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

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 CSCFfunded MFCF Staff person (Patrick Matlock)
CSCF Staff offices are located on the 2nd 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 email/web services
CSCF Machine room is on the 3rd 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:
http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/cscf/about/contact
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.