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About NACS

Network Security Group

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NACS has formed a new 3-person team, Network Planning and Security (NPS or NetPlanSec). NPS is active in a variety of ways to improve the safety and reliability of UCInet.

NPS runs periodic scans for vulnerable servers on campus before attackers do. They also regularly publicize security information and notify system administrators when weaknesses are discovered. Presently, NPS is implementing the campus firewall and Intrusion Detection System. (Details may be found in the Border Router article below.)

NPS staff Garrett Hildebrand, Mike Iglesias, and John Lenning are available for consulting, both one-on-one and in public forums, on such issues as network security, wireless networking and security, and network planning.

Finally, they participate in the UC Policy and Security Officers Group, to develop and assess UC system-wide strategies to resist “cyberterrorism.”

New Staff

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NACS welcomes David Pritikin to the Instructional Web Technologies group where he serves as a primary support contact, assisting instructors in the use of web-based technologies. David held a previous position in the NACS Response Center, and has also served in the Claire Trevor School of the Arts computing support unit prior to rejoining NACS.

Diane Dunn has joined NACS as Project Manager for the Communications Project Unit. Diane manages campus-wide network and telephone infrastructure projects. Diane’s goal is to manage project resources and activities so that network projects are completed on time and within budget, but also to maintain the excellent quality of UCInet on which researchers depend.

Clyde Higashida joins Mike Scott and Dawn Bergan-Iglesias as a Network Engineer. Clyde and colleagues not only contribute to the design and maintenance of UCInet, but are also available to the campus community, answering technical questions and making recommendations to NACS for network improvements based on the needs he discovers while working with clients.

John Lenning joins Garrett Hildebrand and Mike Iglesias in the Network Planning and Security group, and will be contributing to both planning and security. John, an MCSE, comes to UCI with experience in the networked Microsoft Windows environment, adding new strength to the group.

Instructional Technology Seminar

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FITI, the Faculty Instructional Technology Institute (formerly known as the Faculty Summer Institute) was held on June 25th-28th, 2001. The Institute is offered by the Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE) with instructional and funding assistance from NACS.

13 faculty and instructional staff representing 9 campus departments were given presentations on the use of instructional technology in the classroom. Skills developed included how to create and enhance course Web pages and Powerpoint presentations, and how to incorporate images and other electronic media into instructional materials.

FITI featured 3 days of training June 25th, 26th and 28th. June 27th was a practice day which gave faculty time to work on specific projects with consultants on hand. The new format was well received by this year’s participants.

Faculty from all academic disciplines are invited to apply for next year’s program. The Institute is designed for faculty and TAs who have little or no direct experience in developing and using instructional technology in their courses. More information is available at IRC’s Web site,http://www.irc.uci.edu/fiti.html

Facilities Network

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NACS and Facilities Management are jointly creating a network for monitoring and controlling campus heating and cooling (HVAC) equipment. This is one of a number of campus projects where NACS has assisted a department in design, planning, procurement, and implementation of a special-purpose networking project.

Facilities Management HVAC systems now connect in numerous ways, limiting centralized monitoring and control, and lack the high-speed communications needed to allow real-time management. Facilities Management has long envisioned a more effective system, but has been unable to get satisfactory assistance from outside consultants.

With the new network, every system in every building can be monitored and controlled 24 hours a day. The system will also support metering, capacity planning, and crisis management.

The network will be based on a Cisco gigabit backbone similar to UCInet including 6 core nodes supporting 60 buildings at 10 or 100 megabit/s. The system will be scalable and flexible with spare capacity and performance. This system will be independent of UCInet (and thus the Internet) for reasons of security.

Planning began in the Fall. Most of the equipment has been received and work crews have been hired. Fiber optic cable will be installed over the rest of the year, and the HVAC equipment will be hooked up early in 2002.

Citrix Metaframe

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Citrix Metaframe is a commercial product for using remote computing resources from your desktop. Applications can be set up so that they appear to run on your computer, but the actual processing is done on a server somewhere else. All your local machine is doing is providing a display.

Citrix offers several advantages. First, Citrix allows for low speed processors to “run” high-end applications that require a fast new computer. You can get more use out of your older systems, as long as there is one powerful shared computer on your network.

Second, Citrix provides easy administration. Instead of upgrading software on many machines in an office, using Citrix makes it necessary to upgrade only the shared server running Metaframe.

Third, Citrix enables the use of cross-platform applications. Mac, Unix, and DOS machines can all use Windows applications through the use of the Citrix client. For example, everyone can use Internet Explorer for the PC by installing and configuring the Citrix client.

NACS uses Citrix to allow Macintoshes around the office to connect to the new telephone billing program (called Mysoft.net). Mysoft.net uses Microsoft’s ActiveX system which will not run on Macs. With Citrix, NACS’s Macintoshes have the ability to access the billing system.

For more information on Citrix Metaframe, please refer to the vendor’s web site: http://www.citrix.com/products/