University of Minnesota

Institute of Technology

Minutes of ITICC Meeting

November 18, 1999

3:30 p.m., 133 Physics

Present: Bance (ADCS), Barnes (CE), Belik (Math), Carlson (ADCS), Chase (ME), DeLaney (Astro), Garrett (Math), Haarklau (BIN/BNA), Hudleston (IT Stud Aff), Larson (ADCS), LeMay (ADCS), Li (ECE), MacDonald (CSE&ITlabs), MacEwan (Chem), Mann (Chem), Sapiro(ECE), Shield (AEM), Swanson (ECE), Wentzcovitch (CEMS),

1) Report from CSci and ADCS

No technical problems reported. MacDonald noted that Lind 24 should be ready for use starting next semester. Bance noted that there are often people waiting to get on the NT machines in EE/CS 3-170 and ME 308. The Macs in 3-170 appear to be heavily underused.

Hudleston informed the committee that ITICC was experiencing a cash flow problem created by the delay in sending out bills for tuition and fees for fall semester. Normally computer fee revenue would have been collected by now for fall term, but the bills only went out on Nov. 8 because of PeopleSoft problems. Some costs will have to be deferred until the revenue starts to come in.

2) Modification to Proposal from the IT Tech Committee

In light of the demand for NT machines and lack of demand for Macs in 3-170 (as noted in #1 above), it was suggested that 10 of the old Macs in 3-170 should be replaced by PCs. This addresses in part one of the issues left incomplete in the Tech Committee recommendation to ITICC (see minutes of Oct 21 meeting).

A motion was made, seconded, and carried unanimously to replace now 10 of the Macintoshes in EE/CS 3-170 with NT machines. This leaves a decision yet to made about the other 15.

3) Increase in home directory disk space allocation

Chase presented his proposal to ITICC for expanding the use of disk space in the home directory. It is as follows:

∑ ITlabs student users in good standing can request an increase in their home directories from 20 Mb to 40 Mb by sending a request to operator@cs.umn.edu with a 1-line statement of need.

∑ ITlabs student users in good standing can request an increase in their home directories from 40 Mb to 80 Mb by having the faculty IT-ICC member in their home department send a request to operator@cs.umn.edu containing the student's account name and a 1-line statement of need.

The idea is to provide a small hurdle for the first increase and a larger hurdle for the second increase. Passing the larger increase request through the IT-ICC member provides some control. The numbers of 40 and 80 Mb are arbitrary and negotiable.

MacDonald expressed concern about implications of this. Currently all accounts are closed at the end of each term and the disk space reset to the default value (20 Mb). To allow larger allocations for individual students to be carried through to the next term would require rewriting the script that controls the accounts. Also, Macdonald would like to see a web site where students could enter their request for more space. These modifications could be done at the same time.

If all students requested additional disk space it would exceed the capacity of the disks. One option would be to buy more disks. An additional 350 Gb of storage capacity can now be bought from Seagate for $15,000.

Given the need to replace the SGIs (and conserve funds used for other purposes), the proposal was made and approved to proceed immediately with the first part of Chase's proposal, with the understanding that additional disk space would revert to the default value at the end of each term.

4) Other Business

None