- Voting members attending: Brian Chaboyer, Ted Cooley, Andrew Gettinger, Scott Grafton, Larry Levine, Tom Luxon, Patrick Lynch, Barry Scherr, Thomas Shemanske, Gail Wallin
- Non-voting members attending: Susan Bibeau, Otmar Foelsche
- Invited guests: Brad Noblet, Roger Sloboda
Tom Luxon welcomed everyone and called the meeting to order at 12:05 pm. He communicated regrets from Joseph Hall, Sam Reisner, Aarsha Chugh, Barbara Mellert, and Cynthia Pawlek that they could not attend. He reminded everyone the next meeting would be held on May 13 in Collis 101 addressing the BlitzMail Survey and the Freshman Year Package. After everyone introduced themselves, Tom drew the Council's attention to the minutes of the February 26 meeting and asked if there were any corrections or additions. The minutes were approved without objection.
Tom then turned to the first agenda item, the report on the proposed Research Computing fee structures. Brian Chaboyer pointed out that the report does not address the large amount of work done through Curricular Computing, noting that the boundary between Research and Academic Computing is not always clear. Larry Levine agreed that Research Computing does call on Curricular Computing. The UNIX Linux server workstation group, aka Research Computing, has skills that are typically called for in research.
Items not yet settled in the report include the established dollar figure for an hourly fee. This is projected to be $60.00/hour, a subvented rate. In relation to charges, the committee established the distinction between advice vs. service, advice not requiring a charge. Also, if the work is curricular or course related, a fee is not charged. Brian Chaboyer pointed out that if a senior thesis is related to a grant, it is charged. Roger Sloboda said we have to charge everyone the same; if it is a senior thesis and is part of funded research, it is charged. Resources will be available for people without grants, but funds will be limited and must be applied for. Applications will go through a limited fund administrated by the Associate Provost for Research. Martin Wybourne asked about charging different rates for different services. Roger Sloboda responded that this would be inherent in the final rate structure. There are still unknowns in the rate structure; there can be different services or different rates as long as it is consistent across the board.
Tom Shemanske asked about Research Computing and software they might develop, specifically the rights to software. If the College releases it as Open Source software, it can be used again. For example, if Brian owns a program, it is licensed to Brian and it can't be used again. A person with a grant goes in understanding that they get the code, but the College or person would not own it. With NSF grants, open rights are a requirement. Tom Luxon noted that it is a policy the College must determine. The College policy on intellectual property is a still bigger question and a larger issue than the scope of this proposal. Barry Scherr agreed. Brian suggested that before Research Computing becomes a cost center, this needs to be researched. Martin Wybourne suggested the proposal should reference this policy as a broader matter than the Council is considering here.
Tom Luxon noted that the proposal for reorganizing fee structures has received the Council's due attention, and proposed that the Council approve it with any remaining questions of reference to existing policy or ownership issues. Roger Sloboda said he would look into this with Bob Donin and would run it by Brian and communicate it to the Council. Brian raised the question again of whether there should be a charge for everything. Tom Luxon said the original charge asked the committee to keep an open door policy. Approval of the proposal was brought to a vote. The Council approved the proposal with one dissenting vote. Brian Chaboyer felt the fee structure and rights were still unclear.
Tom Luxon then turned the Council's attention to the second agenda item, emergent communication and computing technologies. He introduced Brad Noblet, Director of Technical Services, to present the topic. Brad advanced Dartmouth's vision of convergence. Applications are converging, integrating data, audio, and video. We need a converged, networked digital information infrastructure. Separate, disparate networks are expensive, and we have an opportunity to converge on Internet Protocol or IP. Converged services would include telephony, streaming audio and video, HVAC controls, and physical security run on the IP system.
Other horizons include the next generation of wireless. Wired access will be enhanced. We will increase the ability to deliver wired services via wireless. We are planning a tri-band architecture/deployment that allows high bandwidth and general-purpose bandwidth, with the ability to accommodate real-time audio and real-time video. It is important to note that the more bandwidth you add, the more you increase capacity to use it. The need to increase bandwidth requires an increase in the number of access ports; 1,500 access ports are needed; today, we have 560.
Even if we increase bandwidth, we will not see big gains until the population migrates from 802.11b. A question was raised regarding what constitutes migration. New equipment? PC cards? Brad said that if we have the existing design, we have the ability to have a card to do this. The Apple wireless card is user installable. Problems will arise with increased frequency, and the RF design may decrease efficiency. Power consumption is onerous and affects performance. Work has been done so power consumption is lessened with integration of analog and digital. Over the summer, Network Services will be working with vendors to upgrade the access port environment. Otmar Foelsche reported that he cannot supply even a small amount of video. Brad pointed out that the type of video being transmitted is not converged with the cable television system, wired and wireless. CATV stream, multicast, ratchets down to the slowest pin on the bandwidth. If we go up to 802.11a, we will make more efficient use of bandwidth. Martin Wybourne expressed concern that we still need to support the wired environment. Larry Levine assured him that we are not leaving a wired environment, that wired and wireless are just observable and seemingly different aspects of the same underlying service. Brad maintained that we continue to upgrade both the wireless and the wired environment.
Computing Services is looking at how to build a high-capacity network for grid capacity. We need the wired environment. Brad noted that CATV currently has analog technology that is difficult to support. Converging this with telephony would make CATV more efficient. Employing equipment to converge video over the IP network is less work intensive. Otmar Foelsche asked about single points of failure experienced in the IP environment. Brad noted that the upgraded wired network, power problems, and redundancy problems of late were focused on a piece of technology that was scheduled to be replaced. The border router, connections in and out of the Internet, issues of virus management, need to be addressed, as well as the increase in security management.
Access points are being physically replaced; over 500 access points were put in by hand with little testing equipment and it had a lot of inefficiencies. The technology to look at deployment of access points to cover range and minimize interference with other access points is being considered. Wireless switches are regionalized and provide automatic site survey and load balancing. Work with Aruba networks and Cisco allows us to do this. We are advancing wireless, looking at the Skiway, and providing for conferences out there. David Kotz and Brad are working with mesh networks, using bandwidth for self configuring. Some buildings that are not wired can use this. We are also looking into 862.15.4 and ultra wide band. We are looking at grid computing, the capacity to build out ubiquitous access. Scott Grafton suggested advising the Provost on this to have some guidance on wired, wireless issues. There are people with a wired network that is mission critical. Security seems a lot less secure with wireless, and we need to address this.
On issues of security, we have been dealing with the impact of viruses. The problem is to address how we get to the situation where we control access, while providing an open network. We need open access to parts of the network, but not part of the Dartmouth community where you would have to authenticate with user name and password. Linux, even if inside, needs a private, secure environment. We are looking at the VPN technology, an encrypted path from client to server. Larry Levine added that in providing security, a trusted/encrypted channel, we also need to ensure that people are responsible as end users. We continue to provide a balance of wireless and wired service, address wireless security issues, and provide access from other places.
Tom Luxon then turned the meeting over to Tom Shemanske to present an update on Open Source. Tom presented information focusing attention on the importance of Open Source, showing benefits of adopting an Open Source philosophy, and offering examples of notable Open Source projects. Basically, he wanted to provide information on Open Source and to encourage the College to make a larger commitment to moving in this direction. In the broader context, he was inviting others to support the use of Open Source. He pointed out the example of Arizona State University's use of Open Source library tools. He also noted MIT's Open Courseware site, widely different from course management and providing an example of how Blackboard could be more open. He said he is encouraging a College perspective, not seeing this as primarily an issue for the Council. Martin Wybourne agreed that Dartmouth is different on this than MIT, but wondered how we compare to Harvard, Yale, and Brown.
This issue requires a broad institutional mandate that is not the arena of the Council. Such a mandate would have to come from the Provost. Tom asked Andrew Gettinger about the hospital's approach to this. Andrew observed that the complexity of support for this is high. DHMC and Dartmouth College are conceptually supportive of Open Source. Mandates are hard to come by and hard to enforce, so we need to craft a middle ground. Brian Chaboyer added that groups discovering use of Open Source can't get support. It is important not to adopt software that is hostile to Open Source. Martin Wybourne commented that he is behind this philosophically, but supporting and taking the time to do this is difficult, and questions of implementation cost need to be taken into account. Tom Luxon, noting the meeting time had come to an end, promised that this would be taken up again next fall.
Tom thanked everyone for coming and adjourned the meeting at 1:35 pm.
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