========================= SSCC News, December, 1998 ========================= Inside this issue... New Hands-On Tape Drives Available in the I/O Room WinCenter Update SSCC Staff Changes Food in Terminal Rooms -------------------------------------------------- New Hands-On Tape Drives Available in the I/O Room -------------------------------------------------- We now have four tape drives available in the I/O Room for UNIX users: 9-track 3480 8 mm 4 mm DAT These drives are attached to an Alpha workstation running UNIX. The computer is called "tapestation" and, besides hosting the drives, it runs software that will read any existing tape created on VMS systems in the past. You can even write VMS "native" and VMS Backup tapes on this machine as well as read and write tapes with built-in UNIX utilities. Users operate these drives themselves. There is no operator intervention or storage of tapes in the computer room. User documentation is still being prepared, as is a simple program to copy one tape to another. These materials will be available soon. Next semester we will begin to hold classes on operating the drives and running the software. If you want to experiment, or if you already know about tape processing on UNIX, the system is available to you now. If you would like a personal orientation to the system before we start classes next semester, send email to FLORY to arrange an appointment. ---------------- WinCenter Update ---------------- As WinCenter users are painfully aware, the hardware and software we upgraded two months ago have introduced some serious problems. SSCC staff are aware of the seriousness of these problems and are working as quickly as possible to get working solutions in place. This article summarizes the current status of these problems and what we are doing to fix them. The hardware upgrades have caused numerous crashes. After a lot of troubleshooting and consulting with the SSCC Steering Committee, we have decided to replace both WinCenter servers with new Dell PowerEdge 2300 servers. Both will have dual Pentium II 400 MHz processors with 256mb RAM. We expect to have these new servers in place by the beginning of Spring Semester. Meanwhile, we have a temporary replacement for WinCenter2 which has been up and running satisfactorily since November 12. A temporary replacement for WinCenter1 should be in place later today meaning we will once again be able to accommodate 30 simultaneous users on two stable servers. The software upgrade has introduced compatibility problems with SAMBA, the software that allows users to read and save files on their UNIX directories. This has resulted in not being able to save files reliably even when users save their files frequently. To circumvent this problem, we are going to introduce home directories for WinCenter users on Windows NT. We have purchased 40GB of disk space for this purpose. Users will still save to a network drive but using Microsoft networking rather than SAMBA. This method should be faster and more reliable. We hope to have home directories implemented by the end of this month. ------------------ SSCC Staff Changes ------------------ Deb Brauer has joined the SSCC staff as our new PC Support Specialist. This is a much needed addition to our staff and will allow Andy Arnold to devote his time to NT Systems Administration duties. Deb's office is Soc. Sci. 4408. Please drop by and welcome her. Ralph Rodriguez, who previously occupied that office, is now in Soc. Sci. 2458. Also, note that Andy Arnold has moved to Soc. Sci. 4404 and Scott Risberg is back in Soc. Sci. 2416. ---------------------- Food in Terminal Rooms ---------------------- We have had a lot of spills, crumbs, and garbage left at the terminals in the 7413 terminal room lately so once again we want to remind everyone: PLEASE refrain from eating and drinking in the Public Terminal Rooms. We have very expensive equipment in these rooms which can be (and has been) easily damaged by food and drink.