Projects
DIT has numerous projects to improve services and processes within the division and at UMD. These are some of the major ones that are currently ongoing.
Current Projects
Elevate Program
The Elevate Program will transition the university from its older mainframe systems to a modern cloud-based solution for our Human Resource/Human Capital Management, Finance, and Student Information System.
This modernization of our administrative systems will benefit our partners at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, and the University of Maryland System Office.
Workday has been selected as the university's new enterprise solution. This new integrated system will modernize and transform the way the university does business with a focus on improving the user experience for students, staff and faculty.
Campus Network Refresh Initiative
In order to meet the increasing demands for reliable and high-speed connectivity, DIT is leading an initiative to replace and upgrade our campus network. This initiative aims to modernize our network infrastructure, unify the wired and wireless network experience, improve coverage on campus, and enhance security to protect us from cyber-threats.
This upgrade will provide these exciting network service enhancements:
- Increase indoor wireless coverage density across UMD’s 250 academic, administrative, and residential buildings through the installation of 2,500 new wired switches, and 18,000 new wireless access points, an increase of more than 6,000 over the current count.
- Deploy the new Wi-Fi 6E technology, which enables faster, more reliable Wi-Fi connectivity and better supports bandwidth-intensive activities.
- Expand outdoor wireless in key locations such as McKeldin Mall and Hornbake Plaza.
- Deliver seamless “at home” experiences for students who live on campus. This will allow students to set up their devices to interact with each other for things like wireless printing and casting a video from their phone to their smart TV while maintaining security.
Insights Data Warehouse
As the university prepares to move all of its operations related to HR and Finance to Workday as part of the Elevate project, it is critical that ad hoc, institutional, and operational reporting continue to be supported. In order to accomplish this, the Insights Data Warehouse project will extract data from Workday and model this data into structures that are primed for reporting and analytics. The end goal is a fully integrated data warehouse that melds Workday and historical, non-Workday data in as seamless a manner as possible.
Non-Capital Computing Asset Process Management
The non-capital computer asset process management project seeks to improve the University of Maryland’s management of its non-capital computing assets (laptops, desktops, tablets, smartphones and servers under $5,000). In order to accomplish this, the project will update UMD’s non-capital asset procedures and identify and implement a third-party system to provide a central source of inventory data. Combined, updated procedures and a third-party system will provide more accurate data about UMD’s non-capital computing assets, which will enable the university to better track inventory, limit loss of equipment, and meet compliance and audit requirements.
Project Dashboard
The DIT Project Dashboard provides a real-time snapshot of projects that are ongoing in DIT along with some status information.
Recently Completed Projects
Oracle Migration
DIT uses Oracle to run online transactions and data processing across multiple mission-critical applications and systems on campus. The Oracle 11g version was end-of-life (EOL) effective December 31, 2020. Under the Oracle Migration project, DIT successfully upgraded Oracle 11g on-prem databases to version 12c in August 2020, thereby mitigating the security risk of running out of support software in DIT’s network. Additionally, this project upgraded campus on-prem Oracle 12c databases to Oracle 19c Standard Edition (RDS) on Amazon Web Services (AWS). Upgrading from version 12c to 19c extended support to April 30, 2027. Moving our databases to AWS provides better performance, reliability, and scalability while reducing our physical footprint.