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Message from the CIO

Accelerating Digital Transformation at NC State

OIT’s priority is to ensure you have access to the IT resources you depend on daily.

Marc I. Hoit

NC State Chief Information Officer

The integration of digital technologies into campus life is a key strategic goal for NC State University, and the Office of Information Technology (OIT) plays a crucial role in driving campus efforts to use transformative technology, cutting-edge processes and actionable data to enhance university effectiveness. 

OIT works diligently to automate services and processes, reduce workloads and connect tools and systems to meet user demands. We are moving forward with multiple activities that will deliver value to our campus IT users. Some activities include:

ServiceNow
In March, we upgraded ServiceNow from Tokyo to Vancouver to provide essential updates and security enhancements. Since then, we’ve spent a considerable amount of time improving Knowledge Management and Service Portfolio Management capabilities in preparation for the redesign of the OIT Website Project, scheduled for launch later this year. OIT services and related content will be moved to the ServiceNow platform. We continued to expand the use of the ServiceNow platform to improve access to university information, such as the recent addition of the University Human Resources HRNow Portal. Additionally, we’ve collaborated with the College of Sciences to design and deploy an IT Service Portal, Incident Management, Knowledge Management, surveys, and Request Fulfillment Capabilities. Many more ServiceNow enhancements are included in this year’s annual report. 

Data Storage
This fiscal year, we have focused heavily on data storage. Companies like Google and Microsoft now require customers to reduce their storage use or pay more, while user demand for data storage increases. The Google Service Team continues to work with the campus community to improve data storage management and business continuity. At the same time, the Research Storage Team is exploring options to make storage usage easier and to better support the different types of research here at NC State.

AI
The demand for data storage and its use for AI efforts make it even more critical. In June 2023, OIT Shared Services received a $467,000 National Science Foundation Campus Cyberinfrastructure grant to purchase six Lenovo SR670 nodes with 24 top-of-the-line graphics processing units (GPUs). In addition to AI, the new GPUs provide computing power for a dozen scientific applications, including molecular dynamics, neural network training, genome assembly and fluid simulation. AI tools have been a focus in the IT Purchase Compliance Program to ensure university data is well secured. We are working with the university data stewards to establish an approval process for IT purchases with an AI component. 

Security
We are strengthening our cybersecurity efforts by establishing a universitywide security baseline and moving departmental equipment such as laptops and desktop PCs to a protected network. We also collaborated with the UNC System to share third-party vendor risk assessments to achieve efficiencies.

OIT’s priority is to ensure you have access to the IT resources you depend on daily. Behind the scenes, we continuously adapt our business processes and update necessary systems and tools to meet your changing needs. All of these efforts require mutual collaboration and trust. As our IT environment evolves, we will continue to listen to and work in partnership with you to support this great university.

If you want to learn more about the transformative work we have accomplished with our campus stakeholders, look inside this year’s annual report, Accelerating Digital Transformation.