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ITAC: Major Themes for 2009–10

Below are the new themes proposed for 2009–10, developed in consultation with current ITAC membership and campus stakeholders, with bullet point notes about ITAC 2009–10 focus and strategy with regard to each.

1. Cloud computing

   Develop/adapt/adopt working campus definitions around the generic term "cloud computing" to foster a semantically consistent campus discussion about how the campus invests in cloud computing.

   • Defining and setting scope (for example, Salesforce.com, Google Apps/Gmail, Platforms like EC2/S3, Rackspace)
   • ITAC oversight for Procurement/Security Task Force on Externally Hosted Services, IT policy and RFP implications
   • ITAC/CISCP "double-barrel" approach to campus cloud definitions

2. Campus foundational services and ITAC oversight function

   Build a working list of IT services that are foundational in nature (whether delivered by IST or other campus units), and develop a strategy for providing oversight to these services for the greater campus good. This oversight function resides with the CIO, who delegates recommending authority to the committee.

   • Deliverable: list of campus services (perhaps linked with "the radar"), documenting status of services in the IT lifecycle (developed and approved in 2007-2008)
   • Working groups to discuss specifics around campus requirements for SOA/ESB, Identity Management, tied to oversight of IST delivery teams
   • Integrated process linked with campus audit to identify foundational services

3. Developer Collaboration / Standards

   Promote campus technical standards and awareness of initiatives among campus technical staff by providing a focal point for the developer community and offering incentives for adoption of common approaches where this is beneficial/sensible.

   • Deliverable: a set of standards and tools to foster increased developer maturity. Open although geared to the Kuali stack.
   • Developer Collaborative Tools (Integrated Confluence wiki, Jira, SVN/Git) [Sponsor: IST Web Applications/Architecture and CIO]
   • Developer Reference Applications [Sponsor: RSSP/ IST Web Applications/Architecture]

The ITAC Radar

ITAC will be actively tracking the major IT and technology initiatives at Berkeley on our radar. "The ITAC radar" is simply a wiki page updated by the members listing major IT activities (including network, data center, platform, database, information/data management, and applications).

In a sense, the radar is an outgrowth of ITAC's discussion in past years about how to perform a review function for campus initiatives, where it appeared ITAC and campus had no funding/governance levers.

The radar will recognize campus IT/software efforts worthy of note. Projects or services of note will be added to the radar, and ITAC will draw from this list of initiatives on the radar to bring live demonstrations, technology walkthroughs, and architectural overviews to our monthly meetings. Technical staff on radar projects may also draw on ITAC to solicit deeper reviews from the committee or working groups assembled with the proper expertise, and to request aid on larger campus or higher education communication or other support. Finally, the radar will be used to track projects that may eventually fall under ITAC oversight due to their foundational nature in the UC Berkeley IT landscape.

Radar examples to start the discussion:

• IPv6
• Identity Management
• SOA Pilot
• Kuali Continuity
• Kuali Student
• Kuali Coeus
• Opencast
• Open Collection
• Sakai
• Open Source CalAgenda
• Shibboleth

For more information about ITAC and the work planned for 2009–10, see the ITAC 2009-2010 Plan on the ITAC wiki.