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James L. Hilton

James L. Hilton

Contact Us

P.O. Box 400217
Suite 116
Charlottesville, VA 22904-4217

Phone:
434-982-2249
Fax:
434-924-3579
Email:
gh3w@virginia.edu

It has become commonplace to open discussions of technology with a nod to the ubiquity of change. Storage, network bandwidth, and computing power double every 18 months. Today's smartphones have more computing power than was onboard Apollo 11 as it hurtled toward the moon. New online services roll out daily. Most burn brightly and fade by evening. But a few make it, sometimes with profound implications for the ways that we work and interact. Security threats and their associated countermeasures proliferate at network speed. Indeed, the constancy of technology-driven change has become such a common theme that we risk becoming deaf to moments of real and significant change. This is such a moment.  Information and communication technologies are currently undergoing a series of fundamental changes that rival in scope the disruptions that accompanied the transition from mainframe to personal computing. Three forces are driving this sea change:

  1. the economics of aggregation,
  2. IT consumerization, and
  3. the Janus-faced strategic/utility role that technology plays in serving the University's mission.

As UVa moves into this future, we are focused on:

Operational Efficiency

On the essential side of IT, we must run our services efficiently and be judged by the metrics of predictability, cost, and value.

Enterprise Architecture and Policy

In a world where users control their devices, we must pay increased attention to network access, identity and authorization, data management policies, and licensing/software provisioning requirements.

Security

We must learn to operate in a world where every device that touches our network is potentially compromised and where people are seen as empowered and accountable decision agents for the data that they use, create, and store.

Strategic Initiatives

We must continue to invest in areas where technology gives us competitive advantage on the teaching and research fronts.

For more detailed information, please see the annual report.