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CIO Update for the Week of Aug 24

School begins today for virtually all elementary, junior high, and high school students across the great State of Texas. College students are moving in and several campuses begin classes this week. The Fall semester is officially here. In looking at the calendar for the week of August 24th, the following items of general interest are worth commenting on:

News

New

  • The System CISO and the System Facilities Security Officer are beginning the process of assessing the impact of new DFARS rules on future research contracts. These new rules surround NIST controls and must be reconciled to the new TAC 202 requirements.

  • The University of Texas System Board of Regents approved funding for the 100Gig triangle. In conjunction with work already completed and planned by TTVN, this approval will create a 100Gig triangle connecting Austin, Dallas, Houston, and BCS.

  • The System CEOs were notified that standardized title codes and compensation plans for non-faculty employees are ready for implementation. The System Office will be working with the CEOs to develop an implementation plan and timeline for each Member.

System-Wide Contracting News

New

  • CIOs met with SolutionsPlus last week to finalize the RFP for the Banner Center of Excellence. Those comments will be made available to OGC and Procurement later this week.

In Process

  • The RFI responses for the Maestro RFI will continued to be reviewed this week.

  • TAMUS finalized the amendment to engage SolutionsPlus to provide RFP evaluation assistance for the Banner Services RFP.

  • The RFP for Mobile Application Services closes on August 26th. It has been posted at Mobile Apps RFP.

Repeats

  • Siteimprove checks web pages, every five days, for spelling, grammar, broken links, and accessibility. The cost is 54 cents per web page per year. Any Members interested in adding this service need to contact me directly.

  • The System-wide agreement with Cisco WebEx allows Members to purchase licenses for their entire faculty/administrators at the low cost of $1.44/month/license.

  • Syncplicity licensing is available for all Members.

Projects

New

  • The Workday team hosted the top two finalists for a system integrator last week. More details will be made available as Procurement rules allows.

In Process

  • Dollar Data Center — TAMU is working with OGC and Real Estate to nail down a contract with a second component #1 vendor (data center build out). The evaluation of the second component (compute and storage) and third components (IT services) are in process.

SCIO Trips/Visits

  • Fort Worth (August 25th)