Enterprise Infrastructure Services staff support the underlying
files systems, the computing engines and data communication gear
that are the infrastructure or backbone for much of UB's computing
functionality.
EIS staff are located primarily in the Computing Center and
Fronczak Hall but are also distributed throughout North and South
Campuses.
EIS provisions, supports and maintains all the underlying technology platforms that provide the following services to UB:
EIS staff design, implement, and maintain IMAP and Microsoft
Exchange email services. We also integrate with Google Email
for students. These services process millions of messages
each day, while placing large amounts of spam in quarantine and
deleting virus-infected mail.
Collaboration services include Microsoft SharePoint and the new UB Microsoft Lync service currently under construction.
EIS staff manage and support the server infrastructure that runs
UBlearns, our campus online course management system. UBlearns is
available around the clock for any student or faculty to manage
online course materials. UBlearns provides access to online course
notes, lectures, assignments, exams and even collaboration over IM
with other classmates.
EIS staff design, implement and maintain central enterprise
Identity Management Services. These services include UBIT
account generation and management, IT services login
(authentication and authorization) and directory services.
Technologies currently included in this services include Kerberos,
LDAP, single sign-on service and Windows Active Directory.
EIS staff design, implement, and maintain central enterprise
Data Backup and Recovery Services. These services provide
data backup and restore capabilities to central IT enterprise and
campus IT Node services. To insure recovery capability, copies of
this data are maintained at multiple geographically separated
sites. Technologies used for this service include IBM Tivoli
Storage Manager, multiple tape libraries and a virtual tape
library.
EIS staff provision and manage workstations in
technology-enabled classrooms, public computing sites and
administrative departments. This includes new technologies
such as the "zero clients" in the Lockwood Cybrary and the My
Virtual Computing Lab software that allows you to access popular
UB-licensed software directly from your personal computer.
EIS staff design, implement, and maintain central enterprise
File Services. UB’s File system (UBfs), provides users with
fast, redundant and secure storage space for their files. UBfs
offers collaborative (shared) file spaces as well as individual
file spaces accessible through the web or a mapped drive on your
workstation.
EIS staff supports UB's Web hosting applications and underlying
servers including UB's premier content management system, UBCMS,
and the central Web host Wings.
EIS staff design, implement, and maintain the UB Virtual Machine
Infrastructure, which uses VMware to provide virtual machines for
the campus. Virtual Machines (VMs) are a way for one physical
computer to appear to be multiple computers, each with their own
operating system and applications. VMs are redundant, easier
to maintain and they use hardware more efficiently.
EIS staff design, implement and maintain core infrastructure
systems that are essential for our enterprise services. These
services include the Domain Name Service (DNS), Windows patching
services, server load balancing and a SAN storage
infrastructure. Each of these services is designed for
redundancy, high availability and high performance.