Service Catalog (IT Services)

Computing accounts (known as SUNet IDs) and passwords control access to online resources and services at Stanford. These accounts are free of charge for faculty, staff, students. Sponsored accounts are available for some University affiliates and guests; a University sponsor is required and monthly charges apply.

Stanford Answers is a centrally-hosted web knowledgebase service that provides members of the Stanford community with easy access to consulting solutions and self-help information about desktop computing and other information technology topics.

Shibboleth is a federated authentication system that allows Stanford users to authenticate securely using their SUNetID to some services at non-Stanford sites. It also allows web servers at Stanford to authenticate users from some non-Stanford institutions using the users' local authentication credentials.

The enhanced Automated Call Distribution (eACD) system is an essential tool for campus call centers, providing a means to effectively manage large volumes of incoming phone calls. The system answers each call immediately and, if necessary, holds it in a queue until it can be directed to the next available call center agent.

A variety of file and data backup solutions are available for desktop computers and servers. AFS is backed up daily, free-of-charge. Backup for other services is by subscription. Charges apply.

IT Services’ Block Backup service offers our basic backup services—Backup and Recovery (BaRS) and/or Disk-Based Replication—at a significant bulk discount.

Performing a regular backup of the critical files on your computer is one of the most important aspects of being a responsible computer user. Critical files include documents that you create as well as other unique files such as your email in box. Backups are particularly important for original research data—data that can represent months or years of work, and that can be nearly impossible to recreate. Note: some departments on campus provide their own backup facilities.

Bible sheets are mechanical drawings of campus communication and conduit systems that allow Department IT Contacts, as well as Facilities Project Managers, to communications wall outlets, closets, and cables. Bible Sheets are viewable online via CNSCAD, a tool provided by IT Services. For security reasons, use of this tool is restricted to University employees.

WordPress is an open source blog tool and publishing platform. IT Services provides easy-to-install, centrally supported WordPress instances, at no charge, to Stanford departments and officially-recognized groups for use in www.stanford.edu web space.

Campus cable TV service for student and faculty/staff residences, classrooms, conferences rooms, and offices. Courtesy Service is provided free-of-charge in student rooms and residential lounges. Cardinal Cable Basic and Cardinal Cable Premium is by subscription and is billed monthly.

Call recording systems provide call and operation control centers with the ability to monitor and record phone calls to ensure quality control, verify orders, reconstruct incidents, and ensure regulatory compliance.

Discounted cell phone plans are available to all Stanford affiliates through a special Stanford-AT&T Sponsorship Program negotiated by the University.

The Stanford CGI (Common Gateway Interface) Service enables users to run programs on the web server to provide dynamic content, collect user input, and offer services otherwise unavailable on the normal Stanford Web service. CGI is available, by request, to any user, group, or department with assigned AFS space.

BigFix Enterprise Suite is an operating system patch management service that allows system administrators to manage the testing and distribution of critical security updates.

IT Services On-call Services provides support for the desktop, server, network, hardware, and software needs of departments and faculty/staff individuals. On-call consultants deliver rapid response, informed expertise, and consistently high-quality technical solutions.

For every class taught at Stanford, faculty members and TAs are entitled to a suite of centrally-hosted online services that have become an indispensable part of University-level instruction: web site space and templates, an email mailing list, a newsgroup for online discussions, and a central location on the campus network for sharing and storing documents and other data. There is no charge for these services.

Desktop Configuration Management (DCM) is a service offering from IT Services for use by technical support staff. It enables departments to standardize the configuration settings on their desktop computers using an automated process. This service is available for both Windows and Macintosh desktop computers.

Stanford uses OpenLDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) software to enable the searching and browsing of directory information in its central information systems. Without the OpenLDAP Directory Service, web-based systems like Stanford.You and Axess would be unable to connect Stanford users to their personal or group information.

DocuShare is a commercial product from Xerox Corporation. It is a content and document management system supported by IT Services for the Stanford community.

Remote SUNet Access over DSL provides a high-speed network connection and Stanford IP address to a faculty or staff member's home or off-campus location. The connection is comparable in performance and ease-of-setup to the one in the subscriber's Stanford office. Note: new DSL service subscriptions are not currently available. 

General email-related topics and instructions, including how to get started, choosing and configuring an email program, dealing with spam, and accesing your Stanford email while away.

The Secure Email service is designed for members of the Stanford community who plan to use email to transmit Protected Health Information (PHI) in accordance with the HIPAA guidelines. The most frequent use of this service will be from the Stanford School of Medicine.

IT Services offers mailboxes on Microsoft Exchange, a sophisticated messaging tool platform that provides rich and efficient access to email, calendars, contacts, and tasks.

AFS (Andrew File System) is a distributed file system that enables cooperating hosts (clients and servers) to efficiently share file system resources across local and wide area networks. At Stanford, AFS is easily accessed via the Web and serves as the campus-wide file system. AFS is distributed among eleven servers and provides two terabytes of usable disk space, which is backed up nightly. This stable, distributed system is where the University's main web site and linked files are hosted. It supports storing public data on “AFS at Stanford” or restricted or prohibited data on “Secure AFS at Stanford”.

Custom storage can be set up for high-performance computing and large research data files. The IT Services Storage group will work with clients, vendors, and other Stanford IT organizations to create and/or coordinate the fastest, most secure, and most cost-effective solutions for emerging technology solutions.

The Online Archive Storage service reliably retains large volumes of data over a long period  of time at low cost. Storage is available  from 1 to 90 terabytes in 1 terabyte increments.

Secure Individual & Group File Storage provides a method of transmitting and storing Restricted and Confidential Data. Individual and group accounts are available to faculty and staff. Anyone using the Individual & Group Secure File Storage service must have Stanford Whole Disk Encryption (SWDE) installed and encrypt their laptop or desktop computer, and must use the Stanford Virtual Private Network (VPN) or Stanford Network Access Control (SUNAC) while transmitting files.

The Stanford IT Help Desk is the University's central support service for IT, especially in the areas of systems trouble, network connectivity, and the use of supported desktop applications (Essential Stanford Software). The Help Desk teams provide two stages of support to faculty, staff, and students: an attempt to resolve problems or answer questions within ten minutes or, if quick resolution is not appropriate or achievable, assignment to a consultant for in-depth assistance.

Departments and facilities on campus use Lenel and CSGold card reading systems on doors, turnstiles, and elevators to control access to buildings and rooms. Card readers include the familiar "swipe" type as well as proximity readers.

The Load Balancer service provides each client with a load balancing partition unique to their firewalled environment. The service adds an extra measure of stability and redundancy for University systems and servers.

Managed Desktop is a service offering from IT Services for use by technical support staff. It enables departments to centrally manage their desktop computers using automated processes. This service is available for both Windows and Macintosh desktop computers.

Mobile Device Management (MDM) enables you to manage your mobile device through Stanford's web-based tool, and configures a profile that gives you secure access to internal systems while protecting the data on your device.

For academic and administrative departments that adopt the Net-to-Switch model, IT Services provides highly reliable network equipment and centralized, expert monitoring and support at a cost-effective price. While IT Services is responsible for everything from infrastructure planning to quick-response troubleshooting, the department’s Local Network Administrator (LNA) maintains control of active port patching in the network closet.

SUNet consists of local building networks and a backbone network that connects the local networks to each other and to networks off-campus. IT Services provides training and support to approximately 400 local network administrators (LNAs) and offers local network support for a fee (see Net-to-Switch Service). In student residences, the Residential Computing group within SULAIR supports students in their use of network services.

The Network Time Protocol (NTP) is a service used to accurately keep time on desktop and server computers.

The My IT Services Site, linked from Axess, allows students to place orders for telephone and cable TV service, review current subscribed services, view and print monthly statements, print a payment coupon, and use a look-up tool that estimates the cost of a long distance call based on the location being called.

The Stanford Paging System is available to faculty, staff, and students affiliated with the Stanford Medical Center. Services supported by the system include SmartPage: a web-based tool for sending pages and looking up pager IDs.

The SpectraLink Pocket Telephone (PT) system plays an important role in the Hospital/Medical Center setting, where cell phone use is not allowed. The PT functions as a mobile desk phone, allowing Medical Center personnel to place and receive calls on their Stanford line while away from their desk.

IT Services provides this research computing hosting service for Stanford researchers who want to operate their equipment in a secure, centrally-managed data center.

Information about telphone, voice mail, cable TV, and internet services for Olmsted Terrace, Stanford West, and Welch Road Apartments.

The scheduling service allows AFS users to run UNIX commands or scripts at specified intervals. These commands are called “cron jobs” and are useful for a variety of purposes such as running scripts that rebuild a search index hourly, update a web site daily, or run monthly reports on databases

An SSL certificate is a signed electronic guarantee that verifies the authenticity of a particular server. It's used for providing web pages through an encrypted connection. Any service accessible by SSL must have a certificate, including any web server with encrypted or “secure” content.

IT Services provides hosting services for campus clients who want to operate their equipment in a secure, centrally-managed facility. The hosting service can be either shared (multiple clients with equipment in one rack) or dedicated (only one client's equipment per rack). The primary hosting facility is located in Forsythe Hall.

SharePoint is an advanced service that offers you an integrated suite of tools for managing content that you want to make accessible on the Web. Common collaboration tools including wikis, blogs, and discussion forums are integrated with built-in web content and document management capabilities. In addition, SharePoint includes productivity tools such as event calendars, announcements, and task lists.

The IT Services Software Licensing group negotiates and manages software licensing University-wide. The group's web site provides an extensive list of available software. If you don't find what you need on the list, staff will help you find the best alternative source.

The Stanford Web Services unit builds department and group websites that are hosted on a shared infrastructure and provides assistance with larger projects requiring dedicated hosting or custom design. In addition, Stanford Web Services staff help to design and maintain key components of the University's shared and self-service web publishing tools.

The Stanford University Network Access Control (SUNAC) service permits organizations to grant remote access to resources that are protected behind IT Services-managed Firewalls based upon an individual’s SUNet ID. This service incorporates VPN, Workgroup Manager, and Firewall services to create increased IT Security for Stanford’s ever-increasing mobile work force.

For a quarterly “communications fee,” Stanford provides phone service — including the telephone itself — in every residence.

Technology Training Services (Tech Training) provides the Stanford Community with learning opportunities that span the entire computing spectrum. Curricular programs range from enrollment-based in-classroom and online courses to on-demand or specially arranged personal and small-group instruction. In addition, Tech Training hosts a weekly program of briefings/workshops on topical technology subjects.

Managed Virtual Servers are available to Stanford departments as an alternative to hosting and managing dedicated, physical server equipment. Virtualization technology allows multiple virtual servers (also known as virtual machines) to be hosted independently on a single physical server. This service is available for public, Confidential, Restricted, and Prohibited Data (as defined by the Information Security Office).

Stanfords VPN service allows any Stanford affiliate to connect to SUNet remotely from any available network connection almost anywhere in the world: including from home, from many hotels, and even from within some company networks.

The Stanford Web Forms Service is available to Stanford affiliates with a full service SUNet ID to make contact forms, short surveys and polls, instructor evaluations, and other forms free of charge. No knowledge of HTML, Javascript, or SQL is required.

Stanford University uses Google Custom Search to provide quick and useful web search results, advanced search features (including searching for PDF, .doc, and .ppt files and displaying them as HTML), powerful search administration, and easy integration into web sites.

WebAuth is a comprehensive system for authenticating web users that was developed to protect Stanfords web sites in AFS space, but can be used in other environments that use Apache web server software. WebAuth relies on a login server that establishes a users identity on their first attempt to access a protected web site. Once the user has logged in to the login server, their identity is carried in a cookie and they will not need to enter their password again until their credentials expire, even if they visit other protected web sites.

The Stanford Sites service is the easiest way for Stanford community members to build and manage websites for their University work. Stanford Sites is available for use directly by faculty, staff, and students as a free, self-service utility requiring little technical expertise.

IT Services manages the Stanford Windows Infrastructure to address issues such as single sign-on, location-independent access to resources, and  manageability and security for the Microsoft Windows platform as implemented at Stanford. Joining the Stanford Windows Infrastructure includes membership in the central "forest" (group of domains). This brings your group the benefits of integration with many of Stanford's other systems while allowing it to retain considerable autonomy in its local domain.

Wireless networking allows Stanford faculty, staff, students, and sponsored visitors to access SUNet resources securely from locations where wiring is not available.