FACULTY SENATE UNIVERSITY COMPUTER & ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE
DRAFT MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF Oct. 28, 1998, 917 Campus Center
Approved: Nov. 19, 1998.
Present: D. Blanchard, S. Brewer, S. Cook, G. Fisher, G. Forman,
M. Hanley, G. Hough, T. Jackson, J. Kunkel, B. MacDougall (Chair),
B. McCandless, R. Sailer, N. Sims, B. Stewart, M. Wingertsman
Bruce MacDougall called the meeting to order at 10:33 AM
1. Approval of Minutes:
The Committee approved the minutes of the Oct 5, 1998 Meeting
2. Announcements
Tad Jackson, University Information Systems delegate, reported:
A. UIS will discontinue Email Service using EMC2 on the IBM
Mainframe.
Affected campus personnel will require Email service via a
campus server.
Dan Blanchard, OIT/Director, Network Systems & Services, reported:
A. 48 new 56K modems will be brought on line shortly with dial-up
number, 577-5600.
B. The new Quik Dial (15 min limit) dial-up is # 577-4100.
Bruce MacDougall, reported:
A. The Office of Geographic Information and Analysis of which Bruce
is Director has obtained a system wide license for the Arch Info
Series of GIS software.
- A Mac compatible version is available through the license, one
version behind the PC version number.
- This one year license was purchased through the offices of
Marcelette Williams. Extension of the license to future years
would need to be budgeted.
B. A 500 seat license has also been obtained for Map Info.
4. Old Business
A. TLTR - The individuals assigned to establish the status of the
TLTR proposals and how they can be brought into agreement have
not made any progress to date.
B. The final version of the FSUC&ECC Annual Report was approved
for submission to the Faculty Senate.
5. New Business
A. Y2K
1) Dan Blanchard brought to the attention of the committee the
recent OIT Newsletter Article by Art Gaylord "Year 2000
Compliance: The Potential Impact" Fall 1998, Vol. 4 #1.
This follows an article in a previous Fall 97 Issue which
introduced the problem. Links are provided to the previous
article, an outside site which records what other universities
are doing and a local OITY2K Bug Resource Center, URL:
http://www.oit.umass.edu/projects/y2k.
2) The OIT is in the process of compiling a Y2K Status Report.
A preliminary version with some few known deficiencies was
distributed to the committee. It lists the major
System/Functional units on campus (excluding academic
departments) and their current Risk Status (Blue, Green,
Yellow, Red, Certified) and a status key.
a. It was suggested that the problem be referred to the
Research Council.
b. It was suggested that academic departments be included in the
OIT survey of systems at risk.
c. It was noted that the federal funding agencies are holding
grant holders responsible for any loss of data. Our
administration certifies when we accept a grant that we are
in compliance.
d. OIT is offering a review of any individual machine to
concerned UMass Community members.
e. OIT is ready to go out and consult with individual departments.
f. Steve Brewer noted that NSM committee is taking a proactive
approach to insuring that individual computers in the NSM
domain are tested for compliance.
g. As an example of the state of the matter it was reported that
the University Library and 5-College System hardware was not
yet in compliance but the system software was. By
hardware it was meant that there are many machines connected
to the system which have intelligent chips which may present
problems in being connected to the system.
h. Due to imbedded smart chip technology it was suggested that
the nation's electrical system in general was at a credible
risk! If outlets do not function neither will our
computers.
i. Bruce McCandless noted that despite the fact that the two
articles recently provided by OIT are the only official
communications the faculty has seen from OIT this year on
Y2K, much work has been going on behind the scene and efforts
are well under way to achieve as full compliance
as possible at all levels of risk. But to paraphrase Bruce,
"It is still a gamble!"
B. Bandwidth on- and off-campus.
1) Steve Brewer questioned the state of the band width through
which we communicate to the world over the internet and how it
matches our needs.
His concern was fueled by the knowledge that our machines are
connected to the backbone with a 10 Mbit bandwidth but that he
had heard recently that our connection to the internet outside
the university was via a 6 Mbit connection. Is that sufficient?
a. Dan Blanchard reported the changes that have occurred in the past
years in the bandwidth to the off-campus internet.
Last year we went from 4 to 6 Mbits. In September there was a time when
we had double capacity (6 + 6) while we were converting technology.
During the ca. 1.5 weeks of double coverage the transfer rate approached
10 Mbits, i.e. unsaturated. We then shifted down to 6 Mbits and thus
we entered saturation at peak usage. We just went to 9 Mbits 2 weeks
ago and we thus remain saturated at peak usage. We are currently looking
at an increase to 12 Mbits. We are well off when compared to similar
institutions. Future upgrades will be simpler, involving the vendor
and OIT simultaneously agreeing on a new bandwidth.
b. It was noted that as the system approaches saturation, performance
deteriorates precipitously. Thus service deteriorates substantially
even before saturation due to resending of data packets which further
clog the bandwidth.
c. It was clear that OIT has been responding to the University's growing
need for bandwidth in a responsible manner.
d. Dan Blanchard spoke to the general problem of the balance between on-
and off-campus traffic. Previously an '80:20 rule' was in effect (i.e.
80% of internet traffic was within the campus system and 20% involved
off campus packets). Now the rule is beginning to invert in the
direction of a '20:80 rule'. This trend will affect the rate of growth
of needed bandwith.
C. Microsoft-only aspect of Peoplesoft transition.
The topic was not opened for discussion due to the absence of its main proponent.
6. The meeting adjourned at 11:39.
Respectfully Submitted
Joseph G. Kunkel
joe@bio.umass.edu
last updated 11/11/98