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BCCS Pulse Newsletters
The Bureau of Communication and Computer Services (BCCS) is pleased to rollout its quarterly newsletter - BCCS Pulse. Please take a few minutes to find out what's going at BCCS and how we are working in tangent with the consolidated agencies to grow into a successful, service oriented, focused organization. We are interested in your feedback, so please feel free to contact the CMS BCCS Agency Relations Team with any ideas for content you may have in the future.
BCCS Pulse Summer 2009 (PDF, 1.5MB) 
H1N1 Flu (Swine Flu) - A Pandemic Is Declared
Kudos to BCCS!
BCCS Energy Savings Initiative
Enterprise Vault® (Email Archive Solution)
File & Print Migration
Email Is Sizzlin' Hot This Summer!
Avoid Email Phishing Scams
Microsoft Office 2007 Update
SOI Communications Conference
H1N1 Flu (Swine Flu) - A Pandemic Is Declared
The H1N1 "swine flu" has been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization. H1N1 has claimed 12 lives in Illinois from among a total of 2,875 confirmed cases. Most of these cases have been concentrated in Chicago and surrounding suburbs, but 28 counties, including Sangamon, have had at least 1 confirmed case.
Most of us are familiar with seasonal influenza or the "flu", a viral infection that, despite annual vaccinations, results in approximately 36,000 deaths and more than 200,000 hospitalizations in the United States annually. Over the centuries, changes in the genetic makeup of the influenza virus have resulted in new strains to which people have never been exposed. These new strains have always had the potential to cause a pandemic or worldwide outbreak of influenza.
While a vaccination can protect you against certain strains of the seasonal flu, a vaccination is not yet available for H1N1. In addition, since this is a new strain and none of us has been previously exposed, we have not built up any immunity which puts us all at risk. In Illinois alone, a pandemic of the H1N1, or another as yet unknown virus of even modest severity, could result in thousands of deaths and the sickening of millions.
Being prepared for a health disaster or emergency of any kind is important. You should know that a great collaborative effort between many of our state agencies has put plans together to ensure that the people of Illinois are educated and as prepared as we can be in the event the pandemic becomes more serious for our state. The Department of Public Health, Illinois Emergency Management Agency, Department of Central Management Services, Department of Human Services, Department of Transportation, Illinois State Police, Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Corrections have procedures in place, so that an immediate deployment of resources can be put into action as needed to respond to a pandemic event.
Please refer to the Public Health website at www.idph.state.il.us for further educational materials that are continually updated.
Sources: The Illinois Department of Public Health and CDC-Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
QUICK FACTS
Swine influenza viruses are not transmitted by food. You cannot get swine influenza from eating pork or pork products.
Human-to-human transmission of swine flu can occur. This is thought to occur in the same way as seasonal flu occurs in people, which is mainly person-to-person transmission through coughing or sneezing of people infected with the influenza virus.
The novel influenza H1N1 viruses are antigenically very different from human H1N1 viruses and, therefore, vaccines for human seasonal flu would not provide protection from this novel H1N1.
Kudos to BCCS!
Within a few hours of a request from the State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC) to provide a 24/7 hotline, employees from BCCS and CMS Property Management established a call center to address questions and concerns from the public regarding the H1N1 “swine flu”. BCCS collaborated with eight State of Illinois agencies to facilitate phone coverage from May 2nd through May 15th. Kudos to BCCS for the quick mobilization of telecom, hardware, web and human resources to assist during this nationally declared emergency.
BCCS Energy Savings Initiative
Green Energy! On May 29th, CMS/BCCS began to actively manage the power states of the desktops for CMS-managed PCs and laptops. This process is intended to conserve our natural and monetary resources as well as increase environmental responsibility.BCCS estimates that approximately $41.69 in annual energy costs (per PC) will be saved. When you consider the entire fleet of 35,000 computers, current user habits and monitor types, BCCS eventually expects a saving of approximately $1,459,150 in state-wide electrical costs annually.
Every night at 6:00 p.m., a command is sent out to PCs and laptop systems that are connected to the network and places those systems into a hibernation/sleep mode. Users are allowed to cancel the hibernation by clicking the cancel button at any point during the thirty minute countdown. The system is awakened at 10:00 p.m. to be inventoried, scanned for applicable patches and to receive software distributions.
Employees who occasionally access their work PC remotely via a Citrix session have a self service web page where they can wake up their assigned PC. Your system may be excluded from this process, if you meet one of the following criteria: 1) you login often remotely; 2) you are a developer who may be compiling applications over night; or 3) your desktop is part of a larger system or application. System exclusions requests should be submitted to BCCS in the form of an ESR. If you have any questions about the BCCS Energy Savings Initiative, please contact Keith Klockenga at keith.klockenga@illinois.gov.
Enterprise Vault® (Email Archive Solution)
BCCS managed email participants are reaping the benefits of our Enterprise Vault® solution. Implemented in seven agencies totaling 7,297 mailboxes, the migration to the Enterprise Vault® is saving half of the mailbox space previously utilized reducing the states overall cost. Email data is now moved from more expensive agency file servers utilizing Tier One storage to a less expensive storage medium. We estimate that up to $.50 per GB can be saved with the vault process. Moving data to the vault will also free up Tier One storage for other purposes.The PIM team has been meeting agency CIOs prior to each vault migration to ensure that the agency's needs are met. For further information about the vault solution and process, please contact Ron Miller at 217-557-2664.
Agency |
Mailboxes |
Pst’s |
Total Space |
Vault |
CMS |
1717 |
2925 |
935 GB |
100 |
CEO |
540 |
589 |
318 GB |
98 |
HFS |
2849 |
1474 |
1.3 T |
80 |
EPA |
1165 |
739 |
435 GB |
70 |
DNR |
723 |
0 |
50,685 MB |
50 |
DPH |
303 |
0 |
24,714 MB |
30 |
FPR |
1 |
0 |
4,357 MB |
< 1 |
Pst's imported = 0 for DNR, DPH and FPR. The vault process is 1) move the mailbox data that is on the server to the vault storage, 2) move the.pst data from file server to vault storage. Step 1 must be completed for all agency mailboxes before step 2 starts.
File & Print Migration
Financial savings was the primary driving force behind IT Rationalization. Savings are being achieved in several ways, but two changes in particular are having a large impact: standardization of the state's IT infrastructure across the enterprise and the elimination of similar, though different, redundant systems and software.
The objective of the File & Print Migration Project is to convert all Shared Services Agencies' networked file servers from Novell NetWare to Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and all Shared Services Agencies' desktop and portable computers from earlier versions of Microsoft's Windows operating system to Microsoft Windows XP Professional.
The agencies benefit from this initiative in several ways:
- Converting all of the IT assets to a common set of operating systems and applications will lower the total cost of ownership by reducing operating costs and administrative costs
- Reduction and eventual elimination of Novell NetWare licensing fees for servers and desktops
- Increased abilities to share data between state agencies
- Standardization of device naming conventions
- Provide the foundation for a number of new enterprise-class network management tools and utilities
- Standardization of network security groups and settings utilizing Microsoft's Active Directory
- Increase security of confidential data by providing centralized patch management tools and techniques
- Standardized workstations improve support staff's ability to resolve issues more effectively
Agencies converted to date include the Governor's Office, Lieutenant Governor's Office, Central Management Services, Prisoner Review Board, Human Rights, and several other CMS managed Boards and Commissions.
Ironically, the very factors that necessitated this project are the same ones that make the migration process itself more difficult. Each agency's needs are so different that a custom approach will be needed in every engagement.
For further information about this project contact: Barb Livingston, the Project Manager, at barb.livingston@illinois.gov.
Email Is Sizzlin' Hot This Summer!
As of July 1, 2009, CMS/BCCS staff has migrated more than 16,000 agency users to the Microsoft 2007 Outlook product with the completion of HFS. The DOT email migration began in April and is scheduled to be completed in November of this year. Staff representing forty different agencies, boards and commissions beneath the jurisdiction of the governor are now benefitting from the many unique features inherent in the Microsoft Outlook 2007 product. If your mailbox has already been migrated, you are familiar with the many tools provided by Outlook that will increase your productivity and help improve collaboration. Some of these features and tools include:- The ability to locate items in your email, calendar, contacts or tasks instantly without having to leave Outlook.
- An Instant Search feature that will allow you to find what you are looking for by using a keyword, date or other criteria.
- An inherent means by which you can keep yourself organized each day from the "To Do" bar where you have flagged emails and tasks and can connect to tasks in other programs.
- A shared calendar function which allows you to connect with people more easily by giving your key colleagues and contacts access to your information and calendar.
- Managing your information from one interface. Connect your Windows SharePoint documents, calendar, contacts, tasks and other information to Outlook 2007.
- Extra precautions to protect you from Phishing and Junk email through an improved filter and disabled links and warnings.
Avoid Email Phishing Scams
What is a phishing attack?
Phishing is a form of social engineering. Phishing attacks use email or malicious web sites to solicit personal and often financial information. Attackers may send email seemingly from a reputable credit card company or financial institution that requests account information, often suggesting that there is a problem. When users respond with the requested information, attackers can use it to gain access to the accounts.
How do you avoid being a victim?
- Be suspicious of unsolicited phone calls, visits, or email messages from individuals asking about employees or other internal information. If an unknown individual claims to be from a legitimate organization, try to verify his or her identity directly with the company.
- Do not provide personal information or information about your organization, including its structure or networks, unless you are certain of a person's authority to have the information.
- Do not reveal personal or financial information in email, and do not respond to email solicitations for this information. This includes following links sent in email.
- Don't send sensitive information over the Internet before checking a web site's security.
- Pay attention to the URL of a web site. Malicious web sites may look identical to legitimate sites, but the URL may use a variation in spelling or a different domain.
- If you are unsure whether an email request is legitimate, try to verify it by contacting the company directly. Do not use contact information provided on a web site connected to the request instead, check previous statements for contact information.
- Install and maintain anti-virus software, firewalls, and email filters to reduce some of this traffic.
Microsoft Office 2007 Update
In mid 2008, BCCS began upgrading approximately 21,000 desktops and laptops statewide from Office 2003 to Office 2007, pursuant to the states' Microsoft Enterprise Agreement (MSEA). This project is about 50% complete with nearly 10,000 desktops already migrated.
Twelve consolidated agencies and CMS-supported agencies, including the Governor's Office and the Lieutenant Governor's Office already have, or will soon receive the upgrade. While most of the upgrades have gone smoothly, the project team wants to share two of the more important lessons learned with any agency that has yet to receive the upgrade.
First, the Office 2007 software suite package is relatively large, approximately 1 GB in terms of disk space required. The operating system should be a minimum of Windows XP. It should be patched to at least SP2. Microsoft recommends 256 MB of memory but, BCCS recommends considerably more - preferably 1 GB.
Second, in order to help ensure a smooth transition, be sure to perform extensive pilot testing on all of your applications prior to a full migration. Particularly if you use Access databases, applications should be extensively tested. BCCS will work with you to identify a group of pilot testers and set a deployment schedule that will minimize interruptions to your normal business practices.
There is no additional charge to your agency for this upgrade - it is covered under the desktop rate and if the agency participates in the MSEA. Should you have any questions, or want to schedule an upgrade contact Jay Bales, Project Manager, jay.bales@illinois.gov.
SOI Communications Conference
The 2009 State of Illinois Communications Conference took place in May in Springfield, Illinois. The conference was co-hosted by Central Management Services/Bureau of Communication and Computer Services, Illinois Emergency Management Agency, Illinois Law Enforcement Alarm System and Illinois State Police. This year's conference spoke to the specialized needs of emergency responders at both the state and local levels.
Attendees had the opportunity to hear from Keynote Speaker Melanie Magara, Assistant Vice President for Public Affairs and Chief Communications Officer at Northern Illinois University. Melanie shared the story of the tragic shooting on the campus of NIU on February 14, 2008 and discussed the lessons learned and how the campus community dealt with those events. By sharing their story with us, as Virginia Tech had shared their story with NIU, they hope that the NIU tragedy can be used as a learning experience for those facing disasters in the future.
Other informational sessions included: 2008 Mississippi Flood Response - a panel discussion including lessons learned; IWIN updates; Starcom21; Rebanding; State of Illinois Rapid Electronic Notification (SIREN); Upcoming Grant Availability Requirements, and SCIP/NIMS.
Attendees had the opportunity to attend demonstrations and walk-throughs of the State Unified Command trailer, a local unified command vehicle, and an Illinois Transportable Communications System (ITECS) trailer.
With over 300 attendees and nineteen contributing vendors, this year's conference provided a wide variety of information about the communications tools available for emergency response in the State of Illinois. Continuing education credits were available to attendees, and attendance can be applied toward the Illinois Police Chiefs' in-service requirement.
Conference presentations can be downloaded from http://www.ileas.org under the Annual Conferences link.