ITD Commemorative Book

Upgrading QoS System in IIUM

2007-12-03T22:21:00.000-08:00

Engineering Department of IT Division would like to propose for upgrading the existing QoS System in IIUM. Currently, we have deployed only three QoS+Bandwidth Management Sys appliances from Exinda. The current topology is shown as below:

The new topology of Internet access which has been tendered recently, "Upgrading Internet Access and VPN", requires additional appliances to support the compression services between campuses. The existing appliances will be relocated to other branch campus and require to purchase another new appliances since the bandwidth capacity for future internet requirement has been changed. The proposed layout has been shown as below:

Before we discussed further, I would like to get your intention regarding the cost for this project. The price listed is just a list price. As agree before, Bro. Adi will taking care for pressing the principle for better offers. Here I list down the list price of Exinda product, for your refences.

Part Number	Description	List Price (RM)
Compression
EX-6700-250	Exinda 6700 appliance that Monitors and Optimizes up to 250Mbps	$110,360.00
Included:
EX-6700-250-HM	12 months Hardware Maintenance

Acceleration
EX-6800-20-250	Exinda 6800 appliance that Accelerates to 20Mbps, Monitors and Optimizes up to 250Mbps	$164,687.00
Included:
EX-6800-20-250-HM	12 months Hardware Maintenance


For Indera Mahkota Campus

Part Number	Description	List Price (RM)
Compression
EX-4700-45	Exinda 4700 appliance that Monitors and Optimizes up to 45Mbps	$48,516.00
Included:
EX-4700-45-HM	12 months Hardware Maintenance

Acceleration
EX-4800-20	Exinda 4800 appliance that Accelerates, Monitors and Optimizes up to 20Mbps	$101,510.00
Included:
EX-4800-20-HM	12 months Hardware Maintenance


For Teruntum Campus

Part Number	Description	List Price (RM)
Compression
EX-4700-15	Exinda 4700 appliance that Monitors and Optimizes up to 15Mbps	$35,293.00
EX-6720-250-HM	12 months Hardware Maintenance
EX-4700-15-HM	12 months Hardware Maintenance

Acceleration
EX-4800-10	Exinda 4800 appliance that Accelerates, Monitors and Optimizes up to 10Mbps	$59,552.00
Included:
EX-4800-10-HM	12 months Hardware Maintenance


ISP Datacenter to Internet

Part Number	Description	List Price (RM)
Compression
EX-6720-250	Exinda 6720 appliance that Monitors and Optimizes up to 250Mbps	$132,432.00
Included:
EX-6720-250-HM	12 months Hardware Maintenance

Since the previous tendered project still could be delivered yet due to budget approval from higher authority, probably ITD management could advice us either we can proceed for procurement process or onhold this project for a moment.

We would like to seek your approval either to upgrade or not this QoS system.

Other Comment

2007-04-12T01:43:00.000-07:00

Komen sikit, kalau ada salah eja nama ker.. apa-apa jer...

AWARDS

2007-04-10T23:00:00.001-07:00

2006 - ISO Certification 9002

IIUM Quality Awards :
2003 – IIUM Quality Award for – Madam Zuraida bt. Hassan
2003 – IIUM Quality Award for – Madam Maizul Aini bt. Mat Isa

University Competition :
2004 – Champion of Jalur Gemilang Competition
2005 – Champion of Jalur Gemilang Competition

University Staff Games :

Table-Tennis :-
2002 – Champion (Female Individual) Inter Department Games
2002 – Runner-up (Female Individual) Inter Department Games
2002 – 2nd Runner-up (Female Individual) Inter Department Games
2002 – 2nd Runner-up (Male Team) Inter Department Games (combined with Kuliyyah of Engineering)
2004 – Champion (Male Team) Inter Department Games
2005 – Champion (Male Team) Inter Department Games

Volleyball :-
2002 – Runner-up (Male) Inter Department Games (combined with Kuliyyah of Engineering)
2002 – 2nd Runner-up (Female) Inter Department Games
2004 – 2nd Runner-up (Male) Inter Department Games
2007 – 2nd Runner-up (Male) Inter Department Games

Soccer :-
2002 – Runner-up (Male) Inter Department Games (combined with Kuliyyah of Engineering)
2004 – Runner-up (Male) Inter Department Games (combined with Kuliyyah of Engineering)

Bowling :-
2002 – 2nd Runner-up (Team) Inter Department Games
2002 – Champion (Female Individual) Inter Department Games
2002 – 2nd Runner-up (Female Individual) Inter Department Games

Canoeing :-
2002 – Champion (Female Individual) Inter Department Games (4 medals)
2002 – 2nd Runner-up (Female Individual) Inter Department Games

Carrom :-
2002 – Runner-up (Team) Inter Department Games

Inter-Varsity Staff Games :
2003 – ITD staff won GOLD medal in bowling games (IIUM bowling team)
2006 – ITD staff won BRONZE medal in netball games (IIUM netball team)

The Four Phases

2007-04-10T21:38:00.000-07:00

The Infrastructure Phase (1997 – 2000)

The Infrastructure Phase is the important phase that maps the direction and process of maturing of IT usage in IIUM. Uniquely in ITD is the existence of technical post of engineers (J). IIUM is the earliest university to offer Computer Engineering Program under Kuliyyah of Engineering, with the first batch to graduate in 1998. Later, recognized by Board of Engineers Malaysia as Electronics Engineer with specialization in Computer.

Thus, it is suitable for ITD to have an engineering posts, because of the syllabus on Computer Engineer is a symbiosis between electronics and computer, thus it is appropriate and logical, communication technology (telephone) and network (computer) technology is being handle under one central unit. This is a wise and futuristic decision made by IIUM and supposed to be followed by other government institution, as a result of this the laying of cabling infrastructure for telecommunication and network is made easy and redundancy can be avoided and cost saved. Also in term of human resource, the skills of an engineer can be improved by swapping their task and multi tasking between telecommunication and network.

By normal practice at other places, network is being handle normally by an IT graduate (F scale), and by choosing an IT graduate, they are minimizing the scope of jobs because most IT graduates are not practice to handle hardware scope such as circuits and cabling, which requires certain basic electronics knowledge, and this hinder them from overseeing cabling infrastructure or to be involved in the earliest stage, when designing, and civil, mechanical and electrical implementations with Public Works Department.

With the existence of engineers in ITD, they can be consulted whenever the initial plan of building reach the stage of cabling infrastructure implementations.

All these will not materialized without the ideas and intellectual endeavors of Prof.Dr. Imtiaz Syarie the first Dean of Engineering, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sufyan al-Irhayim first Head of Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Adznan Jantan the first formal Director of Information Technology Division, Dr.Ir Wajdi al-Khateeb lecturer and mentor to most of the Engineers, Br. Nasruddin Abu Sari mentor to the Engineers and Br.Hamka, Head of Engineering ITD.

To enable 100% percent operation from core backbone, a mesh nodes topology was deployed linking to four ATM backbones. ATM was at the time the in trend technology and IIUM was the pioneer in deploying it.

ITD also took the initiative to deploy PABX and maintain MDF and SDF on their own without the assistance from others. Thus in all ITD is actively collaborating with Public Works Department as their consultant in network and telecommunication, designing, choosing the best topology, finding the best solution to fit IIUM needs as an ISP on its own.

Also staying true to sunnah of the Prophet s.a.w, by naming good names to object surrounding and used by him, as a means of du’a for the things to bring manfa’ah or benefits to the user. IIUM Network was aptly named IIUM High Speed Advanced Networks or IHSAN, Ihsan or good deeds, may the network brings muhsin or goodness, benefits and good tidings to the users. ITD has been actively minimizing outsource and dependency to others, most of the tasks were able to be completed without heavy reliance on outsiders.

As such in term of network, ITD has managed and successfully maintained and configured all network devices up to border router and firewall and maintain IIUM sovereignty in cyber space. During that time, in other organizations, its very rare to see the institutions on its own manage to configured, operated and maintained on its own their network devices, most depended heavily on their vendors and some outsourced their network to others, because they lack the ability to control the network.

Assoc.Prof.Dr Adznan Jantan as the first Director, also put an equal emphasize on the spiritual development of the staffs. Through usrah, halaqah and Islamic study circle organized once in a week, staffs gets a chance to engage in a live discussion of Islamic teachings, ways and methods to implement the teachings in daily life, even certain disputes between staffs are settled through this discussions. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Adznan with his straight remarks and strong comments, still maintain his fatherly figure over the staffs, his concern towards the staffs not only covers their professional works but also their personal life, marriage, Islamic education, and so on.

This was assisted further by the Assistant Director then, Sis. Hasleena with her sisterly touch, in dealing and engaging in administration matters, her door is always open for discussion even sometimes when touching on personal matters, because in Islam there is no real separation between personal life and working life, all are in reality inter-related. The problem in real life in reality does affect the working life and this is what many administrators failed to look and always chooses to ignore.

It is up to like Sis Hasleena to provide her attentive ears and providing proper guidelines as in according to Islam, because the objective of any organizations not only education organization but any organization that profess Islam as their way of life, is to produce at the end a good Muslim, and not merely obsessed with any short term or medium term quantifiable objectives. It is not wrong to have objectives, it actually helps the organization’s in term of activity and operations, but producing a good Muslim must be at all time the true holistic objective of any divisions.

The Structuring of Management of IT in IIUM (2000 – 2002)

When the foundation was laid, the physical structure was laid and stable, then the next logical phase was strengthening the IT management.

Previously, each divisions have own IT unit, to care and maintain the specialized needs of the particular divisions. However on long term duration, these IT units have their own limitations and inter-dependencies. Thus one proposed solution is to have all these IT staffs under one division for better management and cooperation.

Under Assoc. Dr. Adam Suhaimi as the Director of ITD, ITD has manage to gather significant number of IT staffs scattered between different divisions, agencies and departments under ITD, and this expansion created few new departments under ITD namely Software Development Department, Computer System Engineering (Cose), Computer Network Engineering (Cane) and Telecommunication.

Now with expansion, certain regulations and practices are needed. It became a tradition, staff’s meeting was held monthly, for the Director to gain access, to communicate with the staffs, all subjects and formal announcements were made during the meeting, because of the expansion there is a need for formal regulations and ITD internal policies to be discussed and agreed, ITD Management Meeting was agreed to be regulated and held monthly, usually the policies and procedures agreed during ITD Management Meeting are briefed and discussed with the staffs during ITD Staff’s meeting.

In early 2000, IT was blooming and all organizations are already recognizing the importance of IT, thus in 2000 IIUM recognized the need for top senior officer in IIUM to be in charge of IT, regarding the policies, implementations and the need for IT to be enforced with authority, the creation of Chief Information Officer (CIO) is to realized that vision. The first CIO was Prof. Dr. Ismawi Mohd.Zen who assume the role and sees the need for a more collaborative and expansion of IT usage towards the IIUM community.

Quoted from Prof.Dr.Ismawi Mohd.Zen “IT is the blood for the university, without the blood the body dies”, such was the importance of IT towards an intellectual community.

With the existence of CIO, signals the commitment from the top officials regarding the importance of IT, and with that the creation of a formal council, to oversees overall IT administration for the betterment of the university, so the creation of IIUM IT Council, comprises of high ranking officers of the University to chart and dictate IT course and objectives.

IIUM IT Council, receives it advise from the technical council i,e, IIUM IT Technical Council. Technical Council was formed as a committee to deliberate on IT technical issues, it comprises of technical experts from the university both from academic and working field. With the establishment of proper channel for deliberation of IT policies, strategies etc, and the user awareness for IT as a tool for their daily jobs increased, users are more aware and jobs now are more dependent on IT IT in IIUM is already entering the next phase of taking care customers needs and want.

The IT Customer Relations Management Phase (2002-2004)

The expansion of Information Technology and the rapid increase of IT applications making users whether they like it or not dependent on IT as a tool to expedite tasks and improve efficiency. In an academic world, Internet has brought many research data to be shared, knowledge promulgated, and information is at the tip of fingertip literally. Thus customers relied heavily on IT availability.

Thus the era of Customer Relation Management. For ITD, the customers mainly are the academics world, the lecturers, the researchers and the students. Services offered are Human Resource and Administration systems, Student's systems (curriculum and co-curriculum), portal for students and staffs, electronic documents and much more. Those concepts are known as e-university.

Further, with the expertise from the sifu, Abe Azhar Mahmood, Information system Officer, ITD in IIUM was selected as Oracle Reference point. Which in itself was a major recognition from Oracle, Database largest software developer. In ITD, all the development, integration and application was done in house.

Under the Directorship of Dr. Fauzan Noordin, ITD has started to embark and adopting a new pro-active response, and anticipating users requirements and needs, instead of the old cliché of fire-fighting, which most of IT staffs are preoccupied, trapped in the cycle of solving users problem one after the other. ITD has taken a necessary step in order to stabilized it's resources and minimized its users action and entertain problem time.

Thus most of the time can be reallocated for planning, analyzing the data and maintenance, thus by this the degrees of uptime can be significantly enhance.

The Expansion and Strategic Planning Phase (2004 - 2007)

After the relationship with customer has been taken care of, comes the next questions, the client wanted to know the quality of service, how much data will he received? At what speed? And at what bandwidth cost?

ITD under the guidance of Dr. Basri is embarking on a value added services, of providing users quality of services, providing not only services but managed services and guaranteed services. ITD has come out with the ICT Strategic Planning 2007-2011. ITD plays a crucial role in ensuring that the University maintains its character as a premier University which harnesses ICT in every aspect of its activities.

The ICT Strategic Plan works as a supplement to the IIUM Strategic Plan. This report provides clear statement of all the coherent points of the ICT Strategic Plan. It is the University’s thrust for self-development. The plan only covers issues related to the overall development of ICT, sets direction for applications/services and provides recommendations for technical and infrastructure development. It includes the issues concerning teaching, learning, and research directions in ICT. This strategic planning is aligning with the government direction in order to ensure the government agencies like IPTAs can play an important role in implementing the broad principles. ICT will aid the institutions of higher learning to play a more comprehensive role in achieving these broad goals

ITD start focusing on strengthening the network security by facilitating the usage of digital signature to ensured security, privacy and authentication for transactions. Parallel to that direction, ITD has deployed a few appliances that purposely monitor the security issues such as Intrusion Prevention System, Packet Shaper and Advance Firewall.

The previous backbone of IHSAN has been upgraded to gigabit Ethernet and the inclusion of layer seven monitoring for bandwidth. The email system has been added with special filtering to negate spamming and unsolicited emails.

ITD has been working towards enhancing the services, not only providing the services 24 hours 7 days a week, but also securing and maintaining the integrity of the data. To accommodate the increasing population of students and lecturers, the leased lines have been upgraded to 34Mbps for Gombak and 4 Mbps for Indera Mahkota, 2 Mbps for Teruntum and PJ.

Another added value services is provide a holistic idea to materialize an e-university with a campus wide wireless services which offering a mobile education culture to the IIUM community. It is an essential mobile mechanism for IIUM community to get connected and communicate to the internet in order to perform their researches, interact and changing information with their colleague form other universities and to advertise IIUM to the whole world. Hopefully, the mobile environment will uphold the good name and prestige of IIUM in the eyes of international level.

What They said

2007-04-10T20:06:00.000-07:00

Mdm Masitah “Being with ITD since August 2000 has given me the opportunity to see ITD developed ourselves to become what we are now. Challenges that we faced together have made us more mature in the journey to be the accepted and recognized ICT provider of the University. We should strive to become better individuals in working together as the ICT enabler for IIUM to achieve her mission and goals. Each of us has developed the strengths and is gifted with potential that should be optimized to uphold the trust that has been given to us. Finally, I would like to express my deepest appreciation to all ITD staff who has worked hard and smart to be what you are now. The same goes to the committee members of the 10 years celebration for your efforts in making this celebration a success.”

Mdm Khairani “ITD hopes to achieve its high level of employee commitment through a culture of trust and respect, generous benefits, and recognition of the importance of people's personal lives -- a value embodied in day care and recreational facilities and reasonable working hours.”

“ITD staff to take initiative and to follow through on commitments, to give support to one another and to show mutual respect for one another.”

“ITD hope to produce IT professional such as Oracle Certified Professional (OCP), Microsoft Professional and other related IT Professional.”

“ITD hope to produce an expertise's in Database, System Development, HTML Development, Network Environment, Telecommunication Environment and etc.”

ITD METAMORPHOSIS: Caterpillar to Butterfly

2007-04-10T19:24:00.002-07:00

(10 years serving the University 1997 - 2007)

Introduction

Heroes are men with principles, against all odds, maintains their principles, and we watched then with awe, as they struggle with principles they hold dearly, and nobody likes to see men without principles no matter how glamorous there are or how powerful their army is, they will always be beaten at the end of the story.

Quoted from Prof.Dr.Wan Mohd Nor Wan Daud:

He has no powers to control the speed of winds in the cloud
His heart being as big as a germ
With backbones of only
grass and yam stem
He toils only for food
Yearning for award and position

Tidak kuasa mengawal deras angin di awan
Hatinya sebesar kuman
Belakangnya di tulangi
Daun lalang dan batang keladi
Kerjanya hanya mencari makan
Mengejar anugerah dan kedudukan

But in reality it is not easy to simply pinpoint or recognize a hero amongst us, there is no clear black and white war between good and evil, what we have is lots and lots of grey area, and in the end we lost touch and the vision is blurred with greyishness until we don’t care anymore, and we simply forgot that there are heroes amongst us.

This kind of Heroes is usually termed the unsung Heroes, those who stayed in the background, making sure the machines work efficiently so the clients can have their normal routine, this kind of heroes existence is unnoticeable.

Dr.Sufyan al-Irhayim puts it rather nicely, if you take as an example the power plant, that produces electricity to the society, people usually takes for granted that the power plant operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to give electricity, and this goes on unnoticed, yet once the electricity were down, people’s routine will be jeopardized. Never mind if the power plant has been operated 99% of the time, people remembered the 1% downtime!

Thus, this is why the vision gets blurred, and society failed to recognize the heroes, it is only the downtime that concerns them, and life revolved only around them. Information Technology Division or fondly called ITD of International Islamic University Malaysia has been in existence for 10 years in the University (1997- 2007), and has been supporting and providing IT as a tools for academic and research since then. ITD has always been the beacon for IT excellence for the university.

Staffs in ITD have been putting their effort tremendously in making sure the university is not lacking behind in term of IT development; and to be better and in some cases to be the reference point for other learning institutions in term of IT. Every members from the Operators, Technicians, Programmers, Information System Officers and Engineers with the spirit of mahabbah and teamwork are realizing the concept of garden of knowledge and virtue, knowledgeable and competent in IT field yet maintain their virtues as a Muslim, not only Muslim but good Muslim. This holistic concept has been the core thrust of ITD in supporting the Vision and Mission of the University.

In ITD is the concept of Information Communication Technology (ICT) realized when the planning, designing and actualization process is done as a whole with telecommunication technology (PABX, etc) and network technology, the cable foundations are using the same infrastructure, and this was not the practice at other places during that time 1997. Thus the reason why in other places existed two main holes, two different rooms (LAN room and Telephone room).

Besides investing in technology, ITD consistently maintain the spirit of mahabbah (loving) rather tolerance; to love each other, and to strive towards improving oneself towards becoming a good Muslim rather a good worker.

ITD Metamorphosis (1997 – 2007)
In general the development of IT through ITD can be classified or categorized to four eras:
• The Infrastructure Phase (1997- 2000)
• The Structuring of Management of IT in IIUM (2000 – 2002)
• The IT Customer Relations Management Phase (2002-2004)
• The Expansion and Strategic Planning Phase (2004 - 2007)

OBJECTIVE, MISSION AND VISION

2007-04-10T19:24:00.001-07:00

Objective
• To educate by training and inculcating awareness on the utilization of ICT in IIUM community activities leading towards the development of an Islamic ICT culture
• To provide an excellent, accessible, reliable and secure ICT infrastructure, facilities and services
• To develop, implement and improve the integration of ICT systems and tools that will further enhance productivity and efficiency in IIUM
• To synergise the knowledge-worker and technological advancement in the e-university environment

ITD Mission
Information Technology Division mission is to collaborate and provide quality ICT services and support efficiently and effectively.

ITD Vision
Information Technology Division vision strives towards providing comprehensive ICT services for the achievement and continuation of excellence in IIUM.

SUMMARY OF EVENT 1997 - 2007

2007-04-10T17:46:00.000-07:00

1997
The function of pre-establishment of IT Division was planned by Prof.Dr. Imtiaz Syarie (Dean of Engineering), Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sufyan al-Irhayim (HOD Electrical and Computer Engineering Department), Assoc. Prof. Dr. Adznan Jantan (Director IT Division), Ir Wajdi al-Khateeb (Consultant).
The establishment of IT Consultancy headed by Ir Wajdi al-Khateeb, together with Dr. Suffiyan and Br. Laghoub Arizki (from Kulliyyah of Engineering) to consult the division and university as well in the planning IT Infrastructure and Telecommunication

1998
The establishment of IT Division at Kulliyah of Laws, directed by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Adznan Jantan (from Kulliyyah of Engineering). ITD Preparing their first ICT Master Plan to be presented to MAMPU. Introducing IHSAN (IIUM High Speed ATM Network)

1999
IT Division move to new office at Computer Center Building beside IIUM Mosque. Upgrading the leased line from 512 kbps to 2 Mbps for Gombak campus, 128 kbps to 512kbps for PJ Campus and 128kbps for Teruntum Campus

2000
Mesh topology of structured cabling with optical fiber back bone was in place in order support the ATM Mesh node. Deploying and managing complete redundancy PABX system with Ericson BC9. Progressively design the expansion of structure cabling.

2001
ITD organizing the 1st IT Open Day. Implementing phase 1 of e-voting SRC election system for online verification of the student (voter) status.

2002
Upgrading Leased Line, 8mbps for Gombak campus. Implementing phase 1 gigabit ethernet migration;
Migrate from Oracle 8 to Oracle 9i

2003
Establishing Helpdesk unit to entertain customer complaint.
ITD has earned the distinction of being “Oracle's Innovative Customer” for having developed a web-based student registration system.

2004
Lauching e-voting system (e-election) for SRC election, e-meeting system for Senate Meeting
Appointing Prof Ismawi as the first CIO playing a leading role in planning, coordinating, and charting the direction of the strategic use of ICT in IIUM

2005
Upgrading the leased line, 34Mbps fot Gombak campus, 4Mbps for Indera Mahkota.
Implementing the first GE backbone area at Admin Building, E0 Engineering and AIKOL

2006
ITD had awarded with MS ISO 9001:2000 Certification with the scope of registration 'Management of ICT Resources and Applications Systems for IIUM'
Migrate from Oracle 9i to Oracle 10g
Launching of IIUM community application called myIIUM Portal which is used by staff and students.

2007
Implementing full migration of Gigabit Ethernet.
Designing campus wide wireless system and introducing IP telephony technology by using VOIP

Commemorative Books

2007-03-19T01:21:00.000-07:00

Please comment the content of the commemorative book for ITD 10th Anneversary