CSIT Computing Vision

1) Core: CSIT has a conventional core computing capability provided for the central researchers and 
their close collaborators.
2) Education: CSIL supports computing needs of CSIT sponsored courses
3) Administration: CSIL supports computing needs of administrative staff of CSIT. 
4) Services: There are various capabilities that vary in emphasis between research and production 
but which enhance the computational capabilities of CSIT and/or affiliated CSIT faculty. They are 
a mix of hardware and software components. Some of these CSIL runs; some they help run and 
others are fully managed by staff outside CSIL while CSIL provides appropriate interfaces. 

In all aspects of CSIT computing, whether research or production, we should aim at sustainable excellence. 
This implies we may need to make choices and focus more than we do now. The proposed model allows 
decentralized management, which supports novel computing environments being developed and supported 
outside the core production environment.

The Core Computing runs in a secure firewall and consists of:
**) Desktop access from Windows 2000 and UNIX or LINUX machines. We expect decreasing use of 
UNIX desktop machines and default desktop should be Windows 2000.
**) Server capabilities for general purpose computing including testing and preparation of jobs for 
services like the IBM Supercomputer. Servers should probably be a farm of Solaris machines with 
additional specialized capabilities such as an IBM server of similar architecture and same software 
as supercomputer. Currently there is a significant SGI O200 cluster. This model implies major 
network upgrades.
**) High speed external and Internal networking
**) Fault Tolerant modern disks and back up devices
**) Telephone access, mail DNS and other such services
**) Licenses and convenient installation of core software for desktop productivity and server side 
computing (word processing, secure telnet, graphics, compilers, debuggers etc.)
**) Database and other needed sophisticated core software
**) Windows administrative domains will be set up: need to decide if a single domain will support 
administrative and research computing.
**) Support will be provided on selected core machines and software and daily back up will be done 
on server side files. Back up capabilities for clients will be provided. Back up frequency and mode 
(incremental versus full) needs to be agreed. The back up devices need to be easy to use and 
reliable.
**) Security rules for Linux (self managed) systems need to be agreed


The Education Computing Environment runs in a separate security domain in a mode that assumes 
systems can be totally rebuilt if comprised i.e. there is no permanent data not mirrored inside the core 
computing domain
**) Server side capabilities to support all CSIT classes including parallel computing, Internet 
technologies and visualization
**) Servers are currently mix of Linux and Solaris
**) Databases, MPI, needed Java and other software
**) Student data will be backed up daily

The Administration Computing runs in the core computing security domain and is supported by base 
core computing services
**) Backup will be provided daily 

Services will be provided and some of these run essentially as part of the core computing subsystem 
and some with separate security and/or management structures. One needs to have agreement as to physical 
location, security set-up and support model in terms of funding and management. We need to take account 
of both educational and research uses in managing and setting up these systems. Identified services include
**) IBM SP Supercomputer: Responsibility CSIL and ACNS
**) CSIT Research Cluster: in planning phase
**) CSIT Visualization Facility: SGI and Powerwall (Banks, Erlebacher)
**) ITRG Communication facilities: HearMe and Access Grid (Fox)
**) CSIT Wireless Networking: Erlebacher and Duke
**) Application specific computing capabilities: to be listed
**) Megacomputing Service: Software system (Condor) enabling use of "idle compute cycles"
within CSIT in secure fault tolerant fashion. (Fox)