Computing Service Newsletters
Computing Service Newsletter 232 (April 2007)
Progress Reports
The Progress Reports made by the Computing Service to the IT Syndicate in January and February 2007 included the following items not covered elsewhere in this or earlier Newsletters:
Unix Systems
The migration of the email lists to the new mailman system continues apace with over 2,000 lists migrated. As this number rises the remainder are increasingly composed of moribund mailing lists which are likely to be allowed to die.
The spam problem continues to grow and an increasingly aggressive stance is being adopted by the Service on its mail systems receiving email from outside Cambridge. The latest changes in timeouts, designed to prevent mail being sent by hacked domestic computers (typically running Windows insecurely), have required changes in the Exim mail system so that they can still be logged. The principal author of Exim is a member of the Service staff and so was able to add this functionality very quickly.
A DSpace developer has been recruited and has started work. The mirrored capacity of DSpace has grown to 20TB.
The first phase of our Shibboleth project is complete. A test Identity Provider has been built and configured. The University is now part of the UK Access Management Federation and is one of the first UK Universities to join. The initial publicity and demonstrations are under way. Work is now starting on phase 2, the evaluation and planning of the production service.
New mailstore machines have been purchased using Project Capital 4 funds to replace the existing hardware which is now 4 years old. Once commissioned this new hardware should allow for increased disk quotas on Hermes.
The Scientific Computing series of courses has continued and been further extended. One instance of a course has been given in the Chemistry department for an audience of Chemistry PhD students and Post-Docs in a very successful trial. Changes and additions to the set of courses are currently being planned for next academic year.
The University's primary name servers have been moved to more powerful hardware.
There has also been considerable behind-the-scenes development of the next generations of the lookup service and managed web service.
Network and Small Systems
Lapwing rollout continues: over 40 wireless access points are now providing service in eleven hotspot areas. Technology for making a large collection of access points more manageable is being investigated.
Plans for a CUDN upgrade program are progressing, with particular emphasis on diverse routing to client sites and other requirements for supporting voice-over-IP.
On 2 February, the CUDN's connection to JANET was moved onto new (SuperJANET-5) infrastructure.
Discussions are underway with potential suppliers of replacement equipment for the PWF filestore and with consultants who may assist with procurement and installation.
The use of IP based protocols, instead of Novell's IPX, for communication with the PWF core servers has been enabled for all PWF clusters. This will come into full use for all PWF Windows stations with the April image rollout.
The PWF eCredit facility, offering online payment for PWF common balance print credit by debit and credit cards, continues to be successful. By early January, it had been used by 644 users for 984 transactions totalling more than £6,300 since its release in August.
The phased transfer from legacy Netware print queues to secure NDPS print objects, which started in June 2006, was completed over the Christmas vacation.
Preparations for testing the next release of Novell's Open Enterprise Server based on Linux instead of NetWare are in progress.
Technical User Support
Hardware Support continued to be busy with a large number of repairs, especially during the run-up to the Christmas holidays. Most of the work involved equipment belonging to departments and colleges, as opposed to student owned machines. Laptops, both PC and Apple, belonging to staff and students are increasing in numbers and present an ever-rising workload for the group
Michaelmas has always been the busiest term on the course front but this year there was an all-time record number of attendances: 1752, 40% up on Michaelmas 2005. The fortnight of Thinking Skills Assessment sittings using central Computing Service facilities in December went smoothly.
In early February the decision was made centrally to use the HEFCE Data Collection System (DCS) directly for the RAE submission, rather than input data via the DCS being developed in the Computing Service. This was primarily because the HEFCE system was delivered in a timely manner and was considered to meet the University's needs. Data will be exported from HEFCE to the University's system because HEFCE itself offers no backup/restore facility to individual sites. The University's own system can then act as a longer-term repository for the data after the University is locked out of HEFCE's system following RAE submission. The development of the University's system is ahead of schedule and should be available in advance of the planned release date of 20 March.
User Services
There were 18 instances of copyright infringements in December and a small number of security related incidents.
January saw the highest number of security incidents for some time: 81 security incidents and 31 copyright infringements. The security incidents were mostly the result of worms spreading within the domain. Prompt action by IT staff in the relevant institutions soon had the problem machines off the network and under control. One outbreak was on a Sunday and so a number of machines were disconnected by the UCS in order to limit the damage done by the worm.
The number of copyright infringements is a concern. It is believed that the rise is due to improved detection methods by the agencies acting for copyright holders rather than any change in practices amongst users. The CERT team acts promptly to ensure disconnection of the offending machine and normally reports back to the complainant within the day. The UCS continues to support the IT Syndicate policy of disconnection if no response is received from the institution.
The title of this document is:
Computing Service Newsletter 232: Progress Reports
URL:
http://www.cam.ac.uk/cs/newsletter/2007/nl232/progress.html