IOT testing application monitoring tool; subjects wanted
AppDynamics, an application performance monitoring solution, has been acquired by IOT and licensing is now available for state agencies on a limited basis. IOT is seeking proofs of concept to ensure App Dynamics is a tool that should receive further investment. IOT has used AppDynamics a few previous times, most recently for the Department of Workforce Development’s Uplink application. Uplink is the automated self-service Unemployment Insurance system where citizens file their unemployment insurance claim. During this past year with the pandemic, this tool greatly increased the application’s capacity to process unemployment requests and handle an historic number of visits and claims, all while creating a more seamless experience. "Our site, our servers, our databases, our everything was simply overwhelmed and we were having serious performance issues impacting our ability to register users and process their claims," Jeff Tucker, Chief Information Officer at Department of Workforce Development said. "Our partners at IOT connected us with AppDynamics and we quickly setup monitoring services on our key servers. This tool provided so much telemetry about our application, server, network, and database performance. Not only has it saved us critical hours and days of troubleshooting time, the tool has enabled us to see our bottlenecks and actually understand our application better." DWD has since made numerous improvements to the application code and AppDynamics is now their go-to tool for any reported issue. "We use AppDynamics for a quick reference when we hear from end users that the system is slow and to dig into the code to find the best places to start refactoring to help system performance," Rick Bedel, IT Director at DWD said. DWD is planning to train their production support team to use the tool and build out its alerting features. They also plan to incorporate these insights into lower environments so they can test and see the impacts of changes to the system before promoting to production. What does the tool do? AppDynamics provides behind the scenes information that can help resolve bottleneck issues in your application, in a way that it might be difficult to solve otherwise, through application mapping, and code-level diagnostics. Interested? IOT has a limited number of licenses. See if your agency application qualifies. Fill out the form here. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ IOT moves toward enterprise APIsThe first steps toward an enterprise API strategy are being taken with a migration to new file transfer platforms, GoAnywhere and Mulesoft, and away from BizTalk File Moves, Safe-T and SFTP. The state goal around Mulesoft is to develop an Enterprise API Strategy where enterprise APIs such as payment processing, address validation, and vital records can be surfaced to agencies to use in their solution delivery.
GoAnywhere will be used for file exchanges that requires either the portal, MFT, or, in most cases, SFTP. If the files need to be reformatted, or there are any other exchanges, IOT will use MuleSoft, What does this mean for me? IOT will be communicating to agencies about this migration soon. IOT's goal is to provide a lower or comparable cost to what is currently being charged from BizTalk, Safe-T and SFTP today. Implementation is currently in progress, and both Mulesoft and GoAnywhere will be hosted on-premise and each offers cloud solution. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ WorkSmart 365 to host monthly Community Education Meetings
The WorkSmart 365 group, comprised of employees across all state agencies, has begun offering monthly meetings for state employees with training topics about Microsoft products. The meetings are held virtually the last Thursday of every month, with a new topic featured each time. The first meeting this past week was about Microsoft Teams Meeting breakout rooms. Launched just this month, breakout rooms in Teams are used to divide your meetings into smaller groups to facilitate brainstorming and more focused discussion. For example, say you are in a big training meeting with 300 of your co-workers. The organizer of your meeting then says to break up into your departments (around 20 people) and discuss the details of the bigger meeting further. You would want to use these breakout rooms. Why use them?
"This is an exciting new feature within Teams and we had 35 attendees at this first meeting," Stephanie Williams, WorkSmart 365 Community Evangelist said. "We were able to not only provide training on breakout rooms, but also updates on our WorkSmart 365 roadmap. We hope to see you at the next meeting!." With more capabilities in development, currently you can break out to 50 rooms. The organizer of the meeting then assigns everyone to their designated room. Currently, only the organizer can set up who is in each room, and he or she can only assign the person to the group while the meeting is going on. However, in the future the capability of assigning people into their rooms before the meeting will be available. All other functionalities of a regular Teams meeting are available in the rooms. You can record, chat, add files, take notes, and share your screen. For a step-by-step guide on how to set up Breakout rooms, click here. Each month, these community meetings will follow the same general format and agenda. The group will focus on a new training topic each month as well as cover important updates and questions from the community! WorkSmart 365 Community Education Meeting agenda:
Miss the first meeting? Find the recording and slides here. Stay up-to-date on everything WorkSmart 365 and these community meetings here. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________- Update on Server Maintenance Billing and RequirementsIOT has set a new Standardto establish responsibilities and define requirements for replacing servers in the State of Indiana network and integrating the billing process into Pinnacle. All servers no longer under manufacturer warranty in the data center, Bloomington data center and remote area will automatically be enrolled in the standard REMI maintenance. Maintenance is going to be required before any hardware is commissioned within a data center. Currently, there have been challenges when server maintenance is not completed on time or there are hardware issues. With this new standard established, there will be a REMI maintenance warranty after the original hardware vendor warranty expires. Billing for maintenance is being converted from agency approval through PeopleSoft voucher payment. The new product code, 1223, will be integrated into Pinnacle and agencies will begin seeing the quarterly bills beginning in March 2021. IOT is seeking feedback from agencies on moving to the Pinnacle billing system because they will start being automatically billed quarterly starting March 2021. For any questions related to the process, contact Joe Name at jname@iot.in.gov. If you have questions about the billing, please contact Tammy Sturgill at tsturgill@iot.in.gov. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________- Indiana Cyber Hub: Blog for Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity is very much a part of our daily lives. It protects our identities, our personal data, our accounts; everything from social media to banking, credit cards and more. Implemented late last year, the Indiana Cyber Hub is a blog you will want to start checking regularly for the latest cyber trends, tips and resources, with advice from experts, including guest bloggers, whose collective knowledge is drawn from all industries and backgrounds. The purpose of the blog is to help every Hoosier build on their understanding about cybersecurity, how to protect yourself from cyberattacks, and more. Want more? The Indiana Cyber Blog can be found at https://www.in.gov/cybersecurity/blog.htm. In addition to reading the latest blogs, visitors to the Indiana Cyber Blog page can look back at recent blogs, as well as sign up for and opt-in to a receive a free subscription. You can subscribe to the blog HERE. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________- Indiana Statewide Orthoimagery Program awarded
The Indiana Geographic Information Office is moving forward with a new state-wide orthoimagery project to capture new aerial views of the entire state that will be used to update www.indianamap.org. The publicly available maps, which will have higher resolution than currently offered, allow for linear and area measurements and are used for a variety of purposes, including by construction companies, utility companies and for economic development. The new orthoimagery is being collected from 2021 through 2023 and is being photographed at 6-inch pixel resolution. (See Figure 1) The higher resolution allows users to identify smaller ground features including such items as manhole covers, fire hydrants or utility poles. Previously, the state has flown 12-inch imagery. (See Figure 2)
The Sanborn Map Company, Inc. has been awarded the contract to collect the imagery through manned flights that start in March covering the center third of Indiana. “This statewide program supports a wide-range of projects around the state, benefiting economic development, transportation, public health, natural resource management, and public safety,” Indiana Geographic Information Officer Megan Compton said. “I am looking forward to seeing the results of this advanced imagery and its utilization throughout the state.” Partners in this program include the Indiana Office of Technology (IOT) and Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT). There is an opportunity for other Indiana cities, counties and other partners to have more options too, including 3-inch orthophotography and other ancillary products. “With this imagery, we will have the ability to view current infrastructure and land use, which is vital to understanding opportunities for growth and development,” Indiana Office of Technology Chief Information Officer Tracy Barnes said. “These maps are also leveraged by telecommunication companies as a way to identify places to lay fiberoptics for broadband which can benefit our rural communities.”
Founded in 1866, Sanborn Map Company first created highly detailed maps for fire insurance companies to assess their total liability in urbanized areas across the United States. Today, it is a full service, dedicated geospatial solution provider. The orthoimagery program benefits Indiana by supporting over $1.7 billion in projects related to transportation, economic development, public safety, environmental management and other areas of interest. Once collected and ready, this high-quality imagery will be available to the public for viewing and download on the Geographic Information Office website.. For more information contact: Shaun Scholer 317-414-0889 |
Currently, 90-percent of BizTalk integrations are file movement. GoAnywhere will replace these integrations as a Managed File transfer (MFT) platform. GoAnywhere is a more appropriate scaled tool to handle file transfers and does so with the same secure, encrypted methodology required for the State. The service also can easily integrate with Salesforce, SharePoint or other cloud applications. The remaining BizTalk integrations will be migrated to Mulesoft.
