2014

● Monday, February 17, 2014 – Luminate Technologies with Len Noble● Monday, February 17, 2014 – T3 Meeting with Technology Leadership● Monday, February 17, 2014 – E-Mail Selection Committee Meeting● Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - Stuart Snow Department Meeting● Tuesday, February 18, 2014 – Aruba Networks and Layer 3● Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - Lisa Horvath, Karen Smith, eFinancePLUS 5.0 Upgrade Project Status Call● Tuesday, February 18, 2014 - Campus Visit at Copeland Elementary● Wednesday, February 19, 2014 – T4 Meeting, Becky Cook, Jennifer Miller, CCC, Larry Barrios, DII, Paula Ross, NMO, Jay

Johnson, AAS, Fred Brenz, ECN, John Crumbley, ISA● Wednesday, February 19, 2014 - ProLogic, Rusty Player● Wednesday, February 19, 2014 - Cisco, Dr. Lance Ford and Interactive Display Board with Video Conferencing● Thursday, February 20, 2014 - District Leadership Team meeting● Friday, Feb. 21, 2014 – IBM Personalized Learning, Stan Biliski and Alex Kaplan

Frankie Jackson’s Meetings and Conferences Scheduled for February 24th through February 28th, 2014

● Monday, February 24, 2014 – Corpus Christi ISD, Conf. call about their e-mail selection process● Monday, February 24, 2014 - Conference call with Microsoft about our licensing program and what it covers● Monday, February 24, 2014 – T3 Meeting with Technology Leadership● Tuesday, February 26, 2014 - TASBO Annual Conference● Tuesday, February 26, 2014 - Lisa Horvath, Karen Smith, eFinancePLUS 5.0 Upgrade Project Status Call● Thursday, February 27, 2014 - TASBO Annual Conference● Thursday, February 27, 2014 - Special Called Board Meeting to Possibly Call for a Bond Election

Student Learning and Process OutcomesSignificant progress is being made in reducing service request response time: on average, comparing January 2014 to February 2014 average to date, response time has decreased by 42%. There is still a great amount of improvement needed as 52% of our total service requests are not completed within our target resolution time, as defined in our Service Level Agreement (SLA). Click here to view the analysis. The Customer Care Center (CCC) will continue to monitor this closely.

Customer-Focused OutcomesSince January 13, 1398 surveys have been distributed to customers requesting their feedback about our service. Results indicate 98% customer satisfaction. We are continuing to connect with customers to implement service improvement strategies. We are very proud of the progress that we continue to make in this area! Our link showing customer compliments can be viewed here.

Workforce-Focused OutcomesResults from the Technology Services employee well-being survey issued during February 10th - 14th, 2014 are outstanding with 100% of employees feeling appreciated, and 98% satisfied in their jobs! Click here to view the results. “Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” - Leo Buscaglia. Thank you for appreciating one another!

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District NOC Takes a Hit and Powers Down on February 19th, 2014Our main Network Operations Center (NOC) at the Instructional Support Center (ISC) had a power failure on February 19th, 2014. An air conditioning unit that cools our Uninterruptible Power Service (UPS) room had a compressor failure and overheated. This in turn tripped circuits providing power to our main NOC. All network equipment went offline very early Wednesday morning. Staff members from Technology Services instantly responded and began bringing systems back online. This type of abrupt power loss proved to be detrimental to the normal operation off our mission critical systems. The result was that all Internet connectivity and systems were down. The pictures say it all; click here to see how Technology Staff pulled together as a team to address these issues. Detailed notes of the issues can be read here. The following is a recap of the total restoration that was completed during a 72 hour period.

● The Tipping Point Intrusion Prevention System ( IPS) interfaces had to be reconfigured on four separate interfaces to

get the Internet traffic running properly.

● The firewalls had to be rebooted to clear network translation tables and Internet traffic.

● All networking routing tables had to be reconfigured on the inside network traffic for the 10 Gig switch that handles all

Internet traffic.

● The Bluecat network domain naming server was not responding and we had to contact Bluecat technical services for support. This particular system gave us the most trouble. The team had to tear down the High Availability (HA) pair system rebuild it from scratch. This actually had to be done multiple times. As an end result, the HA pair was vulnerable to specific in-operation. We had the opportunity to discover this inoperable code in our environment. Finally on Friday night late we were able to apply patches to the system that allowed us to re-employ the Bluecat system fully and operationally.

● The load balancer that manages network traffic, Fatpipe Networks, had to be re-configured.● iExplore was the last system to be restored, which was not until late Friday night on February 21, 2014. The website

certificates for iExplore had to be updated on the servers provided by SchoolNet’s hosting servers.

To complicate matters during the NOC power outage, Phonoscope was under a DDoS attack, at the same time we were trying to bring the network back up. It was the “perfect storm.” A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack is a flood of incoming messages that essentially forces it to shut down, thereby denying service. An official response from Phonoscope can be read here.

In moving forward, the Long Range Planning Committee (LRPC) approved Technology Services’ recommendations to upgrade the district’s technology infrastructure. As shown here, the proposed Bond will include upgraded power and air conditioning, co-locating the district’s NOC at an external facility, and building a fault-tolerant backup, recovery, and business continuity infrastructure. Between now and the proposed Bond, Frankie is working with eVolve Data Center solutions to conduct a site energy audit that includes an energy analysis, independent validation and verification, electrical analysis to assure reliability between now and the time technology infrastructure improvements can be implemented.

Closing

The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.” - Phil Jackson

If any information contained in this communication is inaccurate or needs further explanation, feel free to contact Frankie Jackson at FrankieJ.Jackson@cfisd.net. For next week, click here to submit a finding the way, a thank you, or any suggestion for improvement. The process for preparing this document can be viewed here. All information related to this document can be found at www.frankiejackson.net.

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