CIT Conference 2019

COUNTRY Financial Atrium Lower Level

Catch up with your colleagues over breakfast pastries and fruit, provided by the conference.

DevOps @IllinoisState (State Farm Hall of Business 139)

You may have heard about DevOps and definitions about that term vary as much as the descriptions in the parable of the blind men and the elephant. So, instead of trying to explain DevOps with a formal definition, this presentation intends to showcase actual examples where projects here at Illinois State have benefited from the application of DevOps practices. The session will include demonstrations that focus on the outcomes and success for the users. We also expect to foster a discussion on how different teams may be able to incorporate and evolve current practices to do more automation and how to start your journey to implement DevOps principles.

• Majeed Abu-Qulbain
  Abu-Qulbain began work at ISU as a student in January 2000, transitioning to full-time in October 2001 with the Computer Help Desk (now TSC). After receiving a degree in Telecommunications Mgt. in 2004 he shifted to the UNIX systems team where he was able to implement the full stack of server and storage hardware, virtualization, operating systems, and the applications above. Focuses have been on load balancing, mail, identity, and web infrastructures. Abu-Qulbain resides within Infrastructure, Operations, and Networking as a Senior Enterprise Architect.

• Tony Brook
  An application administrator for Administrative Technologies since January 2014, Brook has been working in the IT field officially since 2010, and with computers in general since before he could read. He is a graduate of ISU with a bachelor's in English studies, with a particular interest in rhetoric and prose. Ask anyone who has seen his documentation to get an idea how those interests mesh. Brook is the primary administrator of Ellucian Colleague, TouchNet, and GitLab.

• Ryan Christie
  Starting off as an application developer, Christie's main focus was on front–end development and managing many of the university-wide applications such as the CMS, the events calendar, and the Google Search Appliance. Transitioning into his role of web Operations Manager, Christie focuses his time trying to make the office function more efficiently by combining his business education with his developer background.

• Joshua Durst
  Joshua Durst is a Technical Associate with Infrastructure, Operations, and Networking for Administrative Technologies at Illinois State University. Josh currently supports the authentication stack (OAM, CAS, SSO), LDAP, and Netscaler loadbalancers.

• Tanner Hong
  Tanner Hong is a Technical Associate with Infrastructure, Operations, and Networking for Administrative Technologies at Illinois State University. Tanner currently supports the authentication stack (OAM, CAS, SSO), LDAP and several other ION CCA operations.

• Adam Julian
  Julian began his IT career at ISU as a student in 2003, graduating in 2007 with a degree in Telecommunications Management. In 2009, he joined ISU full time supporting EMAS technology where he previously worked as student. Julian joined WEB and Interactive Communications in 2014 to fuel his passion of working on the web. In his role as a full stack developer, he supports the development and maintenance of over 150 websites including the University Homepage and MY Illinois State. While his development toolset is ever-changing, he primarily uses PHP, JavaScript, SQL, Docker, and Ansible daily to make the web work at ISU.

Leveraging Gartner Insights and Resources for Technology Decisions and Teaching and Learning (State Farm Hall of Business 22H)

Gartner and Illinois State University have a campus access solution partnership, where all students, staff, and faculty can leverage a web portal that gives research and insights around technology trends and best practices. Come learn where to access this resource and ideas of how to incorporate in your efforts to support ISU.

• Jeromy Franks
  Jeromy Franks leads the Gartner partnerships within EDU, including all Illinois state universities.

Managing Macs on a Shoestring Budget (State Farm Hall of Business 148)

Are you managing your macOS environment via sneakernet? Do you feel like you've got no control over your Macs? It doesn't have to be that way! There's a wealth of widely-accepted, open-source tools that can give that control back. We'll be reviewing and demoing some of the more widely-used tools such as Munki, MunkiReport, Hello IT, and AutoPkg.

• Matt Gromer
  An ISU alum, Matt started at ISU a little more than three years ago, throwing himself into the "deep end" of macOS management. In the time sense, he's come to love the surly little machines, despite everything.

Managing Macs on a Shoestring Budget Presentation

Building Cherwell Searches (State Farm Hall of Business 22C)

(30 minute session, 8:30 am - 9:00 am)
This hands-on demonstration will show you how to to create useful searches for dashboard widgets or to export data for report creation.

• Tyler Piper
  Assistant Director - Technology Support Center Tyler has been with ISU since August 2014, overseeing the Technology Support Center, Incident Coordinator, and Knowledge & Training teams. Prior to his current position, Tyler was most recently coordinating Major Incident recovery for a top 50 Fortune 500 insurance company. He also worked as a student Team Lead in Student Affairs IT while completing his undergraduate degree in Marketing with a minor in Psychology. With over 15 years of EndPoint and Systems support experience, Tyler advocates for users to ensure they have the knowledge and tools they need.

Building Cherwell Searches Presentation

Cherwell Asset and Configuration Item Management (State Farm Hall of Business 22C)

(30 minute session, 9:00 am - 9:30 am)
Overview of Cherwell tools to help manage and track physical Configuration Items (CIs) in the Cherwell Configuration Management Database (CMDB). Demonstration of current Cherwell One-Steps being utilized to efficiently manage and track the complete lifecycle of the CI from creation to disposal.

• Andrew Nelson
  Andrew Nelson has been with the University since 2001, currently serving as an IT Support Specialist with Administrative Technologies Endpoint Support. Andrew has been responsible for the tracking and warranty repair work of over 4000 IT assets for the last four years. For the last year Andrew has also taken on the management of AT eRecycling at Property Control, diagnosing and sterilizing all IT surplus items returned to Property Control.

Cherwell Asset and Configuration Item Management Presentation

COUNTRY Financial Atrium Lower Level

Keynote Address: Improving the Student Experience with a Smart Campus

One of the best ways to think about the future of learning is to start by inventing the future you desire. This session will explore how Smart Campus solutions have the potential to transform the student living environments, digital classroom experiences, and the physical campuses with AWS services including IoT and ML/AI services and more. We will share AWS’ vision for driving a student focused transformation within higher education.

• Leroy Jenkins
  Leroy Jenkins is a Global Business Development Manager for the Amazon Web Services Education division. He spent four years as an End User Computing Specialist on the AWS Commercial sales team. Prior to AWS he held a variety of customer facing Solution Architecture and Systems Engineering roles at companies including Symantec, NetApp, WRQ, and Dell. He also spent several years as a Program Manager for Storage and Servers at Microsoft. Leroy holds a degree in Computer Science from Principia College. While originally from New Jersey, he resides with his wife Julie in Seattle. When not working, Leroy enjoys mentoring high school students, reading, travelling, exploring the city, and finding new ways to fail at golf.

• Roger Murff
  Roger Murff is a global business development lead for the AWS EDU business. He has over 25 years of software industry experience and previously led software partnerships at Box for five years as the company grew revenue 12x, added 1,000 employees and IPOed. Prior to Box, he worked in product and business roles at a number of technology companies including Microsoft, Adobe, and Accenture. He holds Bachelor's Degrees in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from Brown University, was a Peace Corps volunteer in Malawi, Africa, and a Rotary Scholar at the University of South Wales in Sydney, Australia. When not building new software businesses, he enjoys reading, writing, sculpting, running and heading outdoors with his wife, two expensive, college-aged kids and one lazy, yellow Lab.

Presentation of the CIT MVP Award

The annual CIT MVP award recipient and nominees will be announced. This award recognizes a full-time IT staff member who has made outstanding contributions to the support of faculty, staff, students, and operations over the previous fiscal year.

IT News

IT News features the latest news and announcements from campus technology leaders

CIT Annual 2019 IT News master slide deck

Outside Caterpillar Auditorium, SFHB 139 (seating available in the COUNTRY Financial Atrium Lower Level)

Catered by Avanti’s and includes pasta, sandwiches, and salads. Vegetarian and gluten-free options also available by request for registered attendees.

Pros and Cons of Identity Automation (State Farm Hall of Business 139)

The Office of Identity and Access Management invites you to attend a panel discussion pertaining to the topic of identity automation. We would like to answer questions and provide insight on how an identity (i.e. "ULID") gets created, populated with data, and changes throughout its active use at the university. We also want to share known issues, their root cause, and how they are generally resolved.

• Devin Carlson
  Carlson has been with ISU for nearly 10 years and is currently an Assistant Director for Infrastructure, Operations, and Networking (ION) in AT. He is responsible for the Cloud Compute and Authentication (CCA), Enterprise Architecture (EA), and Unified Communications (UC) teams. These teams are responsible for many of the campus' infrastructure services, including email, voice, collaboration, compute, virtualization, storage, and backup. He holds a BA in Computer Science from Monmouth College with a minor in Business Administration.

• Ryan Grahs
  Grahs leads the PeopleSoft Admin & Support team in Administrative Technologies.

• Ben Rappleyea
  Benjamin is the Lead IAM Administrator for the Office of Identity and Access Management in Administrative Technologies. He has been with Illinois State University for 4 years and is an advocate for process, security, and experience improvement in the field of identity and access management for students, faculty, and staff.

• Nathan Stien
  Stien has been designing software professionally since the mid-1990s, and has been doing so at ISU since 2012, where he now leads a team of developers in Administrative Technologies. The Integrations Team maintains over 60 active integrations between ISU and vendor systems, and has been involved in the low level details of our Identity Management systems since the beginning of the transition away from the ISU mainframe.

• Derek Story
  Derek has been with ISU mainly in functional and front-end roles for over 15 years; and currently leads the HR Systems team. The team serves the University by managing the data of faculty, staff and student employees (and applicants). They strive to ensure timely and accurate investigation and reporting of employee information. That said, there is always room for improvement... and some humor... and vests.

• Dan Taube
  An assistant director for Administrative Technologies, Taube has been with the University since 2008 serving in numerous IT positions. He is currently over the Office of Identity and Access Management as well as Endpoint Support and Endpoint Systems. Motivated by solving technical and complex problems, Taube is passionate about fixing and advancing IAM automation for the University.

Pros and Cons of Identity Automation Presentation

Presenting: Illinois State's Digital Design System (State Farm Hall of Business 149)

Design systems, pattern libraries, or style guides are the key ingredient to creating a unified and intuitive user experience across campus. The development of Illinois State’s own Digital Design System is officially underway. If you maintain a website, application, or digital product on campus, this session is for you. Experience an introduction of Illinois State University’s Digital Design System and learn what it is, what it isn’t, and how you can play an active role in helping the Digital Design System achieve its ultimate potential. A design system is only successful if it helps people in an organization and this conversation is officially the start of this collaboration.

• Ryan Christie
  Starting off as an application developer, his main focus was on front end development and managing many of the university-wide applications such as the CMS, the events calendar, and the Google Search Appliance. Transitioning into his role of web operations manager, he focuses his time trying to make the office function more efficiently by combining his business education with his developer background.

• Mary Ditchen
  Originally hired as a graphic designer in 2011, Ditchen is now the front end web designer for Web and Interactive Communications. Bridging the divide between designer and developer, her new role perfectly combines her passions for upholding web standards and crafting intuitive, inclusive user interfaces. In her position as front end web designer, Ditchen has played an important role in the redesign of My.IllinoisState.edu and currently serves as one of the main contributors to Illinois State's Digital Design System.

• Amanda Smith
  Smith is the Creative Operations Manager for Web and Interactive Communications. She graduated from Illinois State University in 2006 with degrees in Graphic Design and Photography. Initially working in print production and for a full-service design agency, she joined the team at WEB in 2009 as a graphic designer. In her transition from a mid-level designer to a leadership role, she has continued improving her problem-solving skills by focusing on the user and utilizing empathy.

Illinois State's Digital Design System Presentation

Adobe Campus License @ilstu - Technological and Pedagogical Plans for Year 2 (State Farm Hall of Business 148)

With the start of the new academic year, we will discuss important technical changes and anticipate the broadening use of Adobe tools across Colleges and disciplines including:

• Access for students within labs has changed to a new "Shared Device" licensing schema requiring authentication
• Review the current list of apps, including an easy video editor that works across mobile and desktops
• Learn details of a campus-wide "Creative Jam" event which will be held on Sept. 20
• Hear from several faculty members and how they are using Adobe tools in their curriculum

• Bob Carroll
  Bob Carroll is instructor and TV-10 Production Coordinator for the School of Communication. He has taught Television Production, Visual Communication, Strategic Messaging and Journalism at ISU since 2007. Before that, he worked for more than a decade in the world of television production in positions such as news photographer, commercial production, studio manager and stage design.

• David Greenfield
  David Greenfield, Director of TechZone and Student Technologies, will moderate with others who have done technical or curriculum work at Illinois State.

• Rosie Hauck
  Rosie Hauck is an Associate Professor in the Department of Accounting and BIS. She teaches in the area of Business Systems Analysis, where her courses focus bridging the gap between understanding business problems and discovering how technological solutions can enable businesses to evolve and overcome these problems. Rosie has received numerous awards in teaching, including the Wilma Jean Alexander Innovation Award for the College of Business, a Teaching Initiative Award, the Manahan Family Award for Teaching Excellence in Business, and ISU’s Outstanding University Teaching Award.

Adobe Session at ISU Presentation

Don't Go Mad with NoMAD - Macs without binding to Active Directory (State Farm Hall of Business 150)

NoMAD and NoMAD Login are open source tools that allow you to gain the functionality of binding to Active Directory without actually binding on MacOS. This session will cover what these tools are, what features you gain by using them, and how to get started and set it up.

• Jim Johnson
  Jim Johnson is a Windows System Admin for Endpoint Systems in Administrative Technologies. He is responsible for the design, configuration, and management of desktop operating environments and endpoint applications and services. Johnson is an ISU alumnus from the Department of Technology (B.S. 2013) and began work for AT Endpoint Support in 2013 and has been in his current role since 2014.

NoMAD CIT Presentation

Demo Materials

COUNTRY Financial Atrium Lower Level

Replacing DLIDs with a More Capable and Compliant Solution (State Farm Hall of Business 139)

The Office of Identity and Access Management invites you to attend and participate in an interactive session on Department Login IDs (DLIDs). We will discuss what they are, how they have been used, and why a change is necessary. We will also propose a new approach that meets the current operational needs, achieves compliance requirements, and introduces additional functionality for these types of accounts. Please bring your thoughts, questions, and concerns.

• Kevin Crouse
  Kevin has been at the university since 2014. His current roles include heading up the Information Security Office, The Office of Identity and Access Management, and serving as the University’s Data Protection Officer. He has over 20 years of experience in information technology and security, has obtained numerous industry certifications, and holds a doctorate in Business Administration with a concentration in Computer and Information Security.

• Ben Rappleyea
  Benjamin is the Lead IAM Administrator for the Office of Identity and Access Management in Administrative Technologies. He has been with Illinois State University for 4 years and is an advocate for process, security, and experience improvement in the field of identity and access management for students, faculty, and staff.

• Dan Taube
  An assistant director for Administrative Technologies, Taube has been with the University since 2008 serving in numerous IT positions. He is currently over the Office of Identity and Access Management as well as Endpoint Support and Endpoint Systems. Motivated by solving technical and complex problems, Taube is passionate about fixing and advancing IAM automation for the University.

AT Book Club - the First 1 1/2 Years (State Farm Hall of Business 149)

Since November 2017, Tony Brook has been helping to facilitate the AT Book Club. Joined by members of all walks of AT, this has been an opportunity to discuss trends in the industry, as well as how AT would like to proceed. This session will discuss lessons learned and where we are going with the book club. Topics include:

• How the book club was formed
• What books we have read
• What we have learned
• How people have engaged despite not reading the book (a common issue!)
• How to properly use video conferencing technologies
• How we were able to grow the book club over time
• How we can take what we are learning about and apply it to our day to day jobs

This will be a general free-form discussion and Q&A on the book club.

• Tony Brook
  An application administrator for Administrative Technologies since January 2014, Brook has been working in the IT field officially since 2010, and with computers in general since before he could read. He is a graduate of ISU with a bachelor's in English studies, with a particular interest in rhetoric and prose. Ask anyone who has seen his documentation to get an idea how those interests mesh. Brook is the primary administrator of Ellucian Colleague, TouchNet, and GitLab.

Impacting the Student Journey with Data (State Farm Hall of Business 148)

In recent years, many ISU departments have begun to work together to use data to impact student retention. Team members from EDA, WEB and University College will describe how they are collaborating and using data to proactively interact with students.

• Tim Donovan
  Donovan is an Assistant Director in Enterprise Data and Analytics (EDA).

• Arturo Ramirez
  Ramirez is the Director of Web and Interactive Communications.

• Amy Roser
  Roser is an Associate Director in University College.

CMDB - What, Why and When (State Farm Hall of Business 150)

This CMDB session will provide you with an understanding of what a CMDB is, what it can do for you, and how it will help you as an IT professional. Additionally, we will demo CMDB components scheduled to go into production for AT on September 3, including comprehensive system mapping and more formal processes. We will also answer questions about how CMDB can help your team. What is a CMDB? Why does ISU need a CMDB? What value can the CMDB bring? Join us for this session and find out!

• Ballard McCleskey
  Ballard McCleskey is celebrating his 18th year of service to ISU in August. Prior to ISU he served in the US Marine Corps and came to ISU to earn a Bachelors in IT Industrial Systems. During his tenure as a student, he quickly became a mainstay in what was formally known as Systems Support. Over the years Ballard has served in many roles which has provided him with a broad background that lends itself well to CMDB and Release Management.

• Ed Vize
  Ed Vize is Administrative Technologies’ Service Delivery and Communications Manager. His role is responsible for marketing and communications to the campus community on behalf of AT as well as managing the Change/Release Processes and creating the CMDB. A 7+ year AT employee, Ed has enjoyed utilizing his experience and education in the variety of roles he has held leading to improvement and maturity for AT and ISU.

CMDB Presentation

COUNTRY Financial Atrium Lower Level

Afternoon snacks will be available

Major Incident Coordination and Communication (State Farm Hall of Business 139)

Have you ever wondered what IT Support does when a system goes down? This is a behind the curtain look at Major Incident Management from the perspective of an Incident Coordinator; the team in AT responsible for coordination and communications during an outage.

Using real ISU system impacts, we will walk through identification of an impact, communications, troubleshooting, service restoration, documentation, and the conversations that took place when the dust settled. We will also discuss our impact and maintenance communications platform, Tech Alerts, and walk through the options you have to keep informed about the services you use.

Along the way, we will answer some of the questions our customers often think, but rarely ask.
"What causes system impacts in the first place?"
"I need to get back to work, what is taking so long?"
"How can I be notified when there is an issue with a system I use?"
"What is IT doing to prevent system impacts?"

• Elizabeth Giller
  Elizabeth Giller is an Incident Coordinator with Client SErvices in Administrative Technologies. This new role for Elizabeth has brought her back to her previous experience with the ITIL framework in a larger support and service environment. Most recently Elizabeth managed student staff, flexible learning spaces, devices and endpoints for the College of Education. She has been with the university for six years.

• Tyler Piper
  Assistant Director - Technology Support Center Tyler has been with ISU since August 2014, overseeing the Technology Support Center, Incident Coordinator, and Knowledge & Training teams. Prior to his current position, Tyler was most recently coordinating Major Incident recovery for a top 50 Fortune 500 insurance company. He also worked as a student Team Lead in Student Affairs IT while completing his undergraduate degree in Marketing with a minor in Psychology. With over 15 years of EndPoint and Systems support experience, Tyler advocates for users to ensure they have the knowledge and tools they need.

Major Incident Coordination and Communication Presentation

Prepping for Career Advancement (State Farm Hall of Business 149)

In this session we will review tips for resume/cover letter/interview preparation with a focus more on full time employees with some work experience. Feel free to bring your resume with you and we can exchange them for some candid feedback.

• Todd Smoak
  ISU's Executive Director of Administrative Technologies with 20+ years of sitting on both sides of the interview room, Todd has an opinion on what would help you get that next job.

Career Advancement Presentation

Resource Materials 1

Resource Materials 2

Resource Materials 3

Sharing with PowerShell (State Farm Hall of Business 148)

(30 minute session, 3:30-4:00 pm)
This session will show a few different techniques Hamann has developed for gathering information with PowerShell with the intent to share that information effectively and efficiently information with others.

• Bill Hamann
  Bill, a Senior Assistant Director in Student Affairs IT, has worked at the University since 1998 in various roles. He enjoys rolling up his sleeves, troubleshooting issues and processes, using PowerShell along the way.

PowerShell in Practice (State Farm Hall of Business 148)

(30 minute session, 4:00-4:30 pm)
Come see some of more useful and interesting applications of PowerShell from your peers around campus. You should come away from this session with a few concepts and techniques that would help you in your practice of PowerShell in the future.

• Bill Hamann, facilitator
  Bill, a Senior Assistant Director in Student Affairs IT, has worked at the University since 1998 in various roles. He enjoys rolling up his sleeves, troubleshooting issues and processes, using PowerShell along the way.

Our Time in the Penn - A Mac Roadmap from MacAdmins Penn State (State Farm Hall of Business 150)

MacAdmins Penn State is one of the largest gatherings of macOS and iOS administrators, and one of the best places to learn about up-and-coming developments in managing Apple devices within higher education. ISU's delegation to MacAdmins will present on the highlights from this MacAdmins 2019, and what's to come with macOS and iOS management, with special focus on MDM and macOS 10.15: Catalina.

• Matt Gromer
  Matt's been managing Apple devices at ISU for a bit longer than three years, and has become fond of the surly little devices. He spends most of his time in terminal, and has been known to occasionally enjoy sunlight.

• Jim Johnson
  Jim Johnson is a Windows System Admin for Endpoint Systems in Administrative Technologies. He is responsible for the design, configuration, and management of desktop operating environments and endpoint applications and services. Johnson is an ISU alumnus from the Department of Technology (B.S. 2013) and began work for AT Endpoint Support in 2013 and has been in his current role since 2014.

Pub II, Uptown Normal - talk over the day's insights with your colleagues over some beverages and cheese balls!