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HomeMy WebLinkAboutInformation Services Committee 06-24-1999 ST. CROIX COUNTY - INFORMATION SERVICES COMMITTEE 9:00 A.M. ROOM 1281- GOVERNMENT CENTER 00 ° 0 2411999 ° ~ ooh o° I,0 n CALL TO ORDER ADOPTION OF AGENDA APPROVAL OF MINUTES DATE OF NEXT MEETING BUDGET CONSIDERATIONS & UPGRADE COMPUTER STANDARDS CABLING NEEDS REPAIR & REPLACE POLICY ACCESS PROGRAMMING POLICY NETWORK SECURITY ISSUES RESIGNATION DATE FOR KATHRYN BEUTEL OTHER BUSINESS ADJOURN ST. CROIX COUNTY - INFORMATION SERVICES COMMITTEE UNOFFICIAL MINUTES June 24, 1999 PRESENT: Tim Ramberg for Dan Fedderly, John Krizek, Ron Kiesler for John Borup, Rich Loney, Dave Fodroczi, Eugene Hanson, Tom Belongia, Tom O'Connell ALSO PRESENT: Ron Volkert, Annette Massie, Dave Schatz, Kathryn Beutel EXCUSED: Dave Fodroczi, Einar Horne CALL TO ORDER: The meeting was called to order at 9:08 a.m. by ChairmanTom O'Connell. ADOPTION OF AGENDA: Eugene Hanson moved to adopt the agenda. Second by John Krizek. All in favor. PREVIOUS MINUTES: John Krizek moved to approve the minutes of the May 20, 1999 meeting. Second by Tom Belongia. Minutes approved as presented. BUDGET OVERVIEW: The General policy for purchasing computer hardware and software.was reviewed. Specifications for equipment were upgraded due to industry standards of what is available on the market. Minimum memory requirements will be 128 Megabytes of Ram and minimum processing speed of 400 Megahertz for both desktop and laptop computers. Motion by John Krizek that any department using a product other then the Microsoft Office Suite, must move to the supported Microsoft Office Suite of products within the Year 2000. Therefore, the Microsoft Office Products should be placed within departments' budgets for the Year 2000 as a replacement. Once purchased through the Year 2000 budget, Computer Services will install the Microsoft Office Suite before July 1, 2000 to allow for transition. Second by Ron Kiesler. All in favor. It was also decided that Departments need to budget for all aspects of expansion within their offices and an evaluation needs to be performed by Maintenance before placing new equipment. If additonal expenses are necessary to allow for additonal computer equipment, then Departments must include those expenses within their new equipment request - this would include computer equipment, electrical requirements, and cabling needs. REPAIR & REPLACE POLICY: Health & Human Services departments expressed a concern of the cost of the Repair & Replace acting as an insurance policy and determined that it would be less expensive to purchase one or two PC's to have in reserve rather than paying into Repair & Replace as an "insurance policy". Concern i was expressed for those departments with specialized functions whereby the computer is configured so differently from others that it is not possible to rotate in a basic configured computer. Discussion took place regarding Repair & Replace versus Repair only. It was decided that the money generated by the charge is included in a non-lapsing Computer Equipment Maintenance account and will be used to repair equipment as needed, based on an evaluation of the equipment by Computer Services. Computer equipment will be replaced in departments on a temporary basis until the failed equipment can be repaired. The temporary equipment is then cycled back to Computer Services to be available on a loaner basis for other departments. If the failed equipment cannot be repaired, then the department will have use of the temporary equipment through the Year w2000 but must budget for permanent replacement of the equipment in the next budget cycle. John Krizek moved that departments that are enterprise funded (Health & Human Services and the Highway Department) will not be subject to the repair charge and will be responsible for replacing failed equipment, whether they decide to repair or replace. Computer Services will be available; to analyze the repair or replace situation, will assist in ordering and installing the new equipment. The Repair and Replace fund will become a Repair only, with replacement equipment being installed in departments on a temporary basis. Departments will need to budget for failed equipment within the next budget cycle. Second by Ron Kiesler. All in favor. ACCESS PROGRAMMING: Annette Massie, Programmer from the Computer Services was asked to join discussion on the difference between users working with Word word processing software and Excel spreadsheet software to create documents versus Access. Access is a program development tool whereby the foundation needs to be created for input of data and interpretation of data takes place. Within Word and Excel, the transition from one user to another is highly recognizable. Access is a data processor and uses programming language to complete its functions. Annette also explained that Access is based on the input of normalized data and the integrity of that data. The database design allows for the validation of the data if designed properly. Tables cannot be linked within the database is the data is corrupted. It was discussed that Departments at Health & Human Services wanted to do their own programming due to limited programming resources within the Computer Services staff. Committee members discussed that Department Heads need to plan ahead and build programming requests within their annual work plans much as they do for computer equipment. Annette detailed the various Access projects she has worked on in the past 2-'/Z years. Kathryn reiterated that emphasis this year has been placed on Y2K conversion of programs that are non-compliant, so if departments had requests that do not pertain to Y2K issues, those requests are on hold at this time. It was also taken into consideration for outside consulting services to perform programming duties whereby the consultant becomes the product. However, there are drawbacks to this approach as well due to being dependent on the outside consultant and having to pay additional customization fees. The issue was tabled at this time, but policy will be written that indicates no Access programming is to take place other than by Computer Services staff. i. NETWORK SECURITY ISSUES: Within the distributed processing scenario of networked communications, there is a concern for security of user files and we need to establish protocol for the appropriate management of data and security issues. Rich Loney expressed concern about network security based on a one-time occurrence of files being moved from the Unix server to the NT server whereby file permissions were accidentally opened to all county users. This took place late on a Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend. Kathryn Beutel indicated that this was a one-time occurrence and steps were immediately taken to resolve the error. In terms of overall security, we need to be concerned with the cause and effect and ramifications of such an occurrence. In this particular instance, no harm was done. Rich Loney wanted consideration for users to have the option to be able to operate on their own and not be connected to the network, whereby all their files would be stored on their local hard drive. Dave Schatz and Kathryn Beutel both strongly disapprove of this practice and indicated that from a technical point of view, users would be asking for trouble following this procedure due to the failure of hard drives and no recourse for retrieval. One of the advantages of the network is the capability of central backups. If all users were to start storing files on their local drives, the County would need to invest in tape drives/CD writers/Zip drives for backup purposes for approximately 400 computers. Programs are becoming more sophisticated so it is not possible to simply backup a computer onto floppy disks anymore. There is also the question of accidentally or purposely deleting files from the local hard drive - again, if there is not a backup tape, there is no recourse if files are deleted. Computer Services, with assistance from a certified network consultant recently instituted security procedures for login purposes. If these procedures are bypassed, which they currently cannot be, then security is compromised. Security at the local level is breached much easier than at the network level - local files are more readily accessible than network files. Once the user's local drive is open, all the files can be accessed. Computer Services policy has been to strongly encourage, remind, and recommend that users log in and log off the network - users have been told through training classes and in the newsletters that once they are logged in, their files are accessible to anyone else sitting down at their computer, therefore they should log off anytime they will be away from the computer. Internal security risks are completely different from the risks introduced through the Internet. It is difficult for outside to get in. One possible solution would be to use encryption technology to protect individual's files - in this manner, even if a user that is not the owner of a file were to open someone else's file, all they would see would be hieroglyphics/Japanese/computer characters that would not make sense. Only the owner of the file has the password to unencrypt the file. Kathryn Beutel also informed the committee that her solution to sensitive documents is to place password protection on the individual file. At this time, the default will remain that user files are placed on the network. Individual requests for local storage of files will be brought to the Information Services Committee. Computer Services staff will continue to work on security policy. - - I . F RESIGNATION DATE FOR KATHRYN BEUTEL: Kathryn Beutel gave a resignation date of October 15, 1999. An updated job description will be presented at the next meeting to be approved before recruitment can take place. If the job description is substantially modified, it will need to go to the Finance Committee for approval as well. Committee members will be given the opportunity to sit in on the interview process. OTHER BUSINESS: John Krizek reported a good response on the voluntary clean sweep of electrical usage within departments. Kathryn Beutel brought up the issue of reclassification for Computer Services Staff members. Reclasses are a negotiable issue on an individual basis and there is a difference in adopting a new job description versus a reclassification. The department head would need to agree to the job description, then bring it to Information Services to bring to Finance. This would not necessarily guarantee a change in the pay rate. Tim Ramberg reported that Colombia County is planning to migrate off their AS/400 mainframe and are interested in the capabilities of the CHEMS program. Of the 72 counties in the state, 53 are now using CHEMS. POSSIBLE AGENDA ITEMS FOR NEXT MEETING: Consideration for Ron Kiesler to pilot Remote Access Services within the Mental Health Department in Health & Human Services. DATE OF NEXT MEETING: August 4, 1999 9:00 A.M. Room 1281, Government Center ADJOURNMENT: Motion to Adjourn by John Krizek. Second by Ron Kiesler. Meeting adjourned at 12:10 p.m. All in favor. Respectfully Submitted By: n -4LIZIDL athry Beutel