Our approach to assurance is coupled to the ongoing oversight of programs and projects that is a normal and ongoing part of IT management. As such, our primary assurance is the annual development of strategic objectives accompanied by quarterly reports and/or meetings on those objectives between IT Senior Management and heads of Service Areas. The IT Strategic Plan details these objectives, strategies, and metrics by service area.
Independent assessments, including peer reviews, provide additional assurance along with our ongoing key metrics such as network availability and customer satisfaction.
1.0 Top Risks, Challenges and Opportunities
1.1 Personnel Recruitment and Retention
Multiple groups across IT have struggled to recruit qualified applicants to open positions, including senior posts. One senior position has now been posted three times. Budget pressures and the Bay Area market continue to hamper our ability to craft packages that compete.
1.2 Multiple major projects in progress to chart the future of business at the Lab
Virtually every area in operations has a major retrofit of their supporting business applications in progress. This is promising for the future of LBNL’s support organizations, but so many parallel projects will continue to tax our resources.
2.0 LBNL Performance
2.1 Strategic Areas Performance
Help Scientists Compute and Collaborate
- Condo model fully operational.
- Globus contract signed, globus.lbl.gov is readying deployment.
- Video conferencing prototype complete, readying FY14 Launch
Organize the Laboratory’s Information
- Map.lbl.gov deployed
- New WWW is final and awaiting new LBL Strategic Plan completion for launch.
- Service.lbl.gov proof of concept successful, FY14 deployment in planning stage.
Deploy Infrastructure to Support Science
- Datacenter tactical/strategic plans completed, continuing to pursue options.
- 100G Perimeter upgrade is nearly complete. Major WiFi upgrade in progress.
Manage Business Systems for Efficient Operations
- Financial Systems: Technical development effort begun for F$M
- HR Systems: Completion of Workday Agreement
2.2 Audit and Reviews
- IG/KPMG General Controls. No findings related to IT performance
- IT Advisory Board - first meeting of advisory board convened by LBL COO for each operations area, composed entirely of outside experts. Endorsed video conferencing plans, provided strong positive feedback on HPC, reinforced need for revisiting IT business applications governance structure.
- Internal Audit: IT Governance. Reinforced need to revisit IT Governance at LBL for business applications as we leave a long period of incremental improvements and embark on much larger projects.
3.0 PEMP Goals, Objectives, Notable Outcomes
None defined for IT.
4.0 Noteworthy Accomplishments
- November 2012 - Launch of LR3 - third generation of Lawrencium Institutional Computing Capability.
- November 2012 - IT/EETD Honored at Datacenter Summit for work on variable speed fans in datacenter CRACs.
- November 2012 - IT staff honored by Intel for continued development of the Warewulf Cluster software, which runs our institutional computing.
- June 2013 - Most of the lab completes its PMP process in Google Docs, quickly and inexpensively deployed and automated by IT.
- FY2013 - Hundreds of scientists and operations employees attended classes as part of new focus on courses to help scientists compute more effectively.
