MFCF services at a glance

Here is a quick list of MFCF services. A more detailed description is available on our Services page.

Helping users

  • General Help Desk support:
    • computer questions, printer permissions, wired connections, software installation assistance
    • computer account maintenance
    • liaise when client requests need referral to IST
  • Departmental Liaisons:
    • explain the computing environment, consult on equipment acquisitions, attend department meetings, etc.

  • Security responses - investigate alerts submitted by IST

  • Communications:
    • urgent computing notices, user education sessions, newsletter, web site
    • digital displays (Scinage) - consult, procure, deploy

Desktops and Laptops

  • Full life-cycle support for Windows, macOS, and Linux computer platforms:
    • consult, procure, configure, inventory, deploy, limited software maintenance/support, and surplus
      • no hardware support
    • automatic OS updates
  • Full life-cycle support for HP network printers:
    • consult, procure, configure, inventory, deploy, set access control, and surplus
  • Computing equipment moves
  • Wired connections for personally-owned equipment

Servers

  • Full life-cycle server support for central research and teaching Linux environments and Windows Remote Desktop environments including software maintenance:
    • consult, procure, configure, deploy, limited maintenance, and surplus
  • Full life-cycle server support for central research Linux specialty servers including software maintenance:
    • High Performance Computing (HPC) and GPU servers
    • job scheduler / resource management
  • On-premises central file storage:
    • home folders
    • departmental shared files
  • Virtual environment - VMware
  • Support for Azure Education Hub for Waterloo AI
  • Web server
  • Jupyter notebook server
  • System monitoring
  • Databases - FileMaker, MySQL and derivatives, PostgreSQL
  • co-location for user-owned rackmount servers

Teaching and collaboration

  • thin-client computer lab maintenance
  • hybrid teaching/seminar support, Meeting Owl support
  • technical support for grad student thesis defences
  • AV support - limited when working with IST-owned rooms

CFI Projects

  • CFI project consultation including vendor interaction and full-lifecycle support:
    • server co-location, system acquisition and deployment, account administration, application software integration, updating, and troubleshooting

Other projects as approved by the Director of MFCF