University of Washington

Connecting people, improving coverage, saving money Next-generation Wi-Fi will enhance speed, performance and coverage. A three-year wireless network (Wi-Fi) upgrade is underway. It will deliver six-toeight times greater speed, offer better coverage and provide significantly more capacity. The effort is partially funded by $1 million from the Student Technology Fee Committee. A major phone system upgrade will move the UW into the future. The upgrade will replace an aging, outdated phone system that lacks vendor support and modern features. UW-IT is partnering with key stakeholders and UW units to identify alternatives that will provide better collaboration and lower costs. Initial work is underway. Microsoft and Apple licensing agreements provide popular software at significant savings to the UW. New agreements provide current and new Microsoft software at no additional cost for UW-owned computers, plus, for the first time, Apple software. The licenses help to keep computers up-to-date and in compliance. UW users have mobile access to key resources including course catalogs, campus directories, maps, news, sports and events through the m.UW app—now available for Android, iPhone, BlackBerry and mobile Web. Further enhancements are planned for the future. Hefty discounts add up to big savings for UW cell phone users. More than 26,000 UW students, faculty and staff take advantage of significant discounts available through contracts negotiated by UW-IT with AT&T and T-Mobile. The discounts save users an estimated $3 million a year—an average of well over $100 per person. Nebula Managed Desktop Services help units manage IT support costs through on-demand pricing and flexible service options. Clients can request specialized consulting, on-site support and other services at an hourly rate. Upgrades improve Washington's K-20 Education Network. Teachers, students and staff across the state connect through the high-performance K-20 network, designed and operated by UW-IT. The network connects Washington's K-12 schools, community colleges, universities, libraries and museums. Recent upgrades enable enhanced traffic management at over 400 sites and pave the way for increased bandwidth. Up next: Upgrades will enable speeds up to 10 gigabits, increase efficiency and reduce costs. Fiber optic networks and Wi-Fi serve area hospitals. Heart-care clinicians at UW Medicine (including Northwest Hospital) and Seattle Cancer Care Alliance can access, evaluate and act on patient data across multiple data systems, sources and formats thanks to fiber optic network connectivity installed by UW-IT. At UW and Harborview Medical Centers, patients and visitors have free wireless service, and staff have secure, wireless access to hospital systems. What's next • A unified communications pilot is underway to integrate phones, videoconferencing, voicemail, email and instant messaging. UWIT is partnering with all three UW campuses, UW Medicine and the K-20 Education Network. • Phone system upgrades and pilots are ongoing at UW and Harborview Medical Centers. • New network architecture will provide flexible service provisioning for researchers, enhanced security and an ability to scale network connections from 1 to 10 gigabits on request. Coming June 2012. • A more aggressive mobile strategy will include UW-IT working with UW partners to add existing Web content to m.UW and help developers create content specifically for mobile devices. More info UW-IT Service Catalog uw.edu/uwit/services/ Software licenses (UWare) uw.edu/itconnect/wares/uware 2011 ANNUAL REPORT 7

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