Release 2024.08

What’s New: Your ITS Update for the 2024.08 Release

2024.08 was a foundation release. Over a single summer ITS replaced the college’s primary storage platform, brought a new security monitoring appliance into service, launched a guest wireless network, installed CMC’s first high-performance computing cluster, and delivered the largest start-of-year preparation the department had attempted — while the college’s first formal security policy program was being drafted.

Summer is the only window in which work of this scale is possible, and the cycle was planned around that: heavy infrastructure from May through July, then a deliberate change freeze as students returned.

Key Initiatives for the Campus Community

1. Research Computing Arrives

• The cluster is installed: CMC’s first high-performance computing cluster was installed at the end of May, with the vendor and our shared-services network partner on site, followed immediately by hands-on training for the ITS team.
• Campus credentials, not separate ones: The cluster was integrated with campus identity so researchers sign in with their CMC accounts and access is managed through standard security groups.
• Documented from day one: Sandbox workloads were migrated to production and end-user documentation was written as part of the installation rather than after it. The same specialist then began supporting computational work in the Quantitative and Computing Lab.

2. A Network Built for Guests

• Claremont Guest went live: A purpose-built visitor network was tested at the help desk and network operations center, then enabled campus-wide — giving visitors a simple, reliable way onto the internet without needing a campus account.
• A cleaner network estate: With a dedicated guest service in place, an older general-purpose visitor network was scheduled for retirement in a following release.
• Remote access kept current: The VPN platform was updated out of hours using its active/standby design, so the work completed without user-visible downtime, followed by a new client rollout.

3. Delivering the Academic Year

• Commencement, engineered: Rather than renting a connection for the ceremony tent, the team built a wireless bridge from a rooftop to the tent with a wired backup feed. It came in below the vendor quote and has been reused for every large outdoor event since.
• Canvas migration at 90%: Faculty course migrations reached roughly ninety percent before the fall term, with six well-attended Canvas welcome sessions delivered in May and new-faculty sites ready before classes began.
• Classrooms, labs, and lecterns: Classroom refreshes completed in Davidson, Pickford, Bauer, the Trustee Boardroom, and the Athenaeum spaces; the Windows 11 image was rolled out to lab and lectern machines; and Zoom control was folded into classroom touch panels so remotes are no longer needed.
• A heavy moves season: New faculty hires and the relocation of the Dean of the Faculty and Facilities offices made this one of the busiest move cycles on record, coordinated jointly with Facilities.
• Orientation delivered: New Student Orientation, New Faculty Orientation, student technology assistant training, and seven back-to-back technology essentials sessions ran in the final two weeks of August.

4. Enterprise Systems

• StarRez ran its first room draw: The housing system carried the full room-selection cycle, with billing for housing, meal plans, and health insurance integrated behind it.
• ARMS for student-athletes: Implementation of the athletics compliance and recruiting platform began with Athletics, targeting the end of summer.
• Admissions data automated: A two-way integration between the admissions platform and the identity system removed manual steps from applicant onboarding, working with the Registrar and Admission.
• Keck Science transition: Two legacy mail domains were migrated to Scripps’ environment and the supporting infrastructure retired, with CMC addresses unaffected throughout.
• An international student system selected: After evaluating how CMC supports SEVIS reporting, ITS selected VIA with International Programs — the start of a project that would run for the better part of two years.

Behind the Scenes: A More Resilient & Secure CMC

1. New Storage, New Monitoring

• Storage replaced, with encryption at rest: New storage was installed in early August and several hundred terabytes migrated seamlessly. Encryption at rest was the point of the exercise, aligning CMC’s primary storage with NIST SP 800-171 guidance. The previous units were retained as a redundancy tier.
• Security monitoring modernized: A new security information and event management appliance came into service in late August, giving materially better visibility into campus security events and faster detection and response.
• Virtualization future-proofed: As the virtualization market shifted, ITS tested alternative platforms while patching and upgrading the existing cluster — keeping options open rather than waiting to be forced.
• Access control modernized: The campus door access platform was upgraded onto new servers with all clients cut over, opening the path to wireless lock testing with Facilities.
• Value engineering: A cabling approach reviewed with the manufacturer for the future science building saved approximately $20,000, and putting equipment CMC already owned to work in the design delivered more capability for less.

2. Compliance and Assurance

• NIST SP 800-171 and GLBA assessment: The full assessment with our security partner was completed and the report received in August, with a mitigation plan following immediately.
• Independent testing, internal and external: Internal testing began in July and external testing followed, with findings worked through systematically alongside system owners.
• Endpoint response proven: An endpoint protection alert triggered immediate network isolation and a full rebuild of the machine as a precaution — a live demonstration that the detection and response process works as designed.
• Mac management modernized: Eligible macOS devices moved to a modern mobile device management platform, improving both manageability and security posture.

3. Governance Begins

• A security policy program: ITS brought a policy program to the President’s Executive Committee with a deliberate strategy — ratify the essential policies, then improve them in subsequent release cycles rather than waiting for a perfect first draft.
• Data classification: A four-level standard modeled on the University of California’s approach was recommended, giving the campus a shared vocabulary for sensitivity. It remains the basis of the current Data Classification Standard.
• First AI guidance: Drafting began on guidance for working with third-party AI services, written with the expectation that it would be revisited every cycle as the technology moved.

Looking Ahead: ITS Priorities for the 2024.12 Release Cycle

With the platform rebuilt, 2024.12 shifts to the layer above it: the service experience the campus interacts with, the policies that guide the institution, and the physical infrastructure of the new science building.

• A modern service desk: Complete the move to FreshService, and make it clear and simple how to reach ITS — a ticket for break/fix, a consultant for anything strategic.
• The policy set, consolidated: Take the Information Security Policy, Data Classification Standard, Exception Policy, and AI guidance through governance review.
• Fiber for the next twenty-five years: Build the fiber pod network that unifies the campus backbone and connects east and west campus at 100 gigabits.
• Science building readiness: Get network switching and wireless into the new building’s closets early in the construction schedule.