2003 Archive

November 2003

Meeting Chairperson: J. Alex Lang, User Analyst, Computing Services

Andrew Mail Filtering Update
Christine A. Lovejoy, Systems Development & Middleware Manager
In early January, 2004; additional mail filtering will begin. Also, incoming mail from non-University sources will be scanned for viruses; infected messages will be rejected (bounced).
Clearing Confusion about Privacy in the Carnegie Mellon Computing Policy
John Lerchey, Coordinator of Computer & Network Security
Presentation slides [PPT]
Computing Services Communications Strategy Focus Group
Facilitated by: J. Alex Lang, User Analyst, Suzanne Kafantaris, User Analyst and Karen Van Dusen, Manager-User Outreach & Analysis
Presentation slides [PPT]

October 2003

Meeting Chairperson: J. Alex Lang, User Analyst, Computing Services

Computer Store
Sean Neubauer
Sean has replaced Avis Johnson as the central point of contact for Departmental Administrators at the Computer Store. Sean can assist with departmental hardware and software purchases.
Portal Event Calendar
Ryan Eberhard
Presentation slides [PPT]
Event Calendar provides a central store of campus events in the new Web Portal at https://my.cmu.edu/. Events are organized in thematic calendars available for subscription, for example 'CFA Music Concerts'. End-users can inherit certain subscriptions according to their identity. In this presentation you will learn about this exciting new resource, how to use it and how to acquire calendars and/or training.
Departmental Administrators' Perspectives on Backup & Recovery
Departmental Administrators
- Sean Beggs, Heinz - Handout [PDF]
- Kevin Sullivan, PSC - Handout [PDF]
- Florin Manolache, Math - Handout [PDF]
- Kirk Berthold, SCS - Handout [PDF]
- Jim McKinney, ECE - Handout [PDF]
- John Rogowski, GSIA

September 2003

Meeting Chairperson: J. Alex Lang, User Analyst, Computing Services

Network Security Reality Check: Recap, Recovery, & Review of Best Practices
John Lerchey
Most of us suffered the ill-effects of Sobig and Blaster during back-to-school week. We’ll recap the situation on campus and review general best practices for protection and recovery.
NetNotify Deployment
Russell Yount
Discussion about our automated process for getting machines back online after their net access has been revoked.
Departmental Administrators' perspectives on the attacks and strategies for prevention & response
Departmental Administrators
- Lou Anschuetz, ECE
- Kim Daboo, H&SS
- Sean Beggs, Heinz
- Matthew Olczak, GSIA
Software Update Services Overview
Ken England
Learn about Microsoft’s Software Update Services (SUS), a simpler way to keep Windows 2000 and Windows XP systems up to date with the latest critical security updates and Service Packs. Computing Services is beta testing Microsoft’s SUS to manage system updates for Clusters and internal Windows workstation computers. Ken will provide an overview of Computing Services' SUS beta test and instructions for setting up a departmental SUS service.
Sun Microsystems' Edusoft Licensing
Sun Microsystems
Learn about Sun's Edusoft licensing program -- a suite of free applications and server software available from Sun Microsystems.

July 2003

Meeting Chairperson: Yerin Kay, Consultant, Computing Services

Classroom Media IP discovery project
Gregg Mathis
Presentation summary
Andrew Printing
Willie Beegle, Unix Specialist, ISAM
Presentation summary
Software Updates
Karen Lukas, Applications Software Manager
Karen spoke about recent Cluster software changes as well as license changes and software updates for the upcoming semester/year.
Windows Infrastructure Update
Jeff Pencosky
Presentation slides [PPT]
Certificate Project
Russell Yount
This project will entail deciding if we should support or phase out local CMU Certificate Authority (CA) for production web server certificates (not personal certificates). The issue of certificates for developmental systems not used by external users is not addressed here. Should CMU CA be used with Computing Services’ production systems?
Portal Demo
Doug Blair
The Carnegie Mellon Portal is slated to be released on August 11. Much work has been accomplished on the project since we last spoke to you about the Portal project. Doug demonstrated the various sections of the portal.

June 2003

Meeting Chairperson: Yerin Kay, Consultant, Computing Services

Emergency Voicemail Notification Service
Matt Howell, Help Center Service Leader
This is a way for the Help Center to notify departmental administrators about problems that may be occurring on campus via voicemail. This includes problems with email services and networking. It is setup through Telecom's voicemail system. If something happens, the Help Center will record a message and send it to a list of users as a voicemail message. The phone will not ring. However, the voicemail indicator light will go on. In order to take advantage of this service, you must have a Carnegie Mellon telephone number and subscribe to Telecom's Voicemail system.
Andrew Linux: New Version based on Redhat 8
Willie Beegle, Unix Specialist, ISAM
Previously, Andrew Linux was based on Redhat 6. On Saturday, June 28th, Computing Services has updated Andrew Linux to be based on Redhat 8. The pooled Andrew machines have been updated and the Cluster machines will update next week. Users will not see changes for the most part.
IPv6 and tentative plans for campus
Kevin Miller, Network Systems Developer, Network Development
Presentation slides [PPT]
Removing Voice over IP
Mary L. Pretz-Lawson, Associate Director for Technology Planning and Project Management
CISCO Voice Over IP Avid will be phased out of testing. This version of VOIP will not be rolled out campus-wide. Unfortunately, we couldn't find a compelling wind to switch. There is no real application here. We expect we'll re-visit it in an 18 month time period. In the meantime, we're working with Verizon and will extend our Centrex contract.
Software Licensing Updates
Karen Lukas, Applications Software Manager
Presentation notes
Technology Integration/Discovery Effort
Karen Van Dusen, Departmental Computing Coordinator, User Services

May 2003

Meeting Chairperson: Yerin Kay, Consultant, Computing Services

Introducing the Help Center Manager
F. Meena Lakhavani, Director of User & Educational Services
Richard Clay Fulton (Clay) has assumed the responsibilities of Help Center Manager. Clay has 14 years of work experience in IT related areas. Most recently he was employed as a Customer Service Representative at American Auto-Matrix and as a Client Care Manager at Stargate Industries. Please stop by to welcome Clay; his office will be in Cyert 204.
Additionally, we have promoted Ted Pham from Help Center consultant to Assistant Help Center Manager. For a number of years, Ted has worked for the Help Center as a student consultant. Ted was in the process of completing his doctoral program in Electrical & Computer Engineering when, in fall 2003, he accepted a full time Help Center consultant position. Ted is being promoted from that position based on his superb performance.
Mac OS 10.2 in Clusters
Joe Jackson, Systems Development Manager
The Cyert Macintosh Cluster (Cyert 100) machines is now the testbed for Mac OS 10.2 machines and will remain this way this summer.
Extended Andrew Services
Karen Lukas, Applications Software Manager
Graduates in the class of 2003 are being allowed to keep their Andrew userids at least until May 2003.
Web Portal Project Update
Doug Blair, Services Development Manager
Presentation slides [PPT]

April 2003

Meeting Chairperson: Yerin Kay, Consultant, Computing Services

SSH & SFTP Support
Doug Speckhard, Computing Services Consultant
Computing Services began support for SSH and SFTP clients this past March. Doug announced the supported clients for Windows: SSH Secure Shell and SFTP Client. He also noted the availability of native support for SSH connectivity under Mac OS X and SFTP support via Fugu SFTP Shell Client. These clients are available for download on My Andrew.
Solaris Phase-out Announcement
Doug Speckhard, Computing Services Consultant
Andrew Solaris 2.7 will be phased out on August 7, 2003. If you haven't already, please upgrade to Solaris 2.8 as soon as possible.
Internet Bandwidth Improvements
John Lerchey, Computer Network Security Coordinator
Since Computing Services has been contacting the high bandwidth users about their network usage and requesting that they decrease it in the past couple months, the bandwidth for the rest of the campus has improved greatly. John presented data to show how dramatically this has occurred.
New Cluster Hardware
Pomona Valero, Cluster Services Manager
Computing Services Clusters is in the process of determining what new hardware will be purchased and what existing hardware will be moved around for next fall. They have been actively interacting with departmental faculty representatives to determine cluster teaching needs for the next academic year. Pomona provided a status update on this process.
Grid Computing
J. Ray Scott, Assistant Director of Systems and Operations/PSC
Presentation slides [PPS]
J. Ray from the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center talked about grid computing and spoke to us about available PSC services.

March 2003

This meeting was canceled.

February 2003

Meeting Chairperson: Ken England, User Services Consultant

Mulberry 3.0x Client Release Update
Ken England, User Services Consultant
The release of the new Mulberry 3.0 client has been delayed until Cyrusoft releases 3.0.2. Computing Service found a few bugs with the Mulberry 3.0 Email client that should be address with the 3.0.2 release. Computing Service will make the Mulberry 3.0.2 client available to Departmental Administrators within the next two weeks. One week after this Mulberry will be available to the general campus via MyAndrew.
Macintosh OS Support Phase-outs
Joe Kern, Technical Services Coordinator
Support for Mac OS 8.6 and earlier will be phased out by Fall 2003 Computing Services will only support Mac OS 9 and higher in the Fall.
Andrew Calendar Service Updates
Joe Jackson, Systems Development Manager
Local Address/Namespace issues
Russell Yount, Manager Network Development
Notices for Departmental administrators and groups operating recursive/caching DNS (Domain Name Service) servers independent of those provided by Computing Services. When these DNS servers are not configured correctly, queries using RFC1918 addressing (also known as "private" addressing) may be leaked to the root name servers, causing a degradation in service for legitimate queries to those servers.
Changing your Password Made Easier
John Lerchey, Computer and Network Security Coordinator
A new feature has been added to the My Andrew web service. My Andrew now offers a secure web interface to change, not reset, change your password. This feature allows distant users or those with old versions of kclient to more easily change their password.
Internet Bandwidth Usage
John Lerchey, Computer and Network Security Coordinator
As some of you may be aware, we have been seeing some network performance problems, in particular with connections across our commodity Internet links. We have been working on efforts to reduce the overall amount network bandwidth as to reduce the congestion on our commodity Internet links at peak times.

January 2003

Meeting Chairperson: Karen Van Dusen, Departmental Computing Coordinator, Computing Services

Computing Services Licensing updates
Karen Lukas, Applications Software Manager and Kelly Mullins, SCS Computing Facilities
Presentation notes
Computing Services Restructuring
Joel Smith, Vice Provost and CIO
Message from Joel Smith
Campus Computing Advisory Committee
Joel Smith, Vice Provost and CIO
Security Updates
John Lerchey, Computer and Network Security Coordinator
Users can now reduce the amount of spam Email that they receive by using the spam filtering tool on MyAndrew.
Mulberry 3.0 client demo
Laura Valentine, Consultant, Computing Services
Presentation notes
Webmail release
Ryan Eberhard, User Services Consultant
Andrew Webmail is a web-based Email client in which you can access your Cyrus Email account. Authentication is provided by WebISO. Andrew Webmail is available from MyAndrew.