Round 4
Dec 2000
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Office of the Provost
Compact Plan
Part Two: Initiatives
B. Initiatives Supporting Unit Goals
9. Offer Commodity/Production Database Services to University Clients
What will be achieved, how, and why it is important to the university
The rise of the Web and information technology as strategic business resources/assets has raised the importance of database services and support. The delivery of e-services, including e-learning, requires significant database use. Currently academic IT has no "official" database support and consequently does not provide any database services to the campus. Skilled systems programming staff have hacked their way though database requirements as individual projects and work necessitated. This has proved to be an ineffective and inefficient strategy. At one time there was the belief that academic computing could get by with a little help from ACS, but this assumption clearly is not valid in today's environment. Commodity database services for academic computing is an area that has historically slipped through the cracks in favor of other priorities, but it can no longer be ignored. This is a functional need that must be met in order to avoid its becoming a major impediment to progress at all levels, including new technology-enhanced teaching and learning initiatives.
ITD proposes to implement Oracle and ColdFusion as a supported commodity database service. Over the past several years, dynamic Web pages based on interactive databases (rather than static HTML files) have become a standard for the most sophisticated commercial Web sites (an obvious example is e-bay.com). This approach also offers important advantages to educational enterprises as well (see for example, http://www.eduprise.com). Just as importantly, Web-enabled databases are a great advantage for data gathering and presentation, since data can be dynamically collected and tabulated via the Web. Numerous faculty and university units have requested and continue to request database services from ITD's Web Services. For example
· WebAssign
· WolfWare/WebCT
· Park Scholars
· UNC-GA
· Integrated Pest Management
Sybase, the current university standard database, is not proving to be a satisfactory database platform, and the university must switch to Oracle. The administration agrees with this assessment, and ITD should join with FIS in making this move. A small Oracle license will get things started, but to meet the larger needs, the university needs to purchase an unlimited site license.
Impact or outcomes for students, faculty, staff, external clients
If the university is to move forward with the development of its online teaching and learning infrastructure and other e-learning and e-service academic initiatives, it must have access to e-commerce-quality database services at a par with its powerful Web server technology. If this Initiative is fully funded, Web developers at NC State will have access to the database services they need to fully utilize the current and emerging potential of the Web. In addition to providing the needed technology, this Initiative will provide the services of a senior database administrator for consulting services regarding database design; a junior administrator/programmer will be available to assist in the SQL/ColdFusion programming.
Resources needed
· Hardware Sun Ultra 450 Enterprise w/ CPU, disks, etc. Tape Backup System
· Software Oracle (join with FIS/ACS in securing an unlimited Oracle site license for the campus) ColdFusion Enterprise for all ITD webservers
· Ongoing hardware and software maintenance costs
· Personnel 1 Senior Database Administrator 1 Jr. Database Administrator/Programmer
Deliverables
· Participate with campus and UNC-GA to obtain site license agreement with Oracle (in progress)
· Hire needed personnel to introduce new service to campus (funding provided for one+ position) (December 2000)
· Initiate new service (Spring 2001)