October 25, 2011 -- Volume 8 -- Number 1
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In this issue:
* Network Upgrades - part 1
* Network Upgrades - part 2
* Welcome New CS Staff Member
* Mailing List Request Form
* Emergency Loaner Laptop
* File System Updates
* Rsync Service
* Authenticate on 587 for SMTP
* HPCRC
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* Network Upgrades - part 1
Last spring, before he moved from CS Staff to OIT to become the
manager of Network Systems, Chris Tengi spearheaded an effort to
upgrade much of the departmental network. At the time, our network
infrastructure was aging and key components were beginning to fail.
We had also reached the point where the cost of annual maintenance
agreements were approaching the cost of new equipment. In addition
to the cost savings, the current technology increased the bandwidth
to the office ports from 100 Mbit/s to 1 Gbit/s.
* Network Upgrades - part 2
In addition to the network infrastructure upgrades mentioned above,
our network now has basic OpenFlow capabilities to support network
and systems research. Funding for this work (including direct
salary funding for some of the CS Staff working on this project)
came from the NSF via the GENI Program Office as part of an effort
to bring OpenFlow capabilities into academic network infrastructure.
CS Staff will also be exploring ways to leverage OpenFlow to more
effectively manage the network. To learn more about OpenFlow, see:
http://www.openflow.org/
* Welcome New CS Staff Member
Please join us in welcoming Ben Rose to the CS Technical Staff.
Ben holds a BS degree in CS and most recently worked at the
Institute for Advanced Study. We are delighted that he has
joined us.
* Mailing List Request Form
If you haven't requested a mailing list recently, you may not
have noticed that the request form includes an option for the
"Initial List Config Style". This option allows the requester
to set up a mailing list in one of several typical configurations
such as: announce, collaboration, moderated, etc. While the
owner still has complete flexibility to configure the many options
in the Mailman interface, many list owners will never need to
make such changes given these initial configuration options.
[Requested by Andrew Appel]
* Emergency Loaner Laptop
CS Staff now has one emergency loaner laptop. The primary use
is for instances when an instructor's own laptop breaks at the
last minute before a class and they need a machine to give their
presentation. [Motivated by multiple instances when a laptop
was needed by a speaker/instructor at the last minute]
* File System Updates
During the summer, we deployed a new storage system. We have
already moved the majority of our filesystems to this new device.
Over the next few months we will eventually migrate all of the
project spaces, the home directories, and the VMware images to
the new system. This new system has significantly more bandwidth
and has already addressed the problem we had with the old setup
where I/O-intensive jobs on the compute cluster could degrade
other unrelated systems such as the departmental website.
In addition to the benefits of the technology upgrade, the new
system replaces three disparate systems; it will be easier for
CS Staff to manage and it reduces the cost/gigabyte for storage.
* Rsync Service
To address the need to share large datasets with external
collaborators, we have recently deployed an Rsync Service.
Documentation will appear on the CS Guide soon.
[Requested by Szymon Rusinkiewicz]
* Authenticate on 587 for SMTP
At our next downtime (11/1/2011), we will begin requiring that
SMTP e-mail connections using port 587 use authentication. This
is the method that has already been documented in the CS Guide
for quite a while. (The fact that unauthenticated connections
worked was an undocumented "feature".) For the vast majority
of users, we expect this change to have no impact.
* HPCRC
The High-Performance Computational Research Center (HPCRC) is
the University's new computing facility. It is in the final
stages of construction and is in a new building next to GFDL
in the Forrestal Campus across Route 1 in Plainsboro. It
features state-of-the-art power and cooling systems. Our
department has been allocated 14 racks and we will be moving
some research and departmental systems there in the next few
months.