Computer Science Computing Facility Technical Staff supporting the School of Computer Science

CSCF Formation A result of the formation of the School of Computer Science MFCF was split into two units – roughly 2/3 of staff went to CSCF CSCF shares MFCF Help Centre (Consultants) & MFCF Operations in exchange for one CSCF- funded MFCF Staff person (Patrick Matlock) CSCF Staff offices are located on the 2 nd floor of DC, above the library

CSCF Mandate The primary computing support organzation for the School of Computer Science (SCS) Not a separate department; we are a group of staff within the School. We support approx. 100 faculty/staff, nearly 300 graduate students, and 1800 undergraduate students.

CSCF Network Two core switches with redundant links to rest of campus via Math, Science, and Engineering Most equipment is from Extreme Networks, but it’s being replaced by HP over the next few years Routing is being taken over by a pair of Netscreen-500 firewalls

Standard Platforms supported by CSCF Windows XP/2000 Windows Server 2003 (WTS/AD) Linux (ubuntu is strongly favoured) Solaris 8 Mac OS X

Teaching Labs Supported by CSCF Mac Labs for CS 100/200 – ~ 120 seats Nexus Labs - ~ 95 seats Thin client labs - ~ 100 seats Nortel lab – 28 seats + a phone switch Real time train lab – 20 seats + 2 tracks Graphics Lab – 22 seats Networks lab – 2 stations

Teaching Computing Continued Thin clients have access to Unix front-end (x11) or Windows Terminal Server (RDP) 24 UltraSPARC CPUs dedicated for assignment work Servers housed in MFCF Machine Room (MC 3015)

Computing for Research Most faculty/groups have their own computing resources (and in many cases machine rooms!) We have a central environment (10 CPUs) available “for free” to all faculty/staff/grads We encourage use of our “free” central e- mail/web services CSCF Machine room is on the 3 rd floor of DC

Grad Student Desktop Computing Faculty sponsors given choice of providing new student with a thin client or a PC PCs can be Windows XP, Ubuntu Linux, or dual-boot Students are given super-user access to machine. If they cause trouble, we wipe and re-install with a fresh image.

CSCF Support of Research Computing Support is subscription based (2 types): Desktop support – inexpensive way to get support for a single machine (best-effort) Dedicated support – allows for support of pretty much anything, tasks prioritized by client Some faculty members and research groups elect to not get support from CSCF.

CSCF Organization SCS Director of Infrastrucutre is the CSCF Director – currently Professor Steve Mann Associate Director of CSCF – Bill Ince Administrative Support Infrastructure Support User Support Research Support

CSCF Advisory Commitee Chaired by CSCF Director Varying number of SCS faculty One grad student One undergrad student CSCF Managers

CSCF Points of Contact (PoC) Every faculty/staff member, and course has a CSCF PoC CSCF Research Support Group provides PoCs for research computing CSCF User Support Group provides PoCs for non-research computing A faculty member may have a PoC for his/her research computing and a different PoC for his/her teaching For more details, see:

CSCF Administrative Support 2 Staff: Jennifer Keir and Paul Thompson Computer Account administration Financial Administration Software Licence management Inventory

CSCF Infratructure Support Staff Dave Gawley – Technical Manager Dan Hergott – Networking Phil Beldowski – Hardware specs, PC support Adrian Pepper – Postmaster, Unix software Guoxiang Shen – Backups, Unix administration Clayton Tucker – Windows Adminstration Walter Tautz/Daniel Allen – Linux administration 1 Part-time staff

CSCF User Support Staff Jason Testart – Technical Manager Ed Chrzanowski – Macs and Solaris Fraser Gunn – Specialty Teaching labs Isaac Morland – WWW Software Stephen Nickerson - Nexus Ian Turner – Macs, Nexus, Admin. Staff desktop support UW Co-op student

CSCF Research Support Staff Lawrence Folland – Technical Manager Mike Gore Mike Patterson Trevor Grove High school co-op student

Unofficial CSCF Staff Photo

Current Projects Auto lockdown of public labs – to reduce theft of computing equipment Printing – We’re reviewing our printer deployment. We need to ensure people can print from all of our supported platforms. UI update – thin client interface moving from twm on Solaris to KDE/Gnome on Linux Grad Office Application – web-based application to track grad student admissions, TA assignments/payroll, grants Ongoing CFI proposals

The End Thanks for your time.