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Archdiocese of New Orleans Internet Services
1000 Howard Avenue, Suite 700
New Orleans, LA 70113
Thursday, May 13, 2004 – 10:00 a.m. meeting
Present:
S. Cochiara, B. Beben, C. Campanella, D. Krail, J. Mulla, R. Cochran,
K. Beasley, T. Pettigrew
Unable to
Attend: S. Blum, C. Mannina, G. Kocke, B. Auten,
H. Becnel, C. Griggs, T. Hallin
Opening Prayer:
The meeting began at 10:05 a.m. with the committee reciting a
prayer.
Opening Remarks
& Status Report:
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Bundled VPN DSL Service: Mr. Beasley reported
that we started off with Bellsouth’s MCS (Managed Connection
Service) Service, which is the router management and lease,
with the variable being the line speed. In the process
of going to DSL, BellSouth moved our services over to bundled
service, which in turn is more cost efficient. The
Archdiocese can now offer VPN-DSL Bundled Services to 128K
and 64K users at $200.00 per month, a savings of $123 for
64K users and $230 for 128K users. This is additional
savings for those schools that are currently on VPN-DSL.
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Ms. Cochiara inquired
if other schools are inquiring about the new VPN-DSL service.
Mr. Beasley reported that those schools using a 64 and 128 k
lines will be contacted by staff to introduce and explain the
service now available as well as the cost savings.
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Parish Option: The Archdiocese is currently
trying to find a service for the parishes that would allow
them to be protected by the firewall and site filter.
Currently our parishes use dial up accounts for their connection
to email and Internet and are not protected by the site
filter or firewall. The Archdiocese is seeking a service
that would allow the parishes to be protected, but also
cost efficient. BellSouth’s option is 256K VPN for $150
per month. Mr. Krail inquired if there was a limit to the
number of users that can use one connection or VPN-DSL router.
Mr. Beasley will check into this and get back with him.
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9 Meg “pipe” to Internet: Mr. Beasley reported
that now the pipe to the Internet is peaking at 70-78% during
peak hours, however, it was much higher prior to increasing
the pipe from 6 megs to 9 megs. The VPN-DSL pipe will
also be increased due to the number of VPN-DSL users we
currently have and plan on adding.
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SPAM Guard:
Mr. Beasley reported that Messagelabs is providing a new
service, SPAM guard. Thus far, staff has seen a serious
decrease in the number of emails received during the day.
A lot of users have emailed us reporting the same.
All users should begin seeing a decrease in the amount of
SPAM received.
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Some of the statistics
are as follows: In one day the Archdiocese had received
19,800 emails and out of that, 12,000 were SPAM. For one
month, we had received 666,000 emails and 105,000 were identified
as SPAM.
SPAM Guard emails
the reports to each individual users where they can login to
a website and review the emails that have been caught and labeled
as SPAM so that if a false positive is identified, the user
cab obtain that email.
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Firewall/Filter Concerns: Mr. Beasley and
committee members thanked Robert for repairing the downloading
problem he worked on with Symantec. Ms. Cochiara asked
what percentage of sites blocked by the site filter?
Ms. Cochiara noted that there are several sites that are
not accessible that are educational, however students have
come across objectionable sites that aren’t blocked.
The percentage is a very difficult number to assess.
Mr. Beasley responded that the objectionable sites are growing
faster than the archdiocese. He suggested doing a
search at home and review the number of sites that were
found. There are literally billions of sites that
are out there. From an activity point of view, the
number of attempts to go to objectionable sites has decreased
immensely. When a user does get to an objectionable
site and we see the attempt on the firewall, the site is
immediately blocked and more sites are searched for.
Ms. Cochiara noted that this should be an ongoing discussion.
Much discussion ensued.
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New Business
E-Rate – Dr. Mulla reported
that in order for schools to be eligible for e-rate it must include
line items in their budget. The reason for the change is
so that the Schools & Libraries Division when auditing a school
can see that the sites are using the equipment that was purchased
with e-rate funds. Once the budget form has been completed, it
will be made available. The State of Louisiana has sent
out surveys to all of the schools asking all teachers, administrators
and eighth grade students need to fill out and submit. A
negotiation was made to have one teacher per grade; one administrator
and a percentage of the 8th grade students fill out
the survey for proficiency reasons.
Dr. Mulla handed out a letter
and computer recommendations to the committee to review.
Wireless computers came up and the question was asked if wireless
technology was being recommended to the schools and if so, they
need to recommend encryption software to go with it for security
purposes. It is not being “recommended”, however, wireless
computers are being purchased. Security is a concern by
all with wireless technology. Much discussion ensued.
Adjournment: With no further business, the meeting
adjourned at 11:07 a.m.
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