Industrial Report 3- CICT

Industrial Visit 3- CICT

Introduction

Centre for Information and Communication Technology (CICT) in University Technology Malaysia (UTM), was built in year 1975 and named as Computer Centre. In year 1981, this Computer Centre was combined with the department of Computer Science and become a part of the Computer Science under the faculty of Science. After that, CICT became the centre - ICT Lestari at 2016 till now. When CICT was in early stages, its function was to process staffs’ salary.  During that period, it used main frame system – IBM 390, it added functions such as staffs’ information system. It then further upgraded its mainframe to IBM 4341 to accommodate for its increased users and thus used Operating System VM/SP 5. The CICT also helps outside agency to process information such as examinations – STP and SPM. The vision of CICT is for UTM to be “A frontier digital university spearheading academia centric service and the mission is to lead in the development of an entrepreneurial digital eco system by nurturing innovative digital professional and promoting

            The CICT was important to UTM because CICT is a support unit that offers and delivers ICT services for the staffs and students in university especially in ICT infrastructure, system development and academic or the administrative activities. The ICT service of CICT include internet and WIFI, CRM, Web Management, Infrastructure and Security, ID Account and Access, Application Development, Multimedia, Software and ICT Facilities. One of example of ICT service was the ID Account and Access, ACID is a unique ID of the user through the authentication server to use to log into the university systems. All students should have their own user ID and the staff should also have the mail account official UTM first before applying ACID account.

Details of Journey      

On 1^st Oct 2018, the CICT have invite the students of SCSP and SCSB to visit the building of CICT and give a talk about details of CICT in UTM. At the beginning of this visit, all the students are gathered at the hall of CICT at level 4. This talk was introduced by Sir Mohd Zahari bin Zainal Abidin, the assistant officer of Technology Information of CICT. He told us the detail about the CICT in UTM such as the history of CICT, introduction to organisation of CICT, vision and mission of CICT, management and security of CICT, customer relationship management of CICT, achievements and the goals of CICT, etc. CICT was an important as it act as an administration in the field of ICT of UTM.

            After the talk, Sir Mohd Zahari bin Zainal Abidin bring the all students to visit the PPICIP at level 3 in the building. PPICIP was a computer lab which can accommodate up to 70 students in the lab and provide all the internet services for the students who have problem with internet services.               

            Besides that, the students were given a chance to visit the CICT Gallerium at the ground level. In the Gallerium, students were able to expose about the components and computer hardware which were outdated and it is rare to see about all those components and computer hardware at outside world. Students can also inspire by those components and know how is the change of the trend of ICT.

Detailed Descriptions

Organization Structure

The director of CICT is PM Dr. Mohd Shahizan Othman. Followed by Deputy Director IOM, Dr. Syed Norris Hikmi Syed Abdullah. He is assigned in Infrastructure & Operation Management. For Deputy Director ADM, Dr. Mohd. Murtadha Mohamad who is assigned in Application Development Management. For Corporate Management is Puan Sabrena Omar. Followed by Strategic Management, En. Samsudin Nyat. Lastly, for campus in Kuala Lumpur it was directed by En. Nik Kamal Izuddin Nik IBraahim.

Services

1. UTMID/ACID

ACID is a part of computer services that provide unique ID user through confirmation from server to login into academic computing system. All students in UTM have their own ID that have been registered through respective quality. The lecturers and staffs of UTM also required to have the ID to access the system. But, the staffs are required to have official mail account of UTM first before apply ACID account.

Systems which use ACID account are Virtual Private Network (VPN), UTMotion, UTMShare, Eportfolio, UTM Classifieds, Jobs@UTM, Staff Portal, Cyberubp UTM, Elearning UTM, AIMS2000 and SPS. But now all the UTM websites are included in one portal which is MyUTM.

2. Portal MyUTM

This portal provides tools for students and lecturers to ease process of learning and teaching. This portal includes all the information of the users, e-learning, e-portfolio and others. Portal MyUTM is an official portal for students UTM. Anyone who want to login the portal has to enter their ACID ID. In this portal, students also can install software into their laptop without pay. To conclude, this portal has ease all stuffs and students in UTM.

3. Virtual Private Network (VPN)

VPN is a private network that extends across a public network on internet. This enables users to send and receive data across shared or public networks as their computing devices were directly connected to the private network. VPN can provide functionality, security and network management benefits to the user. VPN available from public internet can provide some of the benefits of wide area network (WAN). The resources available within the private network can be accessed remotely.

As for UTM, the VPN are used to access UTM intranet services from outside UTM campus. Staffs have to use ACID ID in order to start using the network.

4. Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi are widely used in UTM area. The login portal is unified for all staffs and students. To login the portal, must using ACID account as registered. If someone do not have any ID account can login as guest account. The guest account available when there are upon requested. UTM Wi-Fi use Multivendor Access Point Compatibility.

The location for WIFI is at hotspot zone; by using wireless controller are BCSI, DSO, CICT, PRZS, F54, FAB, FKT, FKE and residential college. The installation of WIFI in all college are fully completed on 1^st September 2018. So, total of access points in UTM are 1600.

5. HPC

HPC is High Performance Computers. HPC uses supercomputers and computer clusters. The computers are specialized with great processing capabilities terms of CPU speed, large memories and disk space. This are suitable for large complex data computation and large data sets.HPC are used when there are involve a computation that uses parallel processing. HPC needed when user wants to reduce computing time. HPC also used for solving complex computational problems. We have to install software that can be executed in parallel. 

6. Gallerium CICT

Gallerium CICT was launched on 25^th of October 2015. Gallerium is museum-like that display devices from 20 years back then which are hard to find these days. Example of devices that displayed there are Mainframe Terminal, Controller, Mainframe Data Storage, Magnetic Tape Unit, IBM Tape Control Unit and many more. From this gallerium students can learn more and explore more about the IT.

Achievements

After all the effort of CICT had made, CICT has accomplish a lot of achievements that would make the university authority proud of it. Firstly, there are many 6-star award won by CICT centre in the field of data management and business intelligence:

• MyRA (Malaysian Research Assessment Instrument)
• SETARA (University Auditing System)
• MyMoheS (Data Quality Improvement System)
• QS-Ranking (University rankings in Malaysia)

Besides that, the UTM Global Rankings also get the better ranking compare with other university in Malaysia, UTM was ranked 21^st, 6 subjects of UTM was ranked in top 100, ranked 90 in the course of engineering and technology in the QS WORLD UNIVERSITY RANKINGS, UTM also ranked 50 for engineering in the BEST GLOBAL UNIVERSITIES of U.S.News 2016 and UTM also has the highest joint rank in Malaysia at 121-130. The newest centre of data in UTM which is the first IPT in Malaysia was created by CICT with the newest equipment such as network room, server room, genset, computer room air conditioning system and DCIM (Data Centre Infrastructure Monitoring). CICT also get many of the acknowledgement such as the certificate of design at Datacentre with Tier 3 at 1^st December 2017 and the gift UTMFin SAGA Compliance (AG) at 22^nd November 2017. At the part of streaming, conferencing and montage videos services of CICT has succeed to organise 11 events in Facebooks live and 142,562 viewers were watching the video.

Information System that developed or maintained by CICT

Reflection

CHIA YIN JIAN:

First of all, the course that I have taken is in the field of science computer with the program of data engineer. By taking this course, I can understand the core concept in computer science as more the concept that I understand means that I can learn a lot of skill about computer science such as data modelling techniques, relational and non-relational database theory and practice, database clustering tools and techniques, ETL design, architectural projections, etc. Besides that, we should also learn the programming language such as C++, C, Java, Python that programming language will allow you to create a program. Data engineering was widely applicate in many fields likes data architecture, data base setup and management, data infrastructure design and build, autonomous vehicles. Nowadays, data engineers have to be even more adaptable as the pace of technology continues to increase and also with the ability to quickly adapt as a critical skill. After we graduate with this course, we can find a job with high income from other company as the data engineer is a great demand for this modernisation era. Therefore, I will study hard in university and pay attention during classes to get a better result for this course. As I can get a great CGPA, this mean that I master the course and have the qualification to be a good data engineer. A qualified data engineer will not only involve in the field of science and technology but also with other field, data engineer can also active in business field as the big data in today’s world is important in the business field. Data engineer that able to analyses the big data can lead to a better decisions and strategic business moves. A good data engineer not only can allow them to earn greater income but also make a huge contribution to country as they always working in the field of science and technology.

            After visiting the CICT, I learned that the workers are very diligent in making up the system in CICT. Data engineers are doing a great job on analysing and managing the database stored and solve the problem as it appears. Other sectors are also hardworking on building up the software, making the cyber defence and developing or designing UTM webpage and My UTM apps to make sure that all of the system in UTM works well and the problem can be solved in the short time. As data engineer, I am very looking forward that I can also do it well as well as the engineers in CICT, which attribute their skills to user in UTM. Therefore, I have learnt that share out the work and cooperate with one another is important to be a successful data engineer. Every part of the job requires different skill to overcome it hence doing job alone will not succeed and we should complete our job by team.

         The improvement or plan that necessary for me to improve me potential in the industry was to be more active involving myself in the social activities because a good data engineer should be good in every region. Hard skill and soft skill are also important so we should not only expert in IT region. Knowing more people will allow you to get a greater interpersonal connection with other, when we need help or have a job that require a team then we can invite those people. Besides that, obtain additional training about the new technology as the information in the internet will always update so that we will not be knock out from the world. We can also find a mentor which can became our sounding board. It is important to have an elder mentor who can provide us with sage advice and honest feedback. A trusted mentor will tell us the truth about the areas that need improvement. Next, attending a conferences and workshop can also improve our potential, will give us a chance learn about the latest developments in our field and keep our skills and knowledge up to date. It can also be a great way to meet and exchange ideas with other professional in our industry.

FADHILAH BINTI NASIR:

My goal or dream regarding to my course which is Data Engineering, I hope that I can successfully be Data Engineers as it is listed in my ambition. My goal is regard to this course, I will not just able to developing computer system, but can also interact with people around me and always attached to the industries. So that I can experience real world of computer and data-centric environment.

            The industrial visit that I just joined give a big impact to me. As I studying in computer course, I have role to improve the computer services or internet service to ease the learning process of the new generation. I need to build or design a computer programme that can help people if they had trouble doing something.

I have to study harder in this course so that I can achieve my dream. I have to mastered the subject in this course for all semesters. Other than that, I also have to improve my soft skills so that I will not awkward when have interaction with people during my work.

AHMAD SYAMIL AIMAN BIN MEZUKI:

As a student of Computer Science, we can say that this CICT industrial talk gave us huge beneficiary not only for the present, but also for our future such as give us a brief exposure about Data Centre in industrial especially for us Data Engineering students. This is because it was our first industrial visit to Data Centre

Taking everything into account, with this modern visit that have been sorted out by the division from School of Computing, it gives many advantage to the understudies from information building. One of the advantage is that it allows us to find out about the occupations that are identified with our course. This causes us a great deal since we can have the outlines later on how the activity identified with our field can create one of the real system focuses in UTM, or different spots.

This visit additionally offers understanding to us about how the staffs from different offices cooperate to manufacture and arrange CICT. Amid the preparation from one of the staffs in CICT, we additionally figured out how to know how the framework directed by CICT which is MyUTM works. Other data, for example, e-learning, MOOCs, Job4U additionally have been quickly conveyed to the understudies. These data make us understood that we can make numerous things which can make our life less demanding with all the information that we learn now.

At long last, by visiting the Gallerium CICT, the understudy become more acquainted with more insights about how the mechanical improvements occurred since the mid 90's as of not long ago. The understudies additionally get the opportunity to see the genuine old equipment and see the progressions occurred on it. This visit truly causes the understudy to know the history behind every one of the progressions that occurred during the time in IT field. More or less, it was an extraordinary affair for every one of us.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, we have learnt many new knowledge about the IT region by visiting the CICT industrial talk. We have get a lot of advantage in this talk as we can learn the experience about how was the CICT complete their job. We are capable to recognize potential for improvement after visit this talk and this give us more choices and references about our future career paths.