University of Minnesota

Institute of Technology

Minutes of the ITICC Meeting,

November 20, 2003

3:35 p.m., 3-230 EE/CS

Present: Bill Arnold (Civil), John Baxter (Math), Christopher Bingham (Stat), Tom Chase (ME), Tracy DeLaney (Astro), Peter Hudleston (IT Dean’s Office), Larry LeMay (ADCS), James Maatman (ITSB), Jim MacDonald (CSE, ITLabs, staff), Dan MacEwan (Chem), Mark Nicosia (BME), David Nordsletten (BME), Jonathan Rogness (Math), Dana Ruggiero (Chem), Hitoshi Sakamoto (ME), Karen Swanberg (Geol),

Dale Swanson (ECE), Lucas Veverka (ITSB), Doug Victoria (CCE)

1) Status reports from CSciE and ADCS

Nothing to report.

2) Final Presentation of Proposal for IT Public Lab Improvements, Fall Round

MacDonald distributed copies of the final draft of the proposal for improvements to the public labs. These are for implementation over the winter break, subject to ITICC approval.

MacDonald described the few changes since the initial proposal was presented to ITICC at the October meeting. The three items for lab monitoring and security (items #13,14, and 15 on the list) – a fiber optic system for ME 308 and EE/CS 4-250 and CCTV cameras and installation for EE/Cs 4-250 have now been costed out – the total being about $33,000. With what had earlier been approved this makes the cost about double the original estimate. Installation of this system, however, will nonetheless save money in the long run, as fewer consultants will be needed in the labs.

Since the previous meeting, the Technical Committee has had second thoughts about how widely a dual-processor terminal server (item #8 on the list) could be used as originally planned. Licensing restrictions for much of the lab software means that access could not be from non-University machines. There are, however, other practical uses for this machine, which remains on the list of proposed purchases. One makes use of rdesktop, which would allow SUN users access to Windows NT. This could expand the number of Windows users at times of high demand, and allow students to sit at just one machine when they have both SUN workstation and Windows needs.

Added to the list (item #16) is RealOne desktop Manager, for use with Media Player software. RealOne software is frequently upgraded and this will expedite upgrading and patch management. MacEwan noted that there were many other applications that issued frequent upgrades, and that he handled this in Chemistry with ghost software.

Hudleston said that he will now bring the proposal to an e-mail vote of ITICC members. He noted that the total cost of improvements, about $240,000, which is about the same as the cost of the improvements approved in the spring, was within the budget for the year.

3) Updates on Various Issues.

Hudleston informed the committee that the subcommittee to review the procedures by which lower division funds are distributed has had its first meeting. He had joined them on this occasion. He anticipates that it will not take many more meetings for the subcommittee to complete its work. The members of the subcommittee are Roger Rusack (chair), Tom Chase, Kent Mann, Hitoshi Sakamoto and Matt Dushek.

Hudleston also informed the committee that there had been much discussion among the departments concerning the proposal by NTS to upgrade the university network capacity to Gigabit Etherjack service. One of the key issues was whether it made sense for any or all of the IT departments to take up NTS on its offer to take over locally managed networks free of charge, as part of the upgrade project. There has been a meeting of IT departmental technical/network support managers and NTS technical staff knowledgeable about the network upgrade, and a subsequent meeting of the IT network managers. The results of these meetings is a consensus that it makes no sense for IT departments with locally managed networks to turn over these to NTS. The feeling is this would lead to loss of functionality in many cases and less effective service. There remains a concern that all colleges will eventually share in the cost of the upgrade, whether or not they “buy into” it. IT would like either to be given the equipment that would have been purchased by NTS for IT had it been included in the project, or to share in its cost. An additional concern is that the cost of the horizontal wiring within the departments that will be needed to make it compatible with the backbone is likely to be much larger than the cost of upgrading the backbone itself (for which $16 million is being allocated). The NTS offer to departments does not include upgrading the horizontal wiring. If IT departments themselves had to pay for this, for some the cost would be prohibitive and would prevent their even consider having NTS take over management.

4) Other Business

Chase asked about the possibility of reorganizing one of the IT public computer labs to serve as a classroom on an ad hoc basis. He anticipates growing use of computer classrooms, and most of the IT computer classrooms are booked heavily by regular classes. He was wondering whether ME 314 would serve this purpose. LeMay pointed out that this room has three different platforms, making it unsuitable as a classroom. Chase replied that standardizing the platforms would be part of any reorganization.

MacDonald noted that EE/CS 2170 will be open and available for ad hoc use spring semester 2004. He has arranged CSci classes so that they are all housed in EE/CS 2172, thus freeing up 2170 for use by others. Both EE/Cs 2170 and 2172 have dual boot machines, with Linux and Windows, so they are versatile for class use.

Hudleston said it would be interesting to see what the usage will be this spring. He expressed concern about the level of awareness among faculty of what was available. He thought it likely that many faculty are unaware of the IT computer classroom facilities. We should do more to make known the availability of computer classrooms, what facilities they offer, and how they can be reserved.