Open Lab Futures

Debbie Carraway / John Klein

Information Technology

Some Brief Announcements

• David Ladrie / Susan Klein (ITD Computing Services)

• More information will be available at the next open meeting, where we respond to what we hear from you today.

• Other issues of General Interest? (ITD people, be quiet, you had your chance to be on the agenda)

That was then…

• Open meetings in March, 2000 to discuss what ITD should do to improve its “Open Lab” offerings

• Follow-up meeting in April laid out plans which we’ve subsequently followed

Major issues from those meetings

• Easier/Faster Application Deployment & Maintenance

• Client Diversity• Education• Auditing• Universally Accessible File System• Workstation Maintenance (ties with 1st

bullet)

How we responded

See http://www.ncsu.edu/mtip/notes/April-5-2000/ppt/

Several issues not addressed in that meeting:– Client Diversity– Education– Auditing– Universally Accessible File System

Client* Diversity

• Windows 95/98 now supported • Windows 2000 lab deployment “in progress” • Complete secure LDAP access to NDS from all

platforms (Solaris/Mac/Linux/more)• ConsoleOne for Solaris almost ready• Mac AFP/IP in beta test here at NC State

* Client software, not client “people”

Education

• Training classes in CALS lab last March (Zen 2)

• Training classes in AFTC last November (workstation registration/preparation)

• Targeted for content, not polish• Framework on which

documentation web pages are built

Auditing

• We purchased (a site license) for “AuditLogin” software which tracks usage server-side.

• Zen 2 has automatic workstation inventory, which we are using in the ITD Unity labs.

All your Base, are belong to Us!

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,100525,00.html

Universally Accessible File System

• Zip 250 drives on new ITD purchased lab machines.

• “Profile” quota now at 10 MB

• Several projects still under consideration.

• Did we mention we have Zip disks now?

Issues Raised over E-mail

1. Reliability

2. Collaboration for “Faculty/Staff” application development

3. …

Reliability

• Current, real time status of all ITD fileservers on the web for your review:

http://www.ncsu.edu/mtip/zen/labs/itdservers.htm• All new print servers• All new profile servers (NSS)• All replica servers now equipped with 1 GB of

RAM

Collaboration

Good idea! We’ll present some options next meeting!

So, what now?

• What are the major consumers of your time and energy in providing “open” labs for students?

So what? (now)

• What processes does ITD need to put into place to smooth routine operations?

So, WHAT? Now!

• What features do you want developed in your labs over the next year?

So… what now?

• What topics would you like covered in short courses?

• Are there topics that should be taught regularly/on what schedule?

• What are your top priorities for web documentation?

Open Lab Futures

Debbie Carraway / John Klein

Information Technology

Don’t be surprised in May

• ITD* will drop support and decommission critical support servers for the NCSU GINA on May 18, 2001

• After that date, your NCSU GINA machines will not function if you take no action.

• Announcement was made 9 months in advance. Reminders go out monthly.

* ITD is not NCSU

“Name that group” competition!

• We’ve reorg’d so much, we have no name!

• Currently answer to “Microsys”, “MTIP”, and (our current favorite) “NuTS”

• All submissions must not violate the Unity guidelines prohibiting profanity.