University of Minnesota

Institute of Technology

 

Minutes of ITICC Meeting

 

September 28, 2000 

3:30 p.m., 435 Physics

 

Present:  Dan Bance (ADCS), Randal Barnes (CE), John Baxter (Math), Dan Boley (CSciE), Bryan Carlson (CEMS), Tom Chase (ME), Tracey DeLaney (Astro), Tina Garrett (Math), John Hickey (CSciE), Peter Hudleston (IT Stud Aff), Phil Kachelmyer (ADCS), Jerry Larson (ADCS), Chun-Tao Li (ECE), Larry LeMay (ADCS), Jim MacDonald (CSE&ITlabs), Dan MacEwan (Chem), Kent Mann (Chem), Roger Rusack (Physics), Tom Shield (AEM), Ben Speakman (Physics)

 

 

1)         Status of labs and lab activities (including reports from CSci and ADCS)

 

Hudleston described some of the developments since the committee last met in May. 

 

The ITICC lab in Physics 130 has been closed, following the request by the Physics department to use the space for an instructional lab.  The loss of seats there has been partly offset by the addition of 20 seats in EESCi 4-204, associated with the rearrangement of the lab to move the entrance from the inside to the outside corridor.  Also lessening the effect of closing the lab in Physics 130 is the fact that much of the use there had been by students using the Macs to take the quizzes in introductory Physics courses.  These are now been handled on line.

 

Lind 24 is the newest IT lab (operating on Linux), open on a regular schedule that makes it available all day on Monday, Wednesday and Friday as a general lab, while on Tuesday and Thursday it is reserved as a classroom for Math.

 

Hudleston reminded the committee that with a series of snafus associated with the switch to semesters and PeopleSoft, fee revenue last year was about 10% less than it should have been.  With the move to a single rate for lower and upper division fee, and with prompter at-lab billing, we hope that this year revenue will be at the anticipated level.

 

Last year one quarter to one third of the computers in the labs were replaced, closely following the planned four-year cycle.  Also, upgrades to the network continue to be made.

 

MacDonald noted that, at least for the time being, there are no Macs in active use in any of the labs. The closing of Physics 130 left only 6-7 Macs in EECSci 3-170, and lab management felt that it was not worth the expense and effort to maintain so few machines.  The Macs are sitting in the CSE machine room and could be brought back into use at any time, if there is demand.  He noted that Windows 2000 is the industry standard, and that we are serving our students best by making this the main operating system available to students.  He also noted that the Macs in EECSci had mostly been used recently by students waiting to get on other machines, and no one has complained so far about the unavailability of Macs.  Hickey thought that students should have the option of using a variety of platforms, including the Mac, and that the new operating system, OS X, would provide a number of advantages. Macdonald agreed that OS X was good.  It was agreed that we would monitor the situation with Macintosh, and that ITICC would revisit the issue if warranted.

 

There has been a problem running the new version of ProEngineer on the SGIs and Suns.  Apparently, last year everyone was using the older version of the software and the problem was not realized until the newer software was installed this year.  The SGI problem has been resolved, and the Sun Solaris problem is being worked on. The Solaris machines need to have all the latest patches applied, and this can not be done in "batch" mode.  They have to be applied on a machine-by-machine basis.

 

What is the future of SGI workstations in the lab?  The issue has been sidestepped for the time being, with the replacement of SGIs last year by both Suns and PCs.  There are those who like the SGI platform and hope that it remains a viable option in the future.

 

Wireless Hubs

 

MacDonald described the plan to experiment with the use of wireless hubs in the IT labs and in the commons area of the EE/CS building.  This test area will cover the classrooms on the third floor also. MacDonald said that the cost was very modest, about $800 to put in an access point.  Students would have to pay $135 for the interface card in their lap tops.  The two options are Lucent and CISCO Aironet, both of which are compliant with 802.11 and should be compatible with each other.  MacDonald is going to test the interoperability of Lucent and Aironet technologies.   He is using a wireless connection on the 6th floor of EECSci and it works pretty well.  The bandwidth is 11 Mbps.  He finds he can get reasonable speed of connection with signal strength down to about 35%.  The strength of the signal depends more on configuration of the building than on distance.  There are problems with interference.   Security is also an issue, requiring use of encryption and password access.  Both these features are incorporated in the interface card.  Currently X.500 authentication is not possible. MacDonald noted that NTS has not yet signed off on the protocol to be used for security with wireless.

 

The ITIC Technical Committee is looking for other sites in IT that serve large populations of IT students for wireless connections.  If students are going to pay $135 for a wireless NIC, they will need several areas where it works so that the cost/benefit ratio is acceptable.  Chase offered to make the new ME building another test site.

 

MacEwan informed the committee that Chemistry is using wireless (the CISCO option) in its instructional labs.  It seems to be working well, and one access point can serve about 60 machines. 

 

Hudleston noted that the issue of potential requirement of lap tops for all students is still alive.  He has offered to review with the departments teaching lower division math and science how lap tops might be used if generally available to students. He will be meeting with departments to discuss this.  Chase made the point, strongly, that a lap top requirement would not replace the need for the current IT public lab facilities.  The software requirements were growing more demanding, rather than  less, and the issue of licensing is a big problem. The workstations in the labs could not be replaced by lap tops.  He thought that a lap top requirement made no sense for IT. Students certainly would not want to pay both for a lap top and a lab fee.

 

Larson said that U card locks were being installed on all the lab doors. These are for additional security; they will be used by the lab consultants, and will provide a record of who accesses the lab and when.

 

The issue of monitoring in the labs was raised, with reports of no-one being in attendance in some labs on occasion.  Larson said that when there were two consultants on duty, one should be there at all times.  When just one was on duty, departures should be brief.

 

Larson noted that we are no longer manually counting machines in use to track usage. This is all being done electronically.  With the removal of the Macs, the use of all machines in all labs can be monitored electronically.

 

Bance mentioned that, with the installation of Windows 200 over the summer, there have been a few problems with running software, and these are being addressed.  There were a number of programs that would only run on Windows 3.1

 

2)                  Beginning to plan for this year

 

Hudleston said that we should plan for upgrading the labs in two stages, as we have done for the two previous years.  There will be a follow-up this fall to the improvements made last spring. He asked that the tech committee prepare a recommendation to bring to the committee for the next meeting.

 

2)         Other Businesses

 

None