Computing Service

Computing Service Newsletters

Computing Service Newsletter 234 (October 2007)

General News

Retirements from the Computing Service

Sadly, the Computing Service loses three of its most senior members of staff at the end of September, when David Prince, Philip Cross and Philip Hazel all retire from the University. All three of them have been key players in the history of the provision of computing facilities at Cambridge, and between them they represent over one hundred years of service in the Computing Service. It is difficult to see how their collective knowledge, skills and experience will ever be adequately replaced and certainly their successors will have shining examples to aspire to. We wish each of them many long and happy years in retirement, and thank them for their contributions to the Service and the University over the many years of their respective careers.

David Prince

David joined the University in 1963 as a computer engineer in the Mathematical Laboratory, working on the experimental Titan computer system being developed by Professor Maurice Wilkes and his colleagues. David, a mathematics graduate from Durham University, had been working as a research assistant at Jodrell Bank prior to coming to Cambridge, and quickly became an indispensable member of the Titan maintenance team. With the closure of Titan in 1973, the maintenance team then turned its hand to maintaining the new IBM mainframe, and the peripheral PDPs associated with it, as part of the newly formed Computing Service within the Computer Laboratory, as it was then known.

The talents of the maintenance engineers were widely recognised, and by the end of the seventies a small business had developed for the team in maintaining many of the growing number of computers in other departments across the University. This greatly expanded with the advent of personal computing in the eighties. By now David was deputy leader of the team under Ken Cox, and when the latter retired in 1993 David took over the leadership of the engineering team, or Hardware Support as it was then known, and assumed the title of Chief Engineer: only the fifth holder of the position in the Laboratory's history.

David is a highly respected member of the Service, a keen sportsman, and a gifted engineer, as many thousands of staff and students throughout the University will attest after having had their ailing computers restored by him and their life's work rescued in the process. His skill and comradeship will be greatly missed.

Philip Cross

Phil began working in the University in 1967 when he joined the Mathematical Laboratory as a Technical Officer working on early Computer Aided Design systems, having previously been a research student under Neil Wiseman working in the same area. He stayed in the Computer Laboratory until 1975 when he left to work for Laser-Scan Ltd, on the Science Park, which had numerous associations with the University, but returned four years later to rejoin the Computer Laboratory as a Computer Officer working in the Computing Service. Phil was now part of the communications team under Chris Cheney, and was initially responsible for making a major contribution to the design and implementation of software for the locally developed Transport Service Box, an early microprocessor based piece of networking equipment, which was subsequently to be developed commercially as the JNT-PAD.

With the early adoption and evolution of communications standards, firstly X.25 and then the IP protocols and Ethernet, Phil became responsible as Network Systems Manager for ensuring the technical integrity and efficient running of the systems making up the Cambridge University Data Network (CUDN), managing a small team of communications specialists who helped make sure our electronic communications within the University and with the world outside ran smoothly and transparently.

It is an unfortunate fact of life in the communications world that the only time one becomes aware of the presence of the network at all is when it is not working properly, and it is a credit to Phil and his team that this has been mercifully a relatively rare occurrence. His quiet conscientious dedication and meticulous attention to detail have been instrumental in creating the first class communications system we all benefit from today, and it is with some trepidation that we say farewell to Phil on his retirement.

Philip Hazel

Phil Hazel started as a mathematics postgraduate student at Cambridge in the late sixties, and after submitting his thesis in 1969, but before taking up a lectureship in Cape Town, took a temporary job working as a programmer in the Mathematical Laboratory. He clearly liked the experience, because within a year he was back working full-time as a Computer Officer in the Laboratory and was one of the first programmers working on the new IBM service provided to the University by the newly formed Computing Service within the Laboratory.

Phil is a prodigious programmer and software architect and has been the author of many of the critical applications that generations of University students and staff have relied upon in building their academic careers. Many of the early mainframe service utilities were implemented by him, e.g. EXAMINE, XPDS, HELP, SEND. There then came the major applications like ZED, a general purpose command driven editor, and GCAL, a text layout system, which together must have been responsible for typesetting thousands of theses and papers over the years. Over time these were developed and refined into more modern versions on newer platforms: E (and subsequently NE), and SGCAL.

Then in 1995 the Service was in need of a decent email transfer agent to cope with its mushrooming email traffic, and, not finding anything fit for purpose in the opensource domain, Phil designed and implemented Exim. Exim has now become one of the world's three leading mail transfer agents, used by major commercial and public institutions worldwide. The success of Exim, and the associated books written about it, has meant that he has now become an internationally revered figure in the computing world, and software developed by Phil to support Exim now forms components of major opensource products like apache, php and python. He is regularly invited to international workshops to speak and advise on issues concerning network email.

Phil's contribution to the Computing Service and the University over the years is difficult to overestimate, and his legacy is outstanding. The Service is losing one of its most illustrious and productive members of staff.

Information strategy in the University

This article is reprinted from the previous Newsletter.

Anyone involved in the provision of computing or information services within the University might be interested in proposals to revise how policy and strategy are managed. A Joint Report of the Council and the General Board on the supervision of the University's information strategy and information communication and technology services and systems was published in the University Reporter in June at http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/reporter/2006-07/weekly/6079/19.html
A Discussion was held on 10th July and is reported at http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/reporter/2006-07/weekly/6081/37.html

New Web and RSS feed UCS News Service [headline article]

As announced in the last Newsletter, the Computing Service has been developing a Web/RSS feed news service for UCS announcements.

This service is now available; the web interface is at http://ucsnews.csx.cam.ac.uk/ and the RSS feeds are incorporated into the new UCS home page at http://www.cam.ac.uk/cs/

Up to now, news items have been published in a number of different places, such as ucam.comp-serv.announce and other newsgroups, and News files on particular services. In due course, we expect that all UCS announcements will be made via the News Service, which draws all these together on web pages and in RSS feeds, both structured so that users can read all the current news or can select services or topics of interest to them. As well as the main RSS feeds on the Computing Service home page, the separate RSS feeds will be incorporated into other suitable web pages as they are revised.

(See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(file_format) for more information about RSS).

Institutions may wish to incorporate certain RSS feeds into their own web pages, the 'Service interruptions' feed being the most likely candidate for this.

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Coordinated bulk purchase of desktop Windows/Linux hardware

As reported earlier, the University Computing Service (UCS), the IT Purchasing Group and the Central Purchasing Office (CPO) set up a tender this summer for the supply of desktop PCs to the University. The contract was awarded to Dell Computers. Full details, with information about how to order under the scheme, can be found at http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/cam-only/offices/purchasing/groups/it/deals/hardware/current.html

Details of the purchasing process that was followed, the rationale behind the decisions that have been made, and a copy of the tender documents for these contracts, can be found at http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/cam-only/offices/purchasing/groups/it/deals/hardware/2007it_bulk_purchase.pdf

Vista licensing

This article is of interest to technical staff who need to deploy Windows Vista in a managed environment, where images are rolled out via ghost or other imaging or mass deployment technology.

Normal volume license versions of Vista use Volume Activation 2.0; any system under this licensing scheme must be activated within 30 days of installation with a product key or it will only work in reduced functionality mode.

An alternative to this scheme is provided by the Key Management Service (KMS), which allows systems to automatically activate in the background without requiring a product key to be entered. This method is designed for use in managed environments as above. The Computing Service (PC-Support) runs a KMS for IT support staff to use; for full information see http://www-tus.csx.cam.ac.uk/pc_support/Vista/volumeactivation/volumeactivationindex.html

Mathematica

A group of institutions in Cambridge University have negotiated an unlimited site licence deal (work and home use) with Wolfram for Mathematica, for 3 years starting on 09/07/2007.

If you want to use Mathematica then there are various options:

  • Mathematica is (or will very shortly be) available on the PWF in Colleges and the UCS
  • if you are a member of one of the Institutions that is part of the unlimited licence deal (listed below) then please contact your Computer Officers.
  • if your institution is not in the deal and would like to join then this is possible at each annual renewal. For more information please contact Mike Rose at Chemistry (mr349@cam.ac.uk).

The participating institutions are:

  • Department of Chemistry
  • Cambridge Institute for Medical Research
  • Welcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute
  • Department of Physics
  • Division A, Engineering Department
  • Faculty of Economics
  • Department of Earth Sciences
  • Faculty of Mathematics
  • Institute of Astronomy
  • Chemical Engineering
  • University Public Workstation Facility (PWF) in Colleges and the University Computing Service (NOT in Departments)
  • Environmental Modelling Unit, Department of Geography
  • Newton Institute

More information is at http://www-co.ch.cam.ac.uk/software/mathematica/

The Department of Chemistry took the lead on negotiating this deal, in consultation with UCS Software Sales, as the price of a complete University site licence was prohibitive.

It seems likely that there is even more demand for a site licence for Matlab and probably the same level for Labview. There is some of Matlab and Labview in the Department of Chemistry, not enough to justify CO time to negotiate a deal, but they would be very happy to contribute to a deal. If you are considering organising such a deal then Mike Rose (mr349@cam.ac.uk) is very happy to share his experiences (and mistakes) regarding the Mathematica deal.

Burning CD/DVDs on Vista machines

It appears that care is needed in choosing formatting options for burning CD/DVDs on Vista machines; some of the defaults produce unreliable results.

Most Vista machines arrive with hardware capable of burning CDs/ripping DVDs. Some arrive with appropriate software like Nero (version 7.x with updates), Sonic etc., but problems sometimes arise with the Windows native CD/DVD software.

When you insert a blank CD-R or CD-RW Windows seizes the CD and gives you a choice of three options: "Burn an audio CD using WMP", "Burn files to disc", or "Create a CD using iTunes". If you respond by accepting "Burn files to disc", then on the next screen, you should choose "Show the formatting options". Otherwise you will get the default Windows Vista CD-burning option, which we have found to be unreliable, even with other Vista machines in some cases.

If you do show the formatting options you then get more sensible guidance: we recommend that you choose Mastered (=ISO).

CHRIS and the Computing Service database, Jackdaw

Information about current and expected University staff is now supplied to Jackdaw by the new University HR system, CHRIS. The change of datafeed from the old system, SECQUS, to CHRIS took place in mid-August. The feed from CHRIS contains more information than the old SECQUS feed; in particular, it contains those who are not University staff, but who are on the payroll. It also contains people who are on the Roll of the Regent House, as did the SECQUS feed.

As soon as information about a new person is received from CHRIS, a CRSid and Raven account are created in Jackdaw and an entry will appear in the University directory, Lookup. The password for the Raven account is held for later collection by the user.

We also track staff who have left University employment and include them in our monthly cancellations (mini-purges) of accounts.

Improvements to pre-arrival registration

Some improvements have been made to the pre-arrival registration scheme, which allows institutional staff to register incoming staff and visitors with the UCS so that CRSids are created and the passwords to computing accounts are ready for collection when the user arrives in Cambridge.

Some improvements are concerned with the 'behind the scenes' matching of data, giving User Administration staff a better chance of matching data correctly. Improvements that will be obvious to data suppliers include:

  • start dates are now available. This allows data suppliers to register incoming staff as soon as they are known about, but accounts will only be created a week before the user arrives. This solves the problem of use of the password-collection form timing out after 6 months.
  • it is now possible to register a user without providing a date of birth at the time. Please note, however that the user will not be able to collect their passwords until a second registration has been submitted which supplies the DoB.
  • data suppliers can now choose which accounts are allocated to any pre-arrival registered user (but note that Raven accounts are always allocated). This change deals with the problem of short-term visitors who do not require email or PWF accounts.
  • user administration staff are now able to correct data in a pre-arrival registration record, on request from the data supplier. We hope that we will be able to allow data suppliers to make corrections themselves in the future, but regret that we are not able to do so in this release.

Full details of the pre-arrival registration scheme are at http://www.cam.ac.uk/cs/instadmin/prearriv.html

We encourage institutions to use pre-arrival registration for their incoming staff and visitors whenever possible, rather than using paper forms. The advantages are:

  • start and stop dates can be supplied and can be updated by staff of the institution
  • the CRSid is quickly returned to the institution
  • accounts are usually ready for collection by the user on the next day; there is no waiting for password letters to be delivered by the UMS
  • there is less transcribing of information and so fewer errors are likely.

Cancellation of student accounts

The UCS accounts of many students who completed their courses in the summer were cancelled either in mid July or mid August, depending on the finishing date of their course. The remaining students on later-finishing courses will be included in the monthly purges of ex-staff and ex-students during the Michaelmas term.

Magpie account renewal

Users are reminded that payment for Magpie accounts for 2007-08 was due by 1 October 2007. Accounts that have not been paid for by 15 October 2007 will be cancelled. Full details of how to renew a Magpie account were in the letter and email sent to all users earlier. Please send any queries to user-admin-magpie@ucs.cam.ac.uk

Members of the University and other authorized users of the CUDN are reminded that they must not allow other people to use the network facilities accorded to them, even other members of their household including partners, spouses and children. The sharing of user identifiers, whether for logon to Magpie or to other Computing Service systems, is not permitted under any circumstances.

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The title of this document is: Computing Service Newsletter 234: General News
URL: http://www.cam.ac.uk/cs/newsletter/2007/nl234/general.html