Benefit to our Contractors
Our contractors are dealing with the same budget
pressures that we are. In many cases, the areas that have taken
considerable reductions have been IT related. Continual IT investment
provides long term benefits, and in many cases, the benefits will
be realized past the end of a contractors performance period.
The availability of a complete, engineered, supportable and managed
set of workstation configurations, for little or no cost, will
allow the Contractor community to take advantage of IT savings
without the necessary initial investment.
Another benefit of the availability of complete,
engineered, and performant solutions is that they can be used
to provide interoperability between NASA and contractor workforces
as well as between the various contractor workforces.
It should be noted that the cost savings to our contractor
community will quite probably never be acknowledged by that community.
However, it should allow for the realization of the benefits
identified above.
Cost
The cost item is made up of several components, some
readily definable, some more difficult to assign a specific dollar
amount to. The general cost requirements are identified below.
Leverage existing personnel to the maximum extent
possible.
In these days of declining budgets and reduced manpower,
support personnel are taking on more and more tasks. It is important
that new tools that are intended to reduce costs and efforts do
not do the opposite. A solution that requires all of the service
providers to learn new operating systems, commands, tools, and
interfaces before realizing any benefits is not a good solution.
It will never be successfully deployed. The Workstation Management
Tool must take advantage of existing skill sets within the Service
Provider community wherever possible.
Leverage existing equipment to the maximum extent
possible.
NASA's existing workstation infrastructure (workstations,
networks, servers, protocols, WAN's) is extensive and already
provides connectivity to almost all users. A solution that requires
significant perturbations to this infrastructure is not a good
solution. In these days of declining budgets and declining manpower,
it would never be successfully deployed. The Workstation Management
Tool must effectively and efficiently utilize NASA's existing
workstation/network infrastructure to the maximum extent possible,
both to reduce costs associated with modification of the infrastructure
and to reduce the costs associated with deployment.
General / Functional
The General / Functional Requirements are directed
primarily at the basic functionality provided by the Workstation
Management Tool.
Inventory Management
OMB and NASA ADP Inventory requirements, as well
as reductions in budget and manpower, are driving the Agency to
automated inventory management tools. It simply is not feasible
to manually collect this type of data any more. Further, the
requirement to "Buy Smart" creates a need for near real
time data. The Workstation Management Tool must collect data
on PC's, MAC's, and UNIX boxes without the significant manpower
associated with manual methods.
In addition, the inventory cycle must be tailorable
to a cycle determined by the Service Provider as well as being
executed on demand, as in after maintenance is performed.
Workstation Management
With reduced budgets and reduced manpower, Information
Systems Service Providers are having to work harder and harder
just to maintain existing levels of service. One area where significant
savings can be realized while maintaining or even improving service
is in the area of automated workstation management. The Workstation
Management Tool must provide the capability to selectively (by
organizational group, by workstation configuration, or by workstation
capabilities as identified in the database) apply system upgrades
to specific workstations with little or no touch labor at the
end user site. It should be noted that this requirement has an
implementation specific component. The Service Provider needs
to collect and maintain this data.
The tool must allow updates to be scheduled with
options like, but not limited to: mandatory update, must be performed
now; user can decline update for up to X days/weeks before it
will become mandatory; or user can schedule the update.
Data Storage
This data also needs to be collected and accessible
at the Organizational, Center, Agency, and Government level.
This will most likely be a function of the implementation of the
tool, as opposed to the tool itself, but the need still exists
(local Service Providers may decide not to report data). Data
access should be controllable to limit organizations to access
to their own data. Additionally, the capability to distribute
pre-defined reports should be provided.
During the life-cycle of a workstations, there are
numerous opportunities for the configuration to change in such
a manner that any Workstation Management Tool will be unable to
detect the difference between a new machine, and one that has
simply been significantly altered. The tool must provide tools,
or methodologies that will allow the detection and correction
of these duplications.
It is important that all information collected on
a workstation, or a set of workstation, be easily accessible.
To this end, the data storage component of the Workstation Management
Tool must either utilize a relational SQL Database, or provide
access to the data through an SQL interface.
The reporting component must support the ability
to produce ad-hoc reports as needed on an organizational or enterprise
wide level as well as provide the ability to incorporate these
reports in to the standard set of reports.
User Support of Windows workstations
One of the significant benefits of these types of
tools is the ability to remotely control a users workstation.
The tool must provide a tool that will allow the workstation
to be remotely controlled (see screen, execute applications, edit
files, re-boot workstation). In addition, provisions must be
made to allow the user to refuse this capability either at initiation
of the session, or at any time during the session.
The tool must provide the capability to perform remote
diagnostics on the workstation to gather data such as: memory
utilization, hardware diagnostics, re-verification of inventory
data.
Often, user problems may be related to activities
on the network. The tool should provide the capability to utilize
the users workstation as a remote network monitor. Data to be
collected should include: network traffic levels, basic packet
analysis for TCP/IP packets as well as Novel IPX and Appletalk
packets.
Network protocols
TCP/IP is the standard protocol for agency wide access.
Support for other protocols is desirable.
License Management
There are several approaches to shared software applications.
They generally fall into two different philosophies, Hard Metering,
and Soft Metering. Hard metering is limiting access based on
a set number of packages that cannot be exceeded at any time.
Soft metering is simply tracking the number of licenses in use
at any one time so the Service Provider can accurately determine
when additional licenses need to be procured. The tool, at a
minimum, must provide the ability to track the number of licenses
in use at any one time on Windows and MAC workstations as well
as the user (for server based applications).
An additional desired capability is the ability to
share applications, and manage the sharing of application, through
the use of the tool itself.
User Related Requirements
Many users are mobile. Often, mobile means that
the user is at the end of a low speed interface. The system must
make provisions for users who do not have high speed access to
the system so as to not significantly impact their capabilities.
Some users will be located in non-networked areas.
Provisions must be made to collect data on these systems.
Implementation Requirements
The implementation of the tool must allow the local
Service Provider sufficient flexibility to manage their workstations
in whatever manner they choose. If they want to maintain dozens
of configurations, and perform the overhead required to track
the evolution of these configurations, the tool should not preclude
this, even to the extent of tracking and managing multiple versions
and configurations of the same product on the same workstation.
Inventory Management
Data to be collected must include what is needed
to effectively manage the workstations. Minimum data to effectively
manage workstations, including replacement and procurement decisions,
is divided into three primary types of data: data that can be
detected, data that can be inferred (through access to other data
stores), and data that the user can supply. Additionally, some
types of data only apply to a specific class of workstation or
server.
Required Data to be Detected
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- Hardware
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- CPU Type and speed
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- Memory, Real and Virtual
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- Disk Capacity and Configuration
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- Network Interface card and addresses
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- Video Card
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- Software
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- Operating System
Desired Data to be Detected
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Hardware
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SCSI Information
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Interrupt Assignments
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LPT and COM data
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Other Detectable Peripherals
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Software
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Applications
Name
Revision Level
Patch Level, if applicable
License Number, if applicable
Serial Number, if applicable and detectable
Components/Modules Installed, if applicable
Customized Features, if applicable
Desired Data to be Tracked
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Hardware
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Modification History (maybe)
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User History (maybe)
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Monitor Data, through ECN number
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Equipment Age, through ECN, sometimes misleading
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Failure History, through Help Desk Application
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Peripheral Data, through ECN most likely
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Software
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Modification History (may be from packages run)
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Other
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Provision of customizable, user completed forms.
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Property
This type of information is very useful in determining
where and how a workstation is used. This type of data will allow
integration with financial data so that a complete cost picture
can be developed. It is expected that much of this data will
require the user to periodically fill out a simple, on screen,
form.
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User Name
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ECN
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Room Number
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Machine Function
Implementation Specific Items
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Hardware
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BIOS Dates and Versions
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Disk Controller Types
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Software
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Shared Versions
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Keyed Versions
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Software/License Expiration Dates
Scalability
NASA Centers vary in size and complexity. In
addition, Centers are often divided internally in numerous groups,
often with different sets of requirements.
Provide for various workstation group sizes
The Workstation Management Tool must provide
provisions for groupings of workstations as small as 20 users
to the entire NASA installed base (projected here to be at least
50,000 workstations).
Provide a hierarchy of data and control
Often a Center will have small groups with special
data access or security requirements. A hierarchy of data and
control must be provided in order to allow Center Service Providers
to either perform the entire job themselves, or delegate portions
to Service Providers within the Center.
Multi-Platform
NASA's workstation requirements vary from program
to program and Center to Center. This has led to a diverse collection
of workstation technology that can be loosely collected into three
groups: PC, MAC, and UNIX. Inventory Management and Workstation
Management requirements are pretty much the same across all of
these groupings.
PC
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Windows95
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WindowsNT
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Other standard supported configurations as determined
by the Windows Expert Center.
MAC
