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MCECS Computing Facilities |
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Written by Janaka Jayawardena
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Wednesday, 16 February 2011 |
The
College provides a variety of computer labs for students with supported
desktops including Ubuntu Linux, Windows 7 and Solaris. Some labs are
available college-wide. Others are departmental. A large complement of
software is available including various products from Autocad, Matlab,
Maple, Mathcad, Mentor, Synopsis, Cadence among many others. Software
development is enabled by a large collection of popular open source
tools as well as Microsoft Visual Studio. The college provides various
Microsoft development products to students for personal use through the
MSDNaa program. Color and black and white printers are available to all
users. UNIX/Linux based servers are available for remote computing.
For
supported platforms, faculty and researchers may use college-provided
system loads on their desktop computers with tiers denoting the level
of control/flexibility. This enables centrally managed patching and
software updates. The Linux/UNIX support team can also deliver
supported environments for dedicated computing servers and clusters.
Depending on needs, virtualized servers may also be provided for
research and other projects.
Support
is provided for web services (apache/php), databases (MySQL,
Postgres), software revision control and project management
(redmine/git/svn).
File
and storage servers provide all users with a fixed allotment of storage
for Windows and Linux/UNIX. However, flexible storage extensions are
available for users working on projects (at both the graduate and
undergraduate level). Home directories and many project spaces are
backed up daily (for disaster recovery). Archival backups are performed
at the end of each term. Researchers may add dedicated storage to
these central servers and negotiate backup services.
The
College also runs its own networking infrastructure, providing gigabit
ethernet to many locations, 10G connectivity among many central servers
and high-speed access to the rest of campus and to the outside world.
Internet2 access is provided via close network proximity to a Gigapop
in addition to triple-redundant commodity internet connectivity.
Researchers have a flexible array of network filtering available for
their computing projects - from rigidly locked down to wide-open. The
college works cooperatively with central computing to provide
authenticated wifi access to all its spaces.
All
the central servers for the College are housed in a climate-controlled,
UPS-backed up data center. The two primary buildings that house the
college and data center, the Fourth Avenue Building and the Engineering
Building, have dual redundant power feeds from the city as well as a
large generator to run the building should both feeds fail.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 16 February 2011 )
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