CIP Bond Projects
November 2005, the Alamo Colleges received authorization for 17.5 million in Information Technology Bond money. The ITS Projects under this category have been funded through the Alamo Colleges Bond. This initiative will provide the Alamo Colleges with a unique opportunity to improve, upgrade and expand Information Technology Services and State of the Art facilities here at the Alamo Colleges.
Web Content Management System
The Alamo Colleges has implemented a Web Content Management System. The WCMS will facilitate content creation, content control, editing, and many essential web maintenance functions. The WCMS provides authoring (and other) tools designed to allow users with little or no knowledge of programming languages or markup languages to create and manage content with relative ease of use.
Blackboard Vista & eLearning Management System
In response to requests for a better instructional management platform to support the growth of the online courses, the eLearning Management system will be upgraded to a newer, scalable and reliable Blackboard Vista platform.
System will include enhanced options for assessment, collaboration, content sharing, institution branding, third party tool integration and enterprise reporting.
Network Operations Center
The Data Center Renovation project will upgrade or refresh all major environmental components at the 811 W. Houston St. computing facility. This will include cooling and heating, UPS, electrical, power protection, fire protection, flooring, racking systems, monitoring facilities, and security mechanisms.
The renovation will bring all data center components up to current standards, and will increase capacity and reliability.
ITS Command & Control Center
The objective of this project is to set up a centralized control center to monitor and control all aspects of ITS Service management processes and be the focal point in the delivery of services, the correction of problems, and the implementation of changes to the ITS service environment.
Secure Wireless Net
The purpose of the Wireless Campus project is to provide mobility, ubiquitous access, and the accommodation of private and Alamo Colleges owned wireless computing devices on the Alamo Colleges network. Wireless access will facilitate instruction, access to educational materials, and administrative support.
Redundant Internet
This project will expand, and diversify the Alamo Colleges Internet connection. Two physically separate full-function internet connections will be installed providing redundancy, fault tolerance, and high speed failover for Alamo Colleges Internet access.
Email Upgrade
Alamo Colleges CIP Bond funds will be used to upgrade our current email systems to a single MS Exchange email system. The new email system will be installed on new hardware, new software and will include tools for email security, new anti-spam and anti-virus software for the Alamo Colleges largest email system, which is used by over 60,000 people.
Voice Over IP
The current analog telephone system will be replaced with a voice over IP digital unified communication system.
Identity Management Systems
The objective of this project is to implement an identity management solution to support an infrastructure for the creation, automation and maintenance, and use of digital identities. The system once implemented will support automated processes for authentication, single-sign-on, enterprise directory services, authorization, access control and federated identity.
Disaster Recovery Center
The San Antonio College MDF will be updated to become a standby Data Center that may be utilized in the event of disaster making the primary data center inoperable. The Recovery Site will have processors, disk storage, tape facilities, network facilities and connectivity to support Alamo Colleges mission critical functions.
Campus Telecommunications Cabling
The telecommunications cabling at all campuses will be brought up to conformity with Alamo Colleges telecommunication standards. This includes a migration to category 5 wiring throughout and development of secure IDFs and MDFs.
Video on Demand
Using the CIP funds, Information Technology Services staff will collaborate to purchase an enterprise Video on Demand solution for use by online educators and students. Once the system is fully implemented, faculty and students will be able to query online video resources from centralized repository and instructors will be able to centrally archive and store video resources.
Network Infrastructure/Hardening
This project will upgrade and "Harden" the Alamo Colleges Enterprise network to make it faster, more reliable, and more fault tolerant. The major initiatives are to provide protected power with a minimum of 30 minutes run time for each network component and to provide at least two physical connections between all core and distribution level network components.
