Thursday, Dec. 10, 2015 | Volume 211 | Number 71 | 40 cents | iowastatedaily.com | An independent student newspaper serving Iowa State since 1890.
Modernizing IT structure Ellen Bombala/Iowa State Daily
ISU’s 43-year-old information technology system to be replaced By Josh.Newell @iowastatedaily.com
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ome people can’t go two years without getting a new smartphone, but Iowa State’s informational technology has made do with what they’ve had for almost 50 years. The university has maintained its mainframe architecture, with only minor tweaking and changes over the decades. However, sometime in March, the university will make a decision on which vendor it will choose to build a completely new system. This system will manage everything from class registration to employee payroll to campus housing. “The systems we have today have served us extremely well, but we have been on essentially the same architecture since 1972,” said Jim Kurtenbach, chief information officer. Currently, the university’s IT services, be they class registration, housing assignments or employee payroll, are all run off of mainframe computers and housed both on and off campus. A mainframe computer is a machine that looks like a large wall cabinet stuffed with a number of wires, circuit boards and flashing LED lights to indicate all sorts of functions and processes. Back in the ‘70s, when Iowa State first migrated to a mainframe based system, the machines, depending on their performance, may have taken up entire rooms. Today, they are much smaller, about the size of a dorm room closet. If a student or faculty member were to walk into any of the rooms that house the hardware that runs the university’s IT infrastructure today, he or she would be hard-pressed to find clues that anything inside is more than 40 years old. The large, metal racks holding row upon row of blinking lights attached via a tangled web of cables to circuit
boards look just as futuristic and complex as any other modern data center in the country. While the hardware may look high tech, the software the university uses to run its day-to-day operations is where the system starts to show its age. The class registration software used by faculty and staff is a prime example that shows how old the software is. The green text on a black background looks more like it belongs to a computer that programed the original Pac-Man than one operated by one of the top land-grant universities in the country. Despite the ancient looking user interfaces, ISU students seem to not have too much trouble accessing the system. “I have no problems with the system,” said Patrick Lamar, sophomore in prebusiness. “I mean, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. But at the same time, you have to stay up to date with current software. I have no problems right now, but if they want to make it better, no complaints here.” Even though the antiquated software means that the university is stuck with ancient user interfaces, one of the real advantages of having such an old but working system is that it has saved the university large amounts of money over the years, thus allowing Iowa State to be in a position financially to be able to now afford a new system, according to Mike Lohrbach, director of infrastructure and shared services. “Our system and our services have served us quite well over the years, to the point where we’ve been able to take advantage of a lot of these newer features like the mobility and the truly cloud-based services,” Lohrbach said. “We’ve been able to skip over some of these implementation that require large investments, not just in the system and the software, but in the infrastructure and the management that we would be doing on a local implementation of such a thing.” These savings are now being put to good use, as the university is currently in the market for an entirely new IT system to help manage Iowa State. “[The system has] actually
Ben Spick, left, is the education and outreach chairman of LGBTA Alliance. Katie Smith, right, is the president of the group.
been very beneficial to the people of Iowa,” Kurtenbach said. “It’s been very cost-effective, and it’s permitted us to not invest in other things that have not lasted as long.” The university put out a request for proposal, otherwise known as an RFP, on Nov. 11 for a system that will replace the current architecture in place at Iowa State. An RFP gives potential vendors an outline of what kind of capabilities and features the university would like to have in the system. It functions very much like an assignment guideline one might be given in class. A set of general requirements is included in the RFP that the university will need vendors to meet in order to be chosen for the contract to build, test and implement a campus-wide IT system that will serve more than 42,000 students, faculty and staff. The biggest goal laid out as a requirement for the new system is that it be incredibly mobile friendly. The goal of this new mobile-first push is to, in the words of the RFP, “empower individuals at all levels of the university to readily manage more of their information at their convenience in a secure online environment.” The new system will be designed and constructed under a “mobile first” philosophy, Lohrbach said. “It’s designed with mobile devices in mind,” Lohrbach said. “It’s much easier to design it that way from the front end, then trying to take something that’s designed for a desktop format and browser and trying to retrofit that into the display, such as a smartphone.” Access Plus, the main software that allows students to register for classes, view their transcripts and even purchase a parking pass, currently does not work well when viewed on anything other
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Prohm preps for first career CyHawk game By Ryan.Young @iowastatedaily.com Two years ago it was the game winner — followed by a simple photo on Twitter. Last year it was a kiss, directed at the entire Hawkeye student section. Now, with his final chance to play in the CyHawk game, senior Georges Niang is taking full advantage of “Hate Week.” “If I only went 2-2 with Iowa, then what’s the point in playing,” Niang said. “Obviously the goal is to go 3-1.” The fans, Niang said, are different during this week, too. “They heckle more than other fans,” Niang said. “I think that’s just the biggest thing that gets me riled up.” No. 4 Iowa State (7-0, 0-0 Big 12) will host Iowa (7-2, 0-0 Big 10) on Thursday night. The anticipation for the intrastate showdown is as high as it’s been in years. Students have been camped outside Hilton Coliseum since Monday in hopes for front row seats. The players are just as excited, too — even the ones who grew up away from the rivalry. “This is something that a lot of us have been looking forward to,” Niang said. “I feel like a lot of us aren’t even from the state of Iowa, but we definitely feel the rivalry and — I don’t want to say hatred — but dislike for the other school. That’s just what comes with the territory.” A win by Prohm would mark
the best start by a first-year coach in school history — and the third best overall start ever. And while he may not be familiar with the rivalry itself, he does understand how big it is. “Rivalries are great,” Prohm said. “And the one thing that makes up great rivalries is the programs have to be relevant. And I think that both programs are very, very relevant.” The Hawkeyes, though, will pose an interesting challenge. After losing its exhibition game to Augustana earlier this year, Iowa has rallied back fast. The Hawkeyes have won their last four contests, including wins against No. 20 Wichita State and Florida State. Forward Jarrod Uthoff will pose a big threat inside, too. During the past four games, Uthoff has averaged 19.3 points and 7.8 rebounds per game. The redshirt senior is also shooting 50 percent from both the field and from behind the arc. Niang will likely spend some time matched up against Uthoff come game time, a matchup that was absent last season. And after watching Uthoff over the past several games, Niang knows how big of a challenge it could be to stop the Hawkeye big man. “He’s a great player,” Niang said. “He does a lot of good things for their team. He’s on a hot streak right now.” While Iowa does lead the alltime series, the home team has won eight of the last 10 games. But
Iowa State Daily
Georges Niang guards Iowa’s Aaron White in last year’s CyHawk game in Iowa City.
the Cyclones have won the past two matchups, and Niang knows that Iowa will come out firing. “I expect them to come in and try to make it a blood bath, to be honest with you,” Niang said. “We beat them the last two years, and then us going into their place [and winning] … I’m sure they’re going to give it their best shot.” Prohm said they have taken things easy over the past week in an effort to fully recover from Monday’s game and heal any outstanding injuries. He isn’t doing things any differently this week — something Prohm said is important when dealing with big games. “I love the rivalry games because you want to play in big games,” Prohm said. “That’s what you signed up for. You don’t pre-
pare any different. It is the next game. Our motto that night will be the same thing. We’re just trying to win the day and go 1-0.” But it’s not going to be just a normal game. With the game in prime time on national television, and in front of what will likely be a sold-out crowd, Niang knows it’ll be perhaps the toughest matchup the Cyclones have had all season. And he expects the atmosphere to live up to the hype. “It’s going to be like nothing you’ve seen with these first seven games,” Niang said. “It’s going to be a real passionate group. And then, there’s obviously going to be that little section of Hawkeye fans behind their bench trying to get their crew rallied up. “It’s going to be a super intense environment.”
LGBT groups reach out to students at diverse events By Ellen.Bombela @iowastatedaily.com When people think about LGBT groups on campus, their minds probably automatically think about the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Student Services. This is because the LGBTSS is, in theory, the big umbrella over seven LGBT organizations. One of those organizations is the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Ally Alliance. The LGBTA Alliance started out as The Gay Liberation Front in 1971 and only focused on gay men, which was prominent in the gay community at that time. Since then, it has gone through several name changes and purposes. “We provide education, outreach and a community for LGBT members and other allies to meet on Iowa State’s campus,” said Katie Smith, president of the LGBTA Alliance. “We also have community members from Ames come, and high school students. It’s kind of open to everybody.” While the organization is welcoming to everyone, there are approximately 20 to 30 members paying dues, including students, faculty and staff. Some of the benefits for paid members include discounts on events, partaking in the Midwest Bisexual Lesbian Gay Transgender Ally College Conference each year and discounts on T-shirts. The LGBTA Alliance works with the LGBTSS for a variety of different reasons. “We look toward the Student Services Center for guidance, resources, etc.,” Smith said. One of the ways that the LGBTA Alliance gets to collaborate with LGBTSS and the six other LGBT-focused organizations under LGBTSS, along with some other groups and individuals along the way, is through the Pride Summit. “Basically, the leaders and general assembly members of each organization get together like once, maybe twice a month, and share ideas of what they have planned coming up, and kind of give that opportunity for networking,” said Smith, who will be handing over her position as president to vice president Alex Peters, sophomore in apparel, merchandising and design. One of the recent events the organizations planned that was successful was an ice cream social. “We had an ice cream social at the beginning of the fall semester, where we had over 500 students attend,” Smith said. “That was because we finally had that connection where we can all sit down at a round table and kind of discuss what we wanted to do for that and really get all of the leaders’ opinions and experience.” As president of the LGBTA Alliance, Smith has many different responsibilities. “As president, I do a lot of the administrative work,” Smith said. “I run our cabinet meetings each week, and this semester, I ran
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