• VICE PRESIDENT FOR INFORMATION SYSTEMS
  
• ACADEMIC COMPUTING PRACTICE
  
• OFFICE COMPUTING PRACTICE
  
• VOICE, DATA, AND IMAGE NETWORKING PRACTICE
  
• I/T DISCOVERY PROCESS
  
• I/T DELIVERY PROCESS
  
• I/T SERVICE PROCESS
  
• I/T SUPPORT PROCESS
  
• I/T INTEGRATION PROCESS
  
• I/T COMPETENCY GROUP
  

VICE PRESIDENT FOR INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Information Systems (IS) strives to enable members of the MIT community to use information technology more productively in all their work. IS focuses on four strategic objectives: to align IS with Institute needs by ensuring that MIT processes use modern information technology (I/T) effectively; to grow IS's reputation for customer service and operational excellence; to continue to develop and implement clear goals, vision, principles, roles and responsibilities, process and subprocess designs, and performance metrics that enable the effective use of the Institute's I/T resources; and to achieve the benefits of transforming the Institute's I/T enterprise by fully realizing the I/T Transformation Redesign Team's vision of IS and all of the Institute's centralized I/T as a process-centered, team-based organization.

In the two years since the launch of I/T Transformation, the Information Technology Leadership Team, led by the Vice President for Information Systems, has worked to implement the redesign team's vision. Over the past year, Information Systems staff moved more fully into IS's new team-oriented, process-driven framework and continued to work with others throughout the Institute in ongoing activities and new initiatives. IS staff remain deeply involved in efforts to reengineer the Institute's administrative processes. By the end of the fiscal year, IS staff had achieved an impressive range of accomplishments, some of which are highlighted in the reports which follow. This section presents an IS overview.

Use of MIT's information technology resources continues to grow as the I/T infrastructure is improved and expanded. Annually the MIT community comes to IS with some 100,000 requests for help and service changes, ranging widely from upgrading telephone service to installing a new office computing environment to assisting faculty in using computers in their teaching. In fiscal 1997, Quickstations and ZIP drives were introduced into the Athena Computing Environment; administrative servers averaged 99.84% daily availability despite increasingly heavy network traffic; over 500 hands-on courses, Quick Start classes, and Athena mini-courses reached thousands of participants from across the MIT community; and the Computing Help Desk handled over 20,000 cases while reducing its daily queue of pending cases by 80% through process and efficiency improvements. In addition, IS successfully delivered I/T products, such as SAPweb and Alumni "E-mail-Forwarding-For-Life," that were immediately valuable to the MIT community.

There were some changes to the I/T Leadership Team during fiscal 1997, although its core remained the same:

• Leaders of I/T Practices advocate both on behalf of customers to IS and on behalf of IS to customers. In October 1996, Theresa M. Regan succeeded Diane Devlin as Director, Office Computing Practice. She joins two other practice directors: M. S. Vijay Kumar, Director, Academic Computing Practice; and Dennis Baron, Director, Voice, Data, and Image Networking Practice.

• Greg Anderson as Director, I/T Discovery; Robert V. Ferrara as IS's newly appointed Director, I/T Delivery; Roger A. Roach as Director, I/T Service; William F. Hogue as Director, I/T Support; and Susan Minai-Azary as Director, I/T Integration are responsible for IS's core work process.

• I/T Competency Group leaders concentrate on the skills dimension of Information Systems, working to provide a staff well-qualified to meet future work requirements. Late in fiscal 1997, Erin Rae Hoffer and Shirley M. Picardi left Information Systems. Until a new director is appointed, Greg Anderson will act as Interim Director, I/T Competency Groups. He is charged with leading a team chartered to discover future directions for the competency concept in IS.

Over the next year, the I/T Leadership Team will continue a series of meetings designed to understand and refine IS's process-centered organization. The I/T Leadership Team and the IS staff are committed to continuing to learn our way into working in the new framework and to ensuring that the new framework works for us, for our customers, and for the Institute. More information about Information Systems may be found on the World Wide Web at the following URL: http://web.mit.edu/is/

James D. Bruce

ACADEMIC COMPUTING PRACTICE

The Academic Computing Practice seeks to promote and enable MIT education through the effective use of information technology. Collaborating with I/T Process teams and in partnership with academic departments, the Academic Computing Practice provides widely distributed client-server computing designed to facilitate undergraduate education. This occurs primarily through the Athena Computing Environment, which is

used by thousands of users each day and over 10,000 different people on peak days. Academic Computing also provides advocacy, training, documentation, and consulting services to support academic work. During fiscal 1997:

• The Academic Computing Practice continued its annual renewal of Athena equipment, purchasing workstations and peripherals to replace aging equipment. In this renewal effort, 144 Sun SPARC4 workstations and 46 SGI workstations were deployed to public clusters, and 82 SPARC4 workstations and 33 SGI workstations were deployed to academic departments. In March 1997, the historic "Fishbowl," the Building 11 Athena cluster, moved to Building 12 to accommodate the new Student Services Center, and the Building 16 basement cluster moved to its new location in the renovated Building 56. Other Athena cluster enhancements in fiscal 1997 included the installation of Quickstations and ZIP drives in clusters around campus.

• Academic Computing encouraged and supported innovative educational uses of technology. As part of the Athena Renewal process, Academic Computing solicited instructional computing-related proposals from academic departments. Projects being supported through this initiative include the development of a Web-based program for freshman Calculus. Academic Computing also contributed to MIT's successful bid for Intel Corporation equipment to support computationally-intensive applications, proposing that IS help develop a remotely-manageable, serially-reusable Windows NT environment. Academic Computing continues to collaborate with the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering on this initiative.

• To anticipate and meet the network requirements of a growing number of high-bandwidth instructional applications, Academic Computing led IS's participation in the Internet 2 initiative and contributed to MIT's successful NSF proposal for a vBNS (Very High Bandwidth Network Service) network connection.

• Also in fiscal 1997, Academic Computing coordinated MIT's membership in the New Media Centers Consortium, a nonprofit organization designed to bring together academe and industry to create a collaborative network that integrates media into education. As a member of the Consortium, MIT will benefit from multimedia development at other colleges and universities. MIT will also be able to equip a hands-on laboratory with state-of-the-art technology for multimedia development and training. The new Media Center will allow faculty to create and use instructional materials and workshops that require multimedia-based software; it will also allow them to assign media-based homework such as digital photography or audio/video editing.

• The Academic Computing Practice provided a strategic focus for information technology in education in Institute-wide planning and policy-making groups, including the Council on Educational Technology, the Task Force on Student Life and Learning, and the Faculty Policy group. Partnering with the Resource Development Office and I/T Discovery, Academic Computing developed a proposal for an Advanced Visualization Initiative. With the Office of the Dean of Students and Undergraduate Education, Academic Computing initiated Crosstalk, a forum for technology and pedagogy. The Practice also collaborated with the Center for Advanced Educational Services and the Registrar's Office on projects concerning instruction support and electronic classrooms.

• The Academic Computing Practice continued outreach efforts to external professional organizations, including NERCOMP, CAUSE, EDUCOM, Seminars on Academic Computing, IVY+, and the American Association for Higher Education, and key technology vendors, including Apple, IBM, ORACLE, SGI, SUN, and Intel. Academic Computing also hosted visitors from Australia, Germany, Japan, Israel, and Malaysia who were interested in MIT's academic computing program.

M. S. Vijay Kumar

OFFICE COMPUTING PRACTICE

During fiscal 1997, the Office Computing Practice continued its efforts to ensure that administrative computing customers and providers derive maximum value from MIT's information technology resources. Collaborating with I/T Process teams and in partnership with administrative offices and departments, the Office Computing Practice works to build constructive relationships with individuals and organizational units that share the Institute's administrative responsibilities towards its primary mission of research and education. The work of this Practice relies on a solid and current understanding of office computing needs, opportunities, and priorities. These are essential to discovering, implementing, and supporting the best applications of information technology for the administrative computing environment.

• Complementing its primary purpose of advocating on behalf of customers with IS, and on behalf of IS with customers, the Office Computing Practice devoted a substantial amount of time in fiscal 1997 to meeting directly with administrative customers to assess their I/T needs. Throughout the year, Office Computing worked closely with groups from the central administrative offices and academic departments, and met with most of the Administrative Officers from each of the Schools. These meetings provided an opportunity to exchange ideas, address issues, and strive for a standard cross-platform administrative desktop computing environment. Discussions spanned work on-campus, off-campus, and between campus and colleagues on other campuses.

• During fiscal 1997, the Office Computing Management Group (OCMG) emerged as a forum for IS and other administrative I/T staff to meet, share ideas and information, discuss issues of mutual concern, and plan together for the future. The Office Practice hopes to generate more sustaining interest in this group across MIT.

• To a large extent, MIT's reengineering initiative has meant a reexamination of MIT's business practices. This, combined with shifting work demands, has created a rapidly changing environment for the Institute's administrative processes. This past year, the Office Computing Practice conducted strategic planning meetings in major administrative areas, including the Controller's Accounting Office (CAO), the General Purchasing Office (GPO), the Budget Office, and the Vice President for Human Resources' area, to prepare for the delivery of reengineered business applications with a primary focus on SAP R/3. Collaborating with administrative customers and IS teams in Service and Support, the Office Computing Practice coordinated reengineering-related planning for MIT's central administrative groups and the MIT Professional Learning Center, including the deployment of over 300 new desktop computers. These computers were delivered with administrative software and networking installations as needed.

• Throughout the year, the Office Computing Practice also championed the introduction of the Windows NT workstation as a supported operating system for administrative desktops. This effort involved close collaboration with Service and Support teams. Early in the spring, IS announced gradual support for Windows NT commencing in July 1997, with full support anticipated in early fall 1997.

VOICE, DATA, AND IMAGE NETWORKING PRACTICE

The mission of the Voice, Data, and Image Networking Practice is to ensure that the necessary information technology systems and services are available to support academic, research, and administrative efforts at MIT. This includes working with IS process owners and outside vendors to make sure current systems are accessible and have adequate capacity. In addition, this Practice helps identify needs for new communications technologies and facilitates their availability to meet future needs.

In its first year, the Voice, Data, and Image (VDI) Networking Practice concentrated on building relationships and identifying opportunities. Within IS, work has focused on building relationships with and between the teams working in the I/T processes. In conjunction with the Academic Computing Practice, the VDI Practice initiated a series of conversations with several academic departments and consulted with students about MITnet service to the Independent Living Groups (ILGs) and telephone service to on-campus residents. Outside MIT, the VDI Practice participated in IVY+ and Boston/Mellon Consortium meetings.

Throughout the year, the Voice, Data, and Image Networking Practice sought to identify opportunities for improvements:

• Demands on MIT's communications infrastructure continue to grow (see graphs below). MIT must continue to invest in its voice, data, and video (image) networks to ensure that there is adequate capacity for future demands. At the same time, we must introduce new services and upgrade old ones to meet new needs.

• The Telecommunications Act of 1996 and other changes, both internal and external to the Institute, continue to apply pressure to MIT's business and cost recovery models. While the demands for and costs of services have changed dramatically, the Institute has continued to use rate models that were developed under different market conditions. We must take a fresh look at how to recover the cost of the communications services we provide.

• In the wake of the reengineering effort that transformed Information Systems into a process-centered organization, we must continue to improve work processes to ensure that IS provides timely and cost-effective services. We must improve coordination and planning both within IS and with other departments, such as Physical Plant.

Dennis Baron

I/T DISCOVERY PROCESS

The I/T Discovery Process continued to build on customer-IS partnerships during its second year. In particular, it focused on promulgating the "discovery" approach throughout IS and around the Institute. The discovery approach is an established method for linking information technology to business strategies and customer needs. Collaborating with academic, office, and voice/data/imaging clients, Discovery works to find and implement information technology that adds value to MIT's business processes, while reducing work and lowering costs. Discovery promotes a shared vision of I/T based on best practices and business analysis, a conceptual design, and resource commitments. Recommendations from Discovery projects set the stage for accelerated work within Delivery, Integration, Service, and Support.

Discovery takes many different forms--a formal project, a less formal project, or sometimes just work going on elsewhere in the organization. It extends across all of MIT, including areas with or without resident I/T capability, and it adds value to MIT strategic or tactical goals. Discovery project timelines vary between a couple of hours to two months, and projects can occur in large formal teams or small quasi-formal teams, as well as everything in-between. As an approach, Discovery may be applied to many types of challenges--organizational changes, technological opportunities, physical relocations, etc. It aims to align work properly at the outset for accelerated productivity through the I/T work processes, and to provide a key link between Information Systems and its customers, as well as between MIT business leaders and their customers.

Discovery teams were involved in almost thirty different projects during fiscal 1997, spanning almost all areas of the Institute. Discovery teams contributed to core Reengineering initiatives, including Management Reporting/Financial Operations/Buy-Pay and Student Services, as well as other projects with key customers and high MIT profiles. These included:

• Admissions Office recommendations regarding undergraduate and graduate admissions;

• SAPweb initiative to provide Web-based access to SAP report data for purchase orders, invoice, and payment information to the entire MIT community;

• Restructuring of the Microcomputer Center, including a new design for electronic commerce at MIT;

• Planning the Year 2000 Project at MIT;

• Support plan as part of the MIT recommendation to use Microsoft NT on Intel-based desktops;

• Athena Quickstations to provide quick access to commonly-used Athena services;

• Redesign of the Subject/Teacher Evaluation process;

• Investigations into imaging capabilities for administrative functions in the Dean for Students and Undergraduate Education's organization and for CAO invoicing processes.

Other projects included an initial design to incorporate course lotteries into the electronic pre-registration process, the creation of a resource development proposal for Advanced Visualization, the continued exploration for an Institute-wide calendaring/scheduling facility, and work with the Communications Office to place MIT Office Directory information on-line.

In fiscal 1997, Discovery achieved an identity as a valued I/T service at MIT. It has established credibility with customers and IS. In fiscal 1998, Discovery will continue to improve and extend its influence and methods in order to assist MIT's goals for consistent, productive, and efficient I/T work.

Greg Anderson

I/T DELIVERY PROCESS

As the second of the five work processes, the I/T Delivery Process exists so that MIT and its schools, departments, laboratories, and centers can realize business value as rapidly as possible from the implementation of new information technology products and services.

• This past year saw the successful conclusion of many Delivery projects, with a special concentration of Web-based applications. SAPweb, a set of display-only transactions allowing access to SAP purchasing data, was made generally available to the MIT community late in the fiscal year; response was overwhelmingly positive. In March 1997, the web-based Electronic Catalog (ECAT) system went into production use, bringing advanced electronic shopping to MIT. Also in this fiscal year, web registration for Alumni "E-mail-Forwarding-For-Life" was successfully introduced to an even larger audience of MIT Alumni/ae.

• Delivery devoted time and effort to supporting the SAP Release One rollout on September 3, 1996. In addition to Web-based extensions, SAP activities included launching a technical documentation project, running two in-house courses for MIT technical staff, and supporting the MIT-developed Labor Distribution System. A major expansion of the MIT Data Warehouse was also begun with the addition of SAP's data in a pilot sponsored by six major research laboratories. The full-scale Warehouse project, including advanced reporting tools, is on schedule to be deployed in early calendar 1998 to the sponsoring research laboratories. Complete Warehouse access for the rest of the MIT community will follow about two months after each department receives full SAP functionality.

• On the academic side, the Athena Software Delivery team updated the Athena Computing Environment to a newer version of system software from Sun and prepared for transition to a "unified" version of system software from SGI. The team phased out the IBM RS/6000 and Digital DECStation hardware from Athena's public cluster infrastructure and contributed to the Quickstation effort, providing "kiosk"-style workstation access in the Athena Environment. The team also made significant progress toward a "stock" AFS file system, which will make all current AFS upgrades easier, including the 3.4a upgrade currently underway.

• Several new applications and subsystems were delivered for MIT's primary personal computer platforms. Versions of the authentication/encryption routine, Ksign, were delivered as components on all major platforms, enabling use of the Electronic Catalog. Secure versions of the terminal emulation programs, TN3270 and Telnet, were delivered to the Windows user community. These products reduce the exposure of passwords on the MIT network, allowing the retirement of separate dedicated "secure" networks; it is the result of a long-term cooperative effort between MIT-IS and Hummingbird Communications, Ltd., of Canada.

• Currently, a Delivery team is working to complete the major Electronic Proposal Submission System in early calendar 1998. The system is an integral part of the Office of Sponsored Programs' COEUS system and will be deployed on hundreds of research desktops throughout MIT and many more at kindred institutions. In August, new technology designs will be rolled out to enhance the Writing Requirement and to support the MIT Procurement Card pilot. The work of SAP's Rollout98 continues, as does the deepening of MIT's partnership with SAP to develop security- and Web-based features for the SAP environment.

• Since fiscal 1997 was also Delivery's first year of operation under a new Director, considerable effort was spent defining the normal process of project delivery. Major progress was made on several fronts. A Projects Database was designed, developed, and made operational; this Web-accessible database now houses summary information and pointers to information for all 23 Delivery projects, as well as data on all other significant I/S projects. Next year it will be expanded to include non-I/S projects as well. A Delivery Process Map was also defined, and the Delivery web pages were populated with help and illustrations. Regular Team Leaders meetings were begun, and coordination points with all I/T Processes and I/T partners were established. Delivery is now definitely "open for business."

Robert V. Ferrara

I/T SERVICE PROCESS

The core mission of the I/T Service Process is to manage MIT's information technology infrastructure reliably and efficiently. This infrastructure includes the datacenter in W91, MITnet, telephone and related services, the Athena Computing Environment, database services, and desktop maintenance (PC repair) services. During the past year, I/T Service teams in each of these areas reached significant milestones.

• Despite continued increases in the number of administrative servers and also despite required system outages for upgrades, all administrative servers in the datacenter averaged 99.84% availability. Increased automation efforts and new technology reduced mainframe-related costs and allowed resources previously used for mainframe support to transition to supporting the new servers. To enhance and protect the Institute's datacenter infrastructure, an emergency power system for Building W91 was designed and approved, and significant physical security enhancements were implemented.

• MITnet usage continued to grow in fiscal 1997. To accommodate increased network traffic (approximately 250,000 electronic messages are processed daily, for example), the network's backbone routers were replaced with newer, faster models, and an FDDI Switch was added to the backbone to improve overall network "throughput." The Network Software group helped design and implement a new process for managing the "net dist" server; this new process ensures that "net dist" remains a reliable and efficient means for distributing third-party software to the MIT community with adequate access control.

• Usage of the 5ESS also continued to grow. During the past year, Service teams provided MITnet and 5ESS telephone service to newly constructed or renovated buildings around MIT, including 320 Charles Street, Senior House, Building 56, and 5 Cambridge Center. Service also conducted major software upgrades for the telephone switch, the Automated Call Distribution (ACD) system, and the Voice Mail system. New radio systems were acquired and installed for Campus Police and Physical Plant.

• The Athena Server Operations (ASO) team continued the on-going process of upgrading the oldest of their more than one hundred servers. These upgrades resulted in user-visible improvements in the speed of some services and improvements in the maintainability of others. ASO also increased the level of automation of their backup systems, allowing data to be backed up more often while requiring fewer staff-hours. Improvements were also made in automated monitoring systems which reduced response times when system problems occurred.

• In addition to providing Athena hardware repair and maintenance services, Cluster Services deployed well over 300 Athena systems over the past year, mostly during August 1996. Cluster Services also partnered with the Academic Computing Practice and the Athena Software Delivery team to deploy new services, such as Athena Quickstations and Zip drives in Athena clusters and to coordinate various Athena cluster moves.

• The Database Services Team worked with the Institute's major administrative departments to maintain over 75 databases supporting SAP, Admissions, Alumni, Payroll, Pension, Personnel, IS-telecommunications, among others.

• During the past year, Desktop Maintenance Services (PC Repair) continued to repair hardware and maintain software for the MIT community. Desktop Maintenance Services now offers services for Apple and Dell microcomputers; HP printers; and DEC, Sun, SGI, and HP workstations.

• Service teams remained deeply involved in reengineering efforts. Two significant projects during the past year were the "cutover" of MIT's central financial offices to SAP R/3 and the upgrade of that system to its latest software release, SAP R/3 3.0f. To support SAP Training, Service augmented the existing SAP servers with additional disk and processing capacity.

Roger A. Roach

I/T SUPPORT PROCESS

The core mission of the I/T Support Process is the effective and efficient delivery of high-quality support services to the Institute's information technology users. Support is provided by a variety of standing teams: I/T Help Desk; Training and Publications; Desktop Products; Adaptive Technology Support (ATIC Lab); Departmental Computing Support; Campuswide Information Systems Support (CWIS); Athena Help/Residential Computing Consulting; Academic Computing Support; 5ESS Support; and Support Team Headquarters.

To better identify and refine support services, Support team members work to improve the help process by listening carefully to customers and balancing customer feedback with Institute goals and resource availability. While focused on different aspects of users' needs, the highly qualified staff on these teams share a common commitment to the I/T Support mission. During 1996-97:

• The Help Desk reduced the average daily queue of pending customer requests (logs) by over 80%, initiated a program of regularly scheduled training and professional development for team members, and simplified work flow through process improvements. A new Help Desk team leader was appointed in October 1996.

• An I/T Partners program involving about 80 MIT staff was initiated. I/T Partners are local experts--staff in departments, laboratories, and centers--who act as an initial point-of-contact for I/T issues and share their I/T knowledge among colleagues at the department or office level. In addition to meeting as a group twice annually, I/T Partners have formed a steering committee and various special interest groups. A pilot program now underway gives a subset of I/T Partners priority access to Help Desk consultants, and I/T Partners have access to IS Training courses free of charge.

• Support has been deeply involved in SAP Rollout efforts for the entire year. Documentation, training, help desk support, one-on-one consulting, deployment and configuration of desktops, and user accounts all have contributed to the success of this Institute-wide effort.

William F. Hogue

I/T INTEGRATION PROCESS

The mission of I/T Integration is to implement an information technology infrastructure that has high levels of reliability, availability, and serviceability; provides excellent price/performance; meets current MIT needs and can quickly adapt to meet future needs; and enables the effective performance of the other I/T processes. During the past year, teams working in the Integration Process made progress on several fronts.

• The Integration Team worked to educate software designers about MIT's current information technology infrastructure. The lunch seminar series begun last year continued in fiscal 1997 with topics covering web development, web security, data modeling, software version control, the MIT Data Warehouse, and the Roles database design. Also during the past year, the Integration Team purchased bulk training units for selected developer tools so that all MIT developers could share in training at reduced cost. Strategies like shared training, web pages aimed at MIT's software developer community, and IAP seminars on I/T infrastructure and security issues exemplify Integration's ongoing education efforts.

• Integration standing teams also acted as consultants for designers and developers. Over the past year, Data Administrators helped with data modeling for new systems, and Integration team members reviewed and advised on designs for new systems. (Integration staff check high-level process- and data-models to ensure that teams from across IS and MIT develop systems that are independent or well-integrated and adhere to MIT's current I/T standards and practices. Early work with Discovery teams also helps Integration teams understand future infrastructure needs.) Working with developers, the Data Administration Team extended the MIT data model and added shared data and new views to the Data Warehouse. Also in fiscal 1997, the Integration Laboratory, which is available to the MIT community for testing changes that affect the MIT administrative application set, moved to Building E19. The Security Officer facilitated work with the Institute Physical Security Coordination team to arrive at a draft security policy for MIT.

• Integration project teams worked both to update current I/T infrastructure components and to build new ones. This past year saw the completion of Release One of the Kerberos Version 5 (V5) project for internal and external use. The Kerberos team also developed a version 4-compatible administration server to aid in the migration to version 5. Kerberos V5 shared libraries were created which use a version server to track and control usage. A project to implement MIT certificates for web application authentication was completed and used by project teams in Student Services, Management Reporting/Financial Operations, and IS. The Data Warehouse team standardized the infrastructure around managing data loads and conversions in preparation for the large Delivery project with several MIT research laboratories. They also selected a data access tool for Warehouse access and arranged a license for MIT. A project team, chartered to develop the philosophy for installing software on desktops was active this past year, developed tools to build installers and purchased a site license for a Macintosh installer-making tool.

• One goal of the Integration process is to propagate strategic MIT technology to vendors of commercial products and to other users outside MIT. Team members continue to play a leadership role in the Internet Engineering Task Force which sets Internet standards. By exerting influence in strategic areas, such as network security in open-network environments, MIT has the opportunity in the future to buy (rather than build) its preferred I/T infrastructure components and applications. Intending to encourage a standard for network security, the Integration Process made Kerberos Version 5 freely available beyond MIT in fiscal 1997, and held a Kerberos workshop for vendors and other users and developers of Kerberos code. MIT's Kerberos version 4 and 5 developers for Macintosh and Windows operating systems helped coordinate development efforts across several academic sites and worked with commercial vendors to ensure that products incorporating Kerberos would interoperate. MIT developers successfully influenced Microsoft to commit to releasing the specifications for their proprietary extensions to the Kerberos protocol; they continue their attempts to influence Microsoft into incorporating a version of Kerberos into its next version of Windows NT that will interoperate with MIT's. Similarly, Integration team members are working to influence Sybase Powersoft to incorporate network security in their Distributed Object technology, Apple to incorporate MIT's requirements in their next operating system, and SAP AG to support the use of strong authentication and encryption using X.509 certificates in the design of their Internet Transaction Server (ITS).

I/T COMPETENCY GROUPS

The I/T Competency Team works to ensure that appropriately skilled human resources are available to staff MIT's I/T processes and projects. Throughout the past year, the I/T Competency Team focused on four primary activities: