Minutes of CRC Meeting

 

Location: 607 McBryde

Time: 10-11:45 am

Date: 11.16.1999

 

Attendees: Marc Abrams (CRC), Chris Arnold, Dwight Barnette (CRC), Sandy Birch, Jamie Evans, Daniel Hagan, Gay Meredith, Hussein Suleman (CRC), Srinidhi Varadarajan (CRC)

 

Topic 1:  Lab Use Request

The meeting began with a discussion on lab use requests when the lab is not open. It was noted that there were prior problems with Dr. Nance’s class in Spring. A suggestion was made to appoint student lab-monitors to oversee access to lab facilities. Students who wish access to the lab would have to sign an access agreement. It was also noted that students of Dr. Nance have not pursued lab access issues since the beginning of this term.

 

Policy for future use during non-lab hours was discussed. Volunteer monitors from a class would be required to be on duty and check students in and out as well as keep records on station usage.

 

Motion: Allow access to lab facilities during non lab-hours in the presence of a student lab monitor. Duties of the student lab-monitor are as listed above.

Motion Result: Passed

Vote breakdown (Marc, Dwight, Srinidhi, Hussein)

 

 

Topic 2:  Usage of SCHEV funding

The next item tackled at the meeting was the breakup of SCHEV funding for the year among the suggested categories. The following points were noted:

  1. MACs were not requested for instructors as was originally listed in the equipment list. Instead PCs were needed.
  2. A PC was requested for Gay Meredith. The proposed model was a Gateway GP7-600. The other possible supplier was Compaq
  3. The question of the possible use of monitors that came out of the replacement of 31 PCs in McB 116 was raised.
  4. A RAID fileserver was proposed for use in the NT lab. The OS platform proposed for the RAID server was FreeBSD.

 

Breakdown of SCHEV funding

  1. RAID Fileserver: $9600
  2. 31 PCs, manufacturer Gateway. Machines to replace P5 150-200 Mhz machines in Rm 116: $60,295
  3. Replace 6 old DEC Alpha machines: $43,008 – discount of $3000
  4. PC for Gay Meredith for NT administration: $2882
  5. 1 laptop for Daniel Hagan for NT administration: 43000
  6. 2 PCs for instructors: $1945 each

 

The meeting also discussed the possible replacement of vtopus using current SCHEV funds. The migration would require some overlap when both vtopus and its replacement are concurrently active. No decision was made in this regard, but it was noted that SCHEV funds might not be available for this purpose next year.

 

It was noted that SCHEV purchase orders to be sent out by Christmas 1999, with all requisitions being cut by Jan 2000.

 

Topic 3: Replacement of DEC Alphas

The meeting discusses the possible replacement of DEC Alpha computers in the department with Sun Ultra workstations. Email messages from Layne Watson, Cliff Shaffer and Dennis Kafura were discussed. Arguments for continuing with Alphas include (a) They are being used in classes (b) Maintenance is easy, (c) Floating point performance is excellent and (d) The Fortran compiler is better. Arguments against it were (a) It is very pricey, (b) Floating point performance is not needed and (c) Java implementation is far behind on Alpha platforms. Sun Java implementations are initially for the Solaris environment. Bill McQuain noted that a current Java implementation is needed to run the automatic grading system.

 

The following points were noted:

1.     The phase-out decision on Alphas should be thought of as a long term decision.

2.     Faculty with Alphas should be consulted in this decision.

3.     It was noted that the migration of vtopus from an Alpha to BSD might inspire confidence in the use of alternate platforms.

4.     Currently SCHEV funding is available. Faculty could be told that money is available for migration to the Sun platform.

5.     Consider smaller number of multiprocessor SUN platforms instead of more Alphas.

a.     Pros: Fewer machines to maintain

b.     Problems:

                                                      i.     Single point of failure

                                                     ii.     No apparent fiscal advantage

                                                   iii.     No real maintenance advantage

 

The final decision was to stay with the current Alpha platform.

 

 

Topic 4: Task Allocation

  1. Daniel Hagan will look into conversion of vtopus to a FreeBSD platform
  2. Gay Meredith will look into compatibility of PCs to go into McB 116 with FreeBSD, in particular compatibility of the video card with the X Windows platform
  3. All new machines in McB 116 will run BSD.
  4. Daniel Hagan will look into a suitable configuration for the NT administration laptop.
  5. 31 new PCs to go into McB 124. PCs from 124 will be moved to McB 116.
  6. Marc Abrams will talk to Lenwood Heath, Edward Fox, Roger Ehrich, James Arthur, Naren Ramakrishnan, Layne Watson and Cal Ribbens regarding replacement of Alphas.
  7. Systems administration staff will check for Y2k compliance on PCs and old Suns.

 

Topic 5: PC Configuration for Y2K students

The following options were presented for the configuration of the recommended machine for incoming freshmen in 2000.

  1. Maintain status quo specification
  2. Suggest a dual boot configuration machine
  3. Require a dual boot configuration machine

 

For the dual boot configuration, one of the operating systems should be UNIX. The issue of which variant of UNIX should be used was raised.

Possible manufacturers for the machines are Compaq, Dell and Gateway

 

It was noted that UPC was involved in the decision in formulating a new UNIX course and UPC might not want pre configured machines. Students need to know the new machine configuration by Feb 2000. Options for continuing the discussion included raising the issue in faculty meeting or talking to faculty at individual meetings.

 

It was also noted that Gateway has a supply problem since its machines are only supplied through the bookstore.

 

The issue of suggested UNIX version for the dual boot configuration was discussed. The possible OS choices were FreeBSD or Linux. It was noted that classes currently use BSD and there is a difference in the system call interface between the two operating systems.

 

Secondly, the dual boot configuration may not be recommended for the following reasons.

  1. Security: Linux has periodic security problems
  2. Compatibility with hardware
  3. Increase in support load on systems administration staff.
  4. CS 1206 uses BSD
  5. Given the choice of linux, what version of linux should be used?

 

CRC Motion: Recommend a dual boot Linux configuration option for incoming 2000-2001 freshmen.

Motion Result: Failed. It was decided not to recommend a dual boot configuration

Vote Breakdown: 2 against motion, 1 for motion, 1 abstention, 1 representative absent.

 

Topic 6: Migration to new multiprocessor Sun platform

The following issues discussed regarding migration to the new multiprocessor Sun platform currently located in Daniel Hagan’s office

  1. Who should get an account on the machine?
    1. All current accounts on csgrad and vtopus
    2. Selective on-demand account creation.
  2. It is non-trivial to migrate all existing accounts automatically.
  3. Encourage people to give up single sun boxes and use the multiprocessor instead.
  4. Need to advertise account availability on the new machine to graduate students.

 

The meeting decided to create accounts on the new Sun Enterprise on an on-demand basis. The student representative Hussein Suleman will advertise account availability to graduate students.

 

It was decided to maintain the same hard disk quotas for accounts on the new machine as the existing csgrad. 50 MB soft quota and 100MB hard limit.