IT Facilities

IT facilities This document is available on the CCT Students wiki http://students.cct.brookes.ac.uk (click Support > IT Support)

Introduction to the department and University IT facilities The University and the departments both provide a range of state of the art IT facilities to students. Many of the facilities are available only to students in the Department of Computing and Communication Technologies. This talk will give you a brief introduction to these facilities, where they are and who to speak to about them.

Eduroam – free wireless connection (http://eduroam.brookes.ac.uk/) OBIS provides Google@Brookes – includes Gmail, Google Docs, Google Drive, Google sites, Google Calendar, Blogger and lots more Eduroam – free wireless connection (http://eduroam.brookes.ac.uk/) Sophos – free anti virus while you are a student here (http://sophos.brookes.ac.uk) PC clinic to help with laptop/PC problems (not free, but much cheaper than other similar companies) Laptop hire Computer shop at Gipsy Lane which sells a variety of PC components and consumables

OBIS computer room locations

Departmental services The Department of Computing and Communication Technologies have their own network which is linked to but managed separately from the main University network. These contain specialist computer and IT facilities reserved for our students.

Departmental services – Where and when Departmental computer services are provided in the R building and the C block labs Access to the R building is 24/7 with a keycard, access to the C block labs is 08:00-21:00

Departmental services – Labs Media labs – contains equipment for producing, editing and deploying a variety of media (R202, R213, R217, R228 & R234) CAD labs – performance PCs with a wide range of CAD software and large format printers (R132, R146 & R148) Network labs – CISCO routers and switches, network monitoring and simulation software, 2G and 3G mapping equipment (R217, R222 & C104)

Departmental services – Labs Secure labs – Networks sectioned off from the main campus network for security and administration related work (C104 &C105) Project labs – a range of equipment for project work (R243 and C105) General purpose labs – high end PCs (R132, R146, R148, R217, R222, C101 & C104) Raspberry Pis in C104 (BYOD)

Departmental services – other 3 Super computer clusters (1 HPC with 176 x 2.5Ghz, 1.4TB RAM & 15TB HDD) Qube Render farm for 3D animation A TV studio Web and database server for student use MSDNAA – Free access to Microsoft software (http://msdnaa.brookes.ac.uk) VMware Virtualisation software Mobile phones and tablets Robotic equipment .....

Accessing Departmental services Many resources can be accessed through your normal Brookes login (called your Brookesf login) Students have a separate login which may be needed to access departmental resources. Access to the R building outside office hours is via a keycard which is available from the departmental office. Cost is £5

Who to contact in the department for help with IT resources In most cases this will be the module leader Help with the media resources are available from the media instructors (Joe Carr, Nati Lopez De Amentia Najera and James Templeton in R227) Help with comms, server and general computing resources are available from our computing instructor (Gerald Roy in C107) and email cct-specialistit@brookes.ac.uk

Other things to consider - Email Check your email regularly If you want to email a member of staff do so from your Brookes account When emailing staff include your student number and if appropriate the module number of the module you are enquiring about Use a persons correct name and watch out for people who share the same name!

Storage and Backup Documents should be stored on your “My Documents” folder (which maps to your H: drive on OBIS pooled rooms) On OBIS/brookesf logins this will only be 1GB (although can be expanded if needed) Google Drive offers unlimited storage and can be used to store and backup more information. It is available from any web browser

Storage and Backup Although Brookes does back up files we make no guarantees over the recoverability of files therefore backups are essential! Important files should be backed up multiple times using H drive, Google Drive and/or CD/DVD