SIS 2000 - The University of Arizona's Team Approach to Client/Server Migration: Strengthening Old Partnerships and Forging New Ones

Abstract

The University of Arizona, like many other institutions, knows that it has reached an impasse with its administrative systems. The mainframe is overloaded, the files are getting bigger, the enhancement requests keep coming, the computing resources are shrinking, the upgrades are expensive, the customer base is expanding, the screens are too complicated for students and departmental users to access, and the hole just looks deeper and deeper every day. This paper describes the commitment that the University has made to migrating the largest administrative system, the Student Information System, from the mainframe environment to new technology of client/server. These commitments have required new partnerships to be forged in addition to strengthening our old partnerships. The magnet team of five Computer Center personnel, were physically moved to new office space and transitioned from our existing job duties into a team environment where we are focusing on the huge task of migration. We will discuss the methods, like Total Quality Management and empowerment of the team, that we are using to make the transition easier for everyone involved. The paper and presentation will present the results of the transition, both good and bad. The team will discuss how our customers, the students and the departmental users, are involved in the project and the strategic parts they play. We will elaborate on how the use of Mandarin Technology and the Mandarin Consortium (a new partnership) have enabled us to change our customer focus from administrative use of complicated screens to easy access by students and departmental users, with in-depth information regarding the application of the Mandarin architecture into our IBM 3090 CICS/VSAM environment. Along with this discussion will be a discussion of the current status of the architecture, including a discussion of our Kerberos vs. Pin Id approaches. Paper presented at CAUSE94, the full proceedings of which are available through this Library as PUB1094.