Overview

Computing Services' goal is to provide a secure, stable, consistent collection of software in our public computing Clusters that supports the academic work of students, faculty and staff. We also strive to complete installation of cluster software prior to the opening day of a semester’s classes. Overall, priority is given to the academic classes of undergraduate students.

To achieve these service objectives, Computing Services must obtain new software and software upgrades in sufficient time to test and install them in the weeks prior to the start of a semester’s classes. In general, the software collections are not changed after a semester begins unless an application malfunctions or requires a critical security update.  Additionally, software is frozen during the critical period of the last two weeks (one week for each summer session) of classes and finals to minimize problems.

The majority of software updates occur in August for the fall semester. Due to time constraints, we minimize software changes that occur during winter break and especially in May between semesters.

Software Request Deadlines

In order to be installed by the first day of the semester, software requests for Clusters, whether for reservations or student use outside of class, are due at the reservation deadline for that semester. For more detailed information, see Deadlines.

Conditions

Although we do our best to accommodate all requests, Computing Services may refuse to acquire or install software that does not work correctly in our secure, multi-user environment and/or that our staff cannot maintain adequately with our management tools. This includes, but is not limited to:

• software that requires administrator-level access to use
• non-production level software
• software without adequate vendor support
• software that is not supported in our OS/environment
• software that requires individual serial numbers or other license information
• software that requires hardware locks (dongles) on client and/or server machines
• software that requires proprietary license servers
• software that otherwise interferes with the operation of the machines or other applications

Software in all Clusters must operate with software Computing Services uses for launch control and license management. Currently, that software is KeyServer (preferred) for cluster Macintosh and Windows software and FlexLM for Cluster Linux and Windows. Computing Services will not violate copyright or license agreements. For more details on conditions including legal considerations, see Conditions.

Administrative Access & Self-Installed Software

Clusters can NOT grant administrative access to Cluster computers. We do not support software self-installed by users.

Since users lack administrative access on Cluster computers, they can only self-install applications for their own use if the installation does not require Administrator access. Faculty who plan to have students self-install software, should thoroughly test this in the Cluster. This should be done well in advance of your class to assure it works satisfactorily. We can make no guarantees if or how well user-installed software will work in our specialized environment, and provide no support for self-installing software. For more detailed information, see Admin Access & Self-Installs.