Information Technology News Archive

1996 - 2017

Instructional Computing Lab Summaries

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With the help of campus lab managers, NACS has created two summaries of UCI open-access instructional computing labs. The first is a summary of classroom labs that can be scheduled by faculty for classroom use. The summary lists the location, hours of operation, number and type of computers, available software, and reservation contact information for each lab. The classroom lab summary is available in the Web as follows:

http://www.nacs.uci.edu/support/clc/instruct-labs.html

The second summary lists the instructional labs at UCI open to students of all majors and available for drop-in use. The hours of operation, location, type of computer, and a summary of software available is listed for each lab. The summary is especially useful as a reference to provide students to ensure they are aware of facilities available to them; it is available in the Web as follows:

http://www.nacs.uci.edu/support/clc/open-labs.html

NACS’ Indirect Support Team plans to work with campus lab managers to keep both of these documents current — this will be a bit of a challenge due to the constant growth and change in UCI computing labs.

Physical Sciences Network Upgrade

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A major aspect of enhancing UCI’s network is upgrading the “edges” of the network — the network cabling and equipment inside buildings that connect computers to UCInet’s high-speed backbone. These upgrades represent significant renovations of existing network infrastructure, but are required to meet ever-increasing network demands.

This summer, as the second in a series of upgrades to the edges of UCInet, NACS started a project to upgrade the School of Physical Sciences network. The PS upgrade will provide higher reliability, higher performance and greater security. The first edge upgrade, in Information and Computer Science, was completed last school year.

The PS upgrade involves complete replacement of network cabling and equipment in Physical Sciences I, Frederick Reines Hall (PS II), and the PS Research Facility. A combination of Category 5 twisted pair copper and fiber optic cable will replace existing coax and telephone-grade cable. “Switched” 10 MegaBit Per Second (MBPS) and 100 MBPS Ethernet equipment will replace the existing “Shared” 10 MBPS network. The new infrastructure will support both current and future network requirements.

The PS Upgrade is scheduled for completion by the end of December 1998.

New Open-access Graduate Student Lab

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Note: The GradEA Lab is no longer in operation.

NACS is pleased to announce the new “GradEA” Graduate Student Computing Lab, located in Engineering Gateway room 1141C. GradEA was created to provide UCI graduate students access to an expanded set of computing resources for their research and instructional activities.

The 8 DEC UNIX workstations in the GradEA computing “cluster” were brought online earlier in the summer to provide graduate students additional remote computing access for e-mail and other uses. NACS has now added additional software to the cluster, opened the lab for local access, and created a study area in the lab. Software applications can now be run remotely over the network, or in the lab facility itself. Local access is especially useful when doing display-intensive work. Manuals and other forms of documentation are also available in the lab, which is open to UCI graduate students 24 hours a day.

NACS plans to add to GradEA in the future and would like input as to what graduate students need in the way of software, computers, peripherals, manuals, and other computing tools. Please send your input via e-mail to NACS@UCI.EDU, or contact Allen Schiano, Manager of NACS Core Services, at 824-2829.

For more information on GradEA, please see: http://www.nacs.uci.edu/computing/gradea

Academic Computing Support Review Report Available

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The report of the UCI Academic Computing Support Review Committee (ACSRC) is now available in the Web for general review:

http://www.nacs.uci.edu/support/review/report

The ACSRC met between January and April of this year; it’s charge was to review the current state of computing and network support to faculty, students and staff in academic units. The committee took into account all sources of support, including central and local support organizations. The committee’s report summarizes the current state of support, and makes initial recommendations about improving it.

Committee membership spanned many academic units and represented the perspectives of faculty end-users, academic senior managers, computing support managers, the Vice Chancellor for Research, and the Academic Senate Computer Policy Committee.

Comments on the report are invited and should be sent to Dana Roode (e-mail DRoode@UCI.EDU, telephone x5173). The committee’s recommendations will also be discussed the appropriate campus forums later in the year.

Campus Network Backbone To Be Upgraded

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NACS has received approval to implement a major upgrade of the UCInet backbone over the next year. The backbone is the primary data network infrastructure connecting every building at UCI. The planned upgrade will address rapidly growing communication needs, and provide a foundation for ongoing departmental network improvement projects. It will ensure continued, transparent operation of the critical campus data communications infrastructure, and provide for deployment of CalREN-2, the UC-wide, high-speed regional network.

The new backbone will employ a Gigabit (1,000 Megabits/second) Ethernet fault-tolerant core to connect campus buildings at Fast Ethernet (100 Megabits/second) and Gigabit Ethernet speeds. Existing departmental networks will be connected to this core through newer, higher-speed routing and switching devices over fiber optic cable.

For detailed information, please see NACS’ Backbone Upgrade Plan in the Web:

http://www.nacs.uci.edu/communication/plans/backbone-plan-1998.html

Questions about the plan may be addressed to Garrett Hildebrand, whose e-mail address is GDH@UCI.EDU.