IT Meeting @ 2009-11-19 15:18:17
IT Meeting Minutes 19th November 2009
Meeting Start: 19:19
1. Welcome and Apologies
Present: Ben, Edward, Adam, Andy Tim, Bernard, Chris
Apologies: Rachel
•Congratulations to all for finding the right room :-)
2. Forums
•We are going to trial using the IT Forum instead of plaguing people with messages in the mail group.
3. Exec Page - Nikita's Image
•As it is a BMP it is not resized and is huge. Tim to resolve.
•Thought to be put into new website to stop this happening again.
4. FilmSoc Clothing and IT Team
•Concern was expressed that 'IT Team' on FilmSoc clothing would put us in the same category as the IT Teams and Officers of other societies, who simply change the odd word on their website. That the term does not reflect the years of development of our website, network and EPOS systems, or the many more hours of commitment necessary for the IT team. Other alternatives, 'Systems Engineer', 'Programmer', 'Infrastructure Team', 'Geeks' were suggested. Ed to try and find a suitable compromise and email by the end of tomorrow. So orders can go to Nikita by the end of the weekend.
5. Business from Exec Meeting 17/11
•Touchscreen purchase was authorised.
•As Ben was unable to attend meeting, awaiting minutes from the secretary.
6. AllNighter Tickets and Stall Signup
•These have been done and are working fine.
7. Publicity Computer Remote Desktop
•How this works was explained and is not included here for security reasons. Tim has agreed to hold a session teaching others how this works.
•Tim is to email a suitable date for him and people will get back to him.
8. New Servers
•Columbia and Tristar are now alive and Paramount is virtualised running on Columbia. Migration of other servers onto Columbia and Tristar will take place over this term, and further into the future. Tim will keep us updated.
9. Equipment Purchasing
•We have managed to make a suitable botch job on the server rails to install the new servers into the racks. When most servers have been migrated and we clear the racks we will review if this solution is adequate and revisit this point.
•USB Keyboards do not need to be purchased as we have salvaged USB to PS2 adaptors from the old barcode readers. At the moment we are one short, but it should be around. This point to be revisited if it cannot be found.
•The Exec approved the purchase of ONE trial touchscreen layer from eBay.
•Ben to arrange purchase with Andy when we are happy we have selected the right one.
10. Server Monitoring
•IT Services have agreed to provide website monitoring, sending a message to a mobile phone when the web goes down, and emailing whoever. Concerns were raised that as this is a favour they would not happily change the phone number or addresses every year when the IT Officer changes. This could be dealt with via a...
11. On-Call IT Rota
•We are going to trial an On-Call IT Rota, similar to the ones used by the Technical Team. The On-Call Team member will have the On-Call Phone, containing an O2 mobile phone number. Website down texts will be sent here. The number would be issued to all Duty Managers and Exec to ring upon issues or questions, and would be displayed in the Exec Office, maybe the DM Cupboard. The phone would need to be transferred from person to person, and this would happen per a weekly rota, and the rota should be engineered so that it was transferred to people who would be naturally meeting. Many members of the IT Team are regularly in the CompSci dept. A drop-off point could be the film dump. The holding team member should be on campus and able to attend a screening in L3 swiftly, resolving the issue himself or ringing a suitable member of the IT Team who could give technical instructions to the on-call team member. Ed will arrange a cheap phone and order a free SIM card from O2, and will liase with the treasurer re: minimum topup.
12. Website: Post-Term Programming Session
•Ben will be available until at least after lunch Saturday, and has agreed to provide food.
•Bernard will be available Saturday and Sunday and is going home Sunday Evening.
•Tim, Ed and Matt will be doing all three days.
13. Website: Design
•Feedback was given to Matt that his design was broadly liked and he was asked to commit it to the repository, as the static page script had nearly been written. This would mean something could be 'looked at' very quickly.
14. Website: Progress
•Ed has been programming the basic structure of many classes, but not in their entirety as they will be filled out when programming that element. Bernard has been improving the StaticPage object.
15. AOB
•It was decided to have a Disaster Meeting (where we look for all possible disasters and what we could do to resolve them) for IT Team soon, maybe a weekend. Then, to have a technically simple 'how to fix it' Disaster meeting for Duty Managers who wanted to attend. Ed to liase with Chief Duty Manager about this.
16. Next Meeting
17:30 Thu 26th Nov. Ben to arrange room and food.
Meeting finished 19:58.