Welcome to the PA Computer Center Directors Meeting

1. Welcome to thePA Computer Center DirectorsMeeting Bucknell University March 19. 1998

2. PA Computer Center DirectorsAgenda • 9:00 - 9:30 Arrival, continental breakfast • 9:30 - 9:40 Introductions • 9:40 - noon Bucknell Presentations • (10:45 break) • Noon - 2:00 Lunch/discussions • 2:00 - 3:00 Campus Computing Tour

3. Bucknell Presentations • Information Services & Resources(Ray Metz, VP of ISR) • CCS/ISR Organization(Gene Spencer, AD for Computing & Information Services) • Help Desk and Problem Tracking Software(Sue Hales, Client Services Group Leader) • Network Architecture(John Jantzi, Network) • Advisory Committees(Gene Spencer) • break • Banner Conversion(Gene Spencer) • 5 year Replacement Plan for Desktop Computing(Mark Ritschard, Desktop Team Leader) • File Services  and Triage (Mike Weaver, Systems Integration Group Leader)

4. File Services For our purposes, I’ll loosely define File Services as storing and sharing files.

5. File Services - Goals • All Inclusive: everyone is part of File Services • Consistent: When I want to get something from the finance office, I know what to expect, because it’s the same as my department • Universal Access: from any platform • “Easy to use” • Secure • Reliable

6. Functional Requirements • Put personal files that can be accessible from any computer on campus (file storage) • diskless Eudora • A place to share files with others (file sharing) • departments • courses • organizations • other collaborations and communities

7. Functional Requirements (cont.) • A mechanism to “give” files to others • A place for web pages

8. File Servers • NT Server • RAID 5, nightly backups • Scalable architecture(We can easily add another student server, if needed) • Sized for growth(servers all have capacity for more hard disk, memory) • Meaningful names • 3 Year Life Students A-K Students L-Z Academic Depts Admin Depts

9. Folder Structure - People mweaver private eudora stuff(students only) public drop_box www

10. Folder Structure - Departments isr people mweaver etc... private public drop_box www

11. AcademicDepts AdminDepts StudentsA-K StudentsL-Z

12. “Universal” Accessibility isr people mweaver private public Windows 95/NT,via Microsoft Client Macintosh, via AppleShare Unix, via FTP (Also, off campus Macintosh users)

13. IBM Drive Connections(At Logon) Academic Depts Admin Depts P: R: isr people mweaver private public X: U:

14. Communities & Collaborations(Others with File Services) • Campus Organizations • Greening Task Force, Assoc. for Evolutionary Economics • Student Organizations • Outing Club, Silhouettes Singing Group, Ultimate Frisbee Club, WVBU, Amer. Soc. Civil Engineers • Fraternities/Sororities • Committees • ISR Advisory Committees, Parking Committee • Academic Projects • Senior Design Project, Collaborative Research

15. File Services Also Includes • Application Sharing • Printer Sharing • Software Distribution

16. Switching Gears To Web Architecture

17. Web Strategy • Started with a single central web server • this is currently www.bucknell.edu • running on Unix • Apache server • Migrating to a strategy of supporting web pages within the existing file services

18. Web Server • Windows NT 4.0 • Microsoft Internet Information Server 4.0 • Multiple IP Addresses and Host Names • www.facstaff, www.students, www.departments, www.orgs • Allows for scalability - we can easily add one or more additional servers • Will become www.bucknell.edu • Only contains Bucknell’s top level pages

19. Web Architecture academic depts web server admin depts students ak students -lz

20. Web Architecture - Part II academicdepts physics public www http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/physics web server s smith public www studentslz http://www.students.bucknell.edu/smith

21. “easy to use” Logon to the network as usual Save a file at u:\public\www\index.html Youhave awebpage!

22. My favorite faculty quote: "Breathtakingly Simple!" applause

23. Other Web Servers • Existing Unix/Apache server will remain for processing some account management, cgi’s etc. • www.library.bucknell.edu for library pages • www.banner.bucknell.edu for web access to banner • WebCT for courseware support • Talking about adding web services to software distribution

24. Switching Gears To Building Reliability

25. Building Reliability • Programs • “Triage” Students • Automatic System Checks • Includes all systems, not just File Services • Documentation, including • list of servers and services • who’s responsible • priority/response expectations • hours of support

26. “Triage” Students • 3 Students • On call from 5:00pm to 8:00am, and all weekend • Carry a beeper • Trained to provide a first level diagnosis (triage) when problems are encountered during non-work hours

27. “Triage” Students - (cont.) • Perform system checks at 9:00pm and 6:00am every day. • send e-mail to themselves • post to a newsgroup • copy a file from each file server • print to lab printers • ping lots of hosts • access servers via AppleShare • visit web pages on various servers

28. Automatic System Checks • Had a homegrown system that: • performed checks every two minutes • pinged lots of devices • copied a file from each server to exercise netbios • provided an audible alert to operators • sent e-mail to appropriate person when a system didn’t respond • worked most of the time

29. Automatic System Checks (cont.) • Recently started using a commercial product • What’s Up Gold • Does many of the same things, only better • Much easier to set up • Can also check services, such as NNTP and SMTP • Flexibility in configuring alerts • Support for e-mail, beepers, pagers, and voice

30. What’s Up - Console • In computer room • Visible to operators • Audible alarm when something is down

31. What’s Up - Web Interface

32. What’s Up -Web Interface - Detail

33. TheEnd!