News
New
The Kyle Field Executive Re-Development Committee meets Tuesday.
The Texas A&M University System Technology Summit is currently accepting presentation proposals for breakout sessions that explore technology, leadership and project management. Tech Summit is where technology experts come to network, learn from the best and exchange solutions for common challenges. Breakout sessions last 45 minutes and include 25-50 participants. Sessions should be as interactive as possible and may be jointly presented by teams of staff or faculty. Submit your proposal today using the online form. Proposals are due by midnight Saturday, October 31, 2015.
Last week, the success of the University of Texas at Austin’s standardized/centralized workstation procurement model was highlighted. Closer to home, Alan Kurk shared with me the success of a similar program at Agrilife.
Agrilife
- The program funds itself and pays for the one FTE they have who performs all the imaging, shipping and procurement. The savings are inclusive of hardware savings, FTE hours saved compared against older decentralized imaging/setup of the hardware process, and FTE hours by unit level business staff to perform purchase and procurement individually.
- SmartDeploy is the technology they use to deploy multiple unique images to each system that is ordered. They have master images for various types of positions and units. SmartDeploy is unique in that the software image is separate from the hardware/drivers image. Thus, they are able to allow a college department for example to master their image in a VM on the smartdeploy server and Agrilife is able to deploy it to any type of vendor hardware. Their current workflow supports delivering a system within 2 hours with custom image. The actual imaging process takes 15 minutes on average (depending on image size).
- All systems through the program are fed into their AgiLoft Asset Management dataset which is then correlated to the new owner of the workstation. So when support tickets arrive in the future their service desk personnel have all the information about the system already at their fingertips with remote access key codes etc.
- They are exclusively an HP shop and have consistently obtained lesser cost solutions with higher quality enterprise/business class workstations beyond those offered from Dell.
- Agrilife’s FY 15 numbers:
- Total Systems Sold to Date = 328
- SmartDeploy License Revenue = $5,576
- Tech Position Revenue = $32,800
- Total Revenue = $212,068
- Estimated Savings = $265,352
System-Wide Contracting News
New
The committee evaluating the RFP for Mobile Application Services has identified four finalists. These four finalists may be given an opportunity to make on-site presentations.
In Process
The RFP for Student Information System Support Services has been posted. The link can be found at Student Information System Support RFP.
WEPA prepared information sheets about their kiosk printing option. If you are interested in this option, please contact me directly. We could approach WEPA about a System-wide pricing agreement.
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
Project Helios Updates:
- Contract negotiations continue with Deloitte, the Project Helios System Integrator.
- The Project Helios IV&V (Independent Verification & Validation) RFP is in under review by Procurement.
- The Project Helios project team attended Workday fundamentals training last week and many are headed this week to Workday Rising, Workday’s annual user conference.
In Process
Dollar Data Center – Texas A&M IT is working with System Office Facilities and Real Estate on the new TAMU data center.
SCIO Trips/Visits
- No trips/visits planned for this week.