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ECN Accomplishments

Fall Semester 1996 And Spring Semester 1997

Marian Delp
marian@purdue.edu

The Engineering Computer Network has worked on a variety of projects over the past academic year. This is a tally of some of the projects to which the ECN devoted time, staff and equipment resources.

Disk Backups

The current ECN disk backup system utilizes more than 65 8mm cartridge tape drives and handles nearly 1000 gigabytes (or 1 terabyte) of disk capacity. In anticipation of rapid growth in disk capacity, the ECN began evaluating new disk backup systems last Summer. The HP Omniback software system was selected for a pilot study. The Omniback pilot system has proven successful and is now being used to backup nearly 300 gigabytes of storage on servers and workstations including Sun, HP, IBM AIX, SGI and Windows 95/NT systems. The ECN plans to install a large robotic tape library during the Summer. The tape library in combination with Omniback will eventually replace the current 8mm tape based backup system. The new system will have more than 10 times the capacity of the current backup system, lower operating costs, and the capability of backing up additional platforms, including SGI, AIX and Window 95/NT.

PPP/ISDN/33.6/X2 Dialup

The ECN now provides dialup routers to the Schools which support SLIP, PPP, and Apple Remote Access. These dialup routers have been integrated into the ECN user accounting system to allow the sites easy access management. Currently, ECN supports dialin over 33.6 Kbps or 56 Kbps X2 analog connections and 64 Kbps/128 Kbps ISDN digital connections.

ACMAINT

ACMAINT (short for ACcount MAINTenance) handles account creation, deletion, and modification (like changing passwords, home directories, etc.). ACMAINT 3.0 is the mechanism with which the PUCC and the ECN will "merge" login and uid pools. After logins and uid's are merged, the ECN can begin large scale file sharing between all PUCC and ECN systems.
As of 5/15/97, a total of 779 ECN hosts with 12,648 users and 359,698 accounts were registered with ACMAINT. The ACMAINT software has been installed on the following ECN UNIX platforms: IBM AIX, HP HP-UX, Sun Solaris, Sun SunOS; SGI IRIX is in progress. Efforts to port ACMAINT to NT have begun.

Stable Printing

The ECN currently supports over 290 printers in the Schools of Engineering. There are many different brands/types of printers with at least 5 different modes of communication and many different drivers and setups. Last semester, the ECN worked hard to bring the LP printing system up to the latest software revision and to improve print services.

SAMBA - PC File Sharing

The SAMBA software package has been installed across Engineering. This package allows any Windows For Workgroups, Windows95, and WindowsNT machine attached to the ECN network to map directories of ECN file servers as Window Network Drives. We are in the process of setting up standard file systems any user can mount from their PC for accessing licensed software.

NT Servers

As of October 1996, the ECN activated an NT Server for testing. Since that date, services have expanded to include Windows 3.x, Windows 95, Windows NT Workstations, and Macintosh platforms. Further utilization and expansion of services is an ongoing project with exploration into expanding services to the UNIX platform currently underway.

LANS Off ATM

Over the past year the primary ECN 10Mb/s backbone network (known as the .129. network) was converted to 155Mb/s ATM fiber (the .199. network). 21 primary ECN file servers have been connected to the ATM backbone. This ATM backbone directly connects to the campus router that serves Purdue's two T1 internet connections.

PUCC Wiring

As the new Purdue Data Network wiring comes on-line, ECN staff are working with the Purdue Data Network (PDN) to ensure the new PDN networks transparently communicate with current engineering networks. IP tunnels for AppleTalk service to Macs and AppleTalk printers have been set up. IPTalk is also used to provide AppleTalk services to Macs. ELANs (Emulated LANS) via the ATM backbone hosts and the PDN Cisco routers have been created to provide services (file sharing, etc..) from existing ECN file servers on existing ECN networks to new PDN networks.

L^AT_EX - T_EX Support

The T_EX/L^AT_EX system has been improved by adding class, style and miscellaneous support files users have requested. Mark Senn has worked with users experimenting with dvihps (L^AT_EX-->PDF), latex2html (L^AT_EX-->HTML), and ltoh (L^AT_EX-->HTML).

Support Of Non-Sun UNIX

Support for IRIX (and IRIX64) 6.1, 6.2, and 6.4 and AIX 4.1 and 4.2 are now included under ECN's list of limited support operating systems. Additional services now available from the ECN for limited support systems include NTP service, full automounting service, full printing service, and full mail/ECN aliases service. Multiple commercial software packages have been added as well. The following operating systems are now under limited support:

	AIX 3.1, 4.1, 4.2
	IRIX 5.2, 5.3, 6.1, 6.2, 6.4

Full UNIX support is provided for the following:

	Solaris 2.3, 2.5, 2.5.1
	HP-UX A.09.01, A.09.05, A.09.07, B.10.01, B.10.10, B.10.20

Solaris 2.5 Upgrades And New Installations

Over the past year, the ECN upgraded (or installed) Solaris 2.5.X on over 95 file servers and over 440 "other" machines. Additionally, the ECN installed 43 new Solaris systems and 15 new limited support systems (IBM RS/6000 and SGI's).

Queue System

After many years of searching for a commercial package to address ECN's work queue needs, an in-house program has been written. The new system consolidated four queues (Mac, PCs, Software, Hardware) into one. This new system allows us to track and better serve Engineering students, faculty, and staff.
Entries in the work queue could represent a problem that can be solved in five minutes or five weeks! In the past two semesters 4,096 queue items were submitted and resolved. This is an average of 20 requests for assistance per work day!
This does not include requests handled locally by school site specialists. For example, not counting personal mail replies, phones, or walk-ins, the Chemical Engineering site specialists Dave Carmichael and Stacey Clark archived (solved) 361 items in 1997.

PACE

With a goal of developing a new computing environment for Engineering and to subsequently propagate it to the campus, the joint Engineering and PUCC project, called Purdue Academic Computing Environment (PACE), received formal support from Vice President Ringel in March 1997. Initial PACE development efforts during the Summer and Fall of 1996 focused on planning, feasibility studies and organizing Alpha test and development teams for project components. During Spring 1997, the ECN staff developed methods for students to access University licensed software, such as MATLAB, from student home machines. The ECN also developed approaches for supporting Windows NT stations in campus office environments.
A core team of four, full-time, experienced staffers, two from the ECN and two from the PUCC is being formed to assume full time PACE project development positions. The team will initially evaluate e-mail systems and methods for students to access the ENAD labs from personal machines in campus networked residences. PACE project concept documents can be found in web pages at: http://www.ecn.purdue.edu/Dean/Projects

Majordomo

The Majordomo mailing list management software is now available on the ECN. Majordomo can be used to maintain large mailing lists to which users may subscribe and unsubscribe themselves.

Apache Web Server

Our move from NCSA HTTPd to Apache has been gradual with attention focused on being compatible with our old system while providing many new features. Our primary Web host, www.ecn.purdue.edu, has been running Apache for two semesters. Currently, Sun and HP hosts are being switched to Apache upon request. Over 30 ECN hosts have switched to Apache.

New Web Pages

The main Engineering homepage and School homepages have been updated. The new pages provide improved loading speed and cross platform compatibility.

ECN FAQ Web Site

There are 85 topic areas containing 1,397 FAQs plus supporting files in the ECN FAQs. This year, 400 of the files were updated. This site averages 486 requests per day.

Classes Taught

During the '96/'97 school year, 44 short courses were offered. New courses included: PhotoShop, Perl, ImageMagick, PowerPoint, Beginning L^AT_EX, Intermediate L^AT_EX, and L^AT_EX For Your Thesis.

Solaris OS Support

Over the past year, the ECN installed over 290 patches to the Solaris operating system.

Common UNIX Environment (CUE)

Working toward account intergration, Tom Statnick made numeric user ids consistent at the Purdue University Computing Center and the ECN. Additionally, Tom and Mark Senn worked with PUCC and ECN sites to make logins consistent. Work also continued on maintaining similar programs in similar path locations on both PUCC and ECN UNIX machines.

Computer Books Added To Engineering Library

The ECN acquired twenty-five new titles for Sigesmund Engineering Library's computer book collection.

Oracle

Oracle database was placed online for Engineering's use. A two-day short course was taught each semester by Stan Harlow as an introduction to Oracle useage.

Software Updates

Acrobat				upgraded to Version 3.0
CPLEX				upgraded to Version 4.0.8
Elm				Version 2.4 PL25 added
Exmh				Version 2.0gamma added
FrameMaker			upgraded to Version 5.1.1
GAMS				upgraded to Version 2.25.089
GhostScript			Upgraded to Version 4.03
GnuPlot				Version 3.5 added
IslandGraphics			upgraded to Version 5.0.2a
Lynx				upgraded to Version 2.6
MAE				Version 3.0 added
Matlab				upgraded to Version 5.0
Mathematica			upgraded to Version 3.0
MetaMail			Version 2.7 added
NAGware Fortran90		upgraded to Version 2.2
Netscape			upgraded to Version 3.0,3.01
Perl				upgraded to Version 5.003
				and several extensions added
Sendmail			upgraded to Version 8.8.5
ShowMe				upgraded to Version 2.0.1
SpixTools			upgraded to Version 9.0
Ssh				Version 1.2.19 added
Sun Fortran90			Version 1.1 added
SunSoft Performance Library	Version 1.1 added
Tcl/Tk				upgraded to Version 7.6/4.2
Transfig			Version 3.1.2 added
Uudeview			upgraded to Version 0.5.5
Xess				upgraded to Version 3.1.1h
Xfig				Version 3.1.4 added

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Last modified: Thursday, 05-Jun-97 20:14:08 EST

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