VCIT Status and Activity Report For August 2023

Vice Chancellor for Information Technology
Status and Activity Report for August 2023
Prepared by Timothy M. Chester, Interim Vice Chancellor for Information Technology and CIO
Editorial Note: Beginning this month, we plan to circulate an executive summary and status
report outlining major activities in ITS. We aim to keep you abreast of our accomplishments,
updates, and changes to technology, ensuring that you remain informed about ongoing
activities. If you have any queries or concerns, please contact me at timothy.chester@usg.edu.
We're confident that this communication will facilitate smoother collaboration, allowing us to
reach our shared objectives better. We greatly appreciate your ongoing support and look
forward to maintaining this productive partnership.
1. Key Items and Announcements
• Beverly Norwood promoted to Deputy Chief Information Officer. In acknowledgment of

her leadership and dedication to USG, Beverly Norwood has been promoted to Deputy
Chief Information Officer. Beverly oversees finance, budget, planning and project
management, and ITS communications in this enhanced role. During the absence of the
Interim Vice Chancellor for IT, she is entrusted with the authority to manage and
allocate ITS resources as she determines appropriate. Please join us in congratulating
Beverly on her well-deserved promotion and expanded responsibilities.
• Updates and Upgrades to University System Office (USO) Shared-use Conference &
Meeting Rooms. Kevin Marshall and his team have implemented upgrades and
incorporated the latest conference room technologies in several shared-use spaces. These
advancements seamlessly support Microsoft Teams meetings and offer a more uniform,
user-friendly interface for managing virtual sessions. To date, improvements have been
implemented in rooms 7094 and the Chancellor's conference room in Atlanta, and rooms
008-5, 136, 145, 156, 239, 240, and 255 in Athens. Subject to feedback from
stakeholders, more spaces in both facilities will be upgraded. If you'd like more
information on these upgrades, please contact Kevin at kevin@usg.edu.
2. Services for USG Institutions and the USO
• VMWare contract renewal flattens the cost curve for schools and locks pricing for three
years. Through a collective team effort, the USO has completed the enterprise renewal
agreement for VMware infrastructure products for all USG institutions. Prices are now
fixed for the next three years, ending the escalating cost trend we experienced with these
crucial products. To provide perspective, costs for these products rose significantly from
$1.1 million in 2019 to $2.7 million in 2021 and further to $3.1 million in 2022. However,
prices are now set at $3.3 million for 2023, which will also be available for 2024 and
2025. If we had opted for a one-year agreement, the price for this year alone would have
been $4.5 million. During this three-year period, we strongly encourage schools to
migrate workloads to the cloud and optimize their VMWare usage accordingly. UGA has
taken this approach over the past year, leading to a 16% cost reduction.
• Collaboration with USG Cybersecurity yields several key information security

improvements. Following the MOVEit breach, ITS staff have worked closely with USG
VCIT Status and Activity Report for August 2023 1

Cybersecurity to rapidly design and deploy several information security improvements,
benefiting the USO and USG institutions.
o All MOVEit instances that ITS oversees have now been removed from public
internet access and are restricted to recognized USG networks, such as the USO
and PeachNet. This action safeguards the service from common internet
exposure (which would likely have prevented the previous breach), albeit at the
cost of adding complexity when sharing information with partners outside the
USG. If anyone needs assistance brainstorming efficient data-sharing methods
with external entities, please contact Tim Chester at timothy.chester@usg.edu.
o ITS has revised our network and firewall configurations to block recognized
threats and their associated network addresses automatically. The Department of
Homeland Security (DHS), the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency
(CISA), and various vendors supply us with updated IP addresses associated with
known threat actors. These changes will help prevent our users from
inadvertently downloading malicious content by preemptively denying network
access to these potentially harmful sources. Implementing these rules signifies a
maturing of our network operations and minimizes our exposure to known
threats.
o ITS is now rolling out a previously licensed but undeployed firewall service
named Wildfire. This service, which functions like an anti-virus and anti-malware
system for the entire network, scrutinizes network traffic and automatically
intercepts and blocks malware and virus payloads. Wildfire has been successfully
implemented at UGA for over five years, blocking over 250,000 instances of
malware each month. To fully use Wildfire, updates to our network and ITS-
supported applications are now in progress. These updates will allow the
inspection of inbound network traffic to ITS-supported applications.
Additional updates for information security will be rolled out throughout the remainder
of this year and into the next. These include migrating our desktop antivirus software to
Microsoft’s Defender+ and refining the deployment of DUO Multi-Factor Authentication
(MFA) to mitigate the risk associated with “DUO fatigue” exploits.
• Migration of Degree Works applications to the Ellucian software-as-a-service (SaaS)

cloud. For the twelve USG institutions that depend on ITS to host the Degree Works
advising and degree auditing software, we're steadily transitioning these applications to
Ellucian's cloud. By moving these products to the cloud, our schools will gain additional
support for updates and upgrades while allowing USG to assess Ellucian's hosting and
service capabilities for their cloud-based products. The plan is for the first cohort, which
includes FVSU, CCGA, SGSC, and ABAC, to transition in September. The second cohort,
ASU, CSU, GGC, and MGC, will follow in October. Finally, the third cohort, consisting of
SSU, AMSC, GSW, and DSC, is set to move in December.
3. Other Items of Interest
• interactUSG nears 1000 registrants. The 2023 interactUSG event in Savannah from
September 12th to 15th is shaping up to be exceptional. We anticipate close to 1000
attendees and the participation of numerous vendors. This year, we're introducing a
USG-wide plenary session on the afternoon of Tuesday, September 12th, which will
feature all C-level executives from across the system. Topics of discussion will range from
USG strategic plans, new hiring guidelines, modifications to budget and carryforward

directions, unified ERP plans, and much more. The conference proper commences on
Wednesday afternoon, September 13th, starting with lunch and a keynote address from
Chancellor Perdue, followed by an extensive range of 150+ practitioner-led sessions. Our
USO team will be conducting a site visit to Savannah from August 14-15 to continue the
event planning. For more details on the event, please visit https://cvent.me/0V2zMD.

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Vice Chancellor for Information Technology

Status and Activity Report for August 2023

1. Key Items and Announcements

• Beverly Norwood promoted to Deputy Chief Information Officer. In acknowledgment of

2. Services for USG Institutions and the USO

• Collaboration with USG Cybersecurity yields several key information security

VCIT Status and Activity Report for August 2023 1

• Migration of Degree Works applications to the Ellucian software-as-a-service (SaaS)

3. Other Items of Interest

VCIT Status and Activity Report for August 2023 2

VCIT Status and Activity Report for August 2023 3

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