Minutes Waterloo Polaris Advisory Group July 19, 2000

Attendees:

Submitted items:

Q: (Steph) Do we need to mirror the \\engshare\system-copy with the \\engshare\staging. Currently we (Science) are using up 50% of this disk space for this reason. Would this help to extend the 'life' of migrating software to the AppFilers?
A: (Erick) We may have to buy a new hard disk for the engshare server. This would allow us to have one disk drive for \\engshare\staging and one for \\engshare\system-copy rather than just a partition. There really is no need for duplication of the \\engshare\system-copy, the staging side can be blown away.

(Ray) Understand, that \engshare\staging is good for setting up applications without the files being dispersed to the other servers on campus while you are constantly changing the setup to get the software to work properly.
(Steph) That said, I am willing to remove all the application software which is on \engshare\staging. If we all do this we could possibly gain up to half of the disk space.
(Nevil) Yes, we do currently have alot of duplication from ourside too.
(Ray) I have also installed Java 1.3 on the AppFilers. This should fix some of the problems we have had with Java.
(Jim) Have you noted that Microsoft has decided on dropping Java and moving to a new type of C⁺⁺ called C^# (C sharp). There have already been some advertisements about this. It is interesting how Microsoft can get in and argue with the symantics of Java, change it and then drop it.

Q: (Steph) Science is on the verge of moving non-student accounts to the Netapp. What is the timeframe we all have to work with? Should this have been done by now?
A: (Erick) There was more a time frame of moving all Polaris stations to GUI Boot. Once that has been done, we have seen some problems with the old Watstar type accounts causing problems in this enviroment. It is best at this time to move the users on those stations to the NetApp.

(Nevil) We have been moving some of our non-student accounts up the the NetApp and have noticed some problems. This has been mainly due to the IE (Internet Explorer) change over and some naming conventions which the software uses. I have a script which can help if anyone is interested.

Information items:

(Steph) I have set up Visual Basic 6 to run on the AppFiler. This may have been one of the reasons for the lack of disk space on \\engshare. We do not have any licenses to run, but I needed to test whether this software could be implemented for a course in September 2000.

(Ray) Could you get the necessary changes to me so I can include it in the between term sysctl update. Beth Jewkes is looking into getting Visual Studio (VB6 C++ etc.) for Polaris machines.
(Daniel) I would be interested in looking at how you got it to work. In AHS we could have a request for one license.

(Jim) How many Polaris stations are running on Campus?

(Ray) I am not sure of the exact number. I do get SysLog reports and have only 1700 or so. Once a year, Martin does report on all of the machines for verification of Station.doc with unique IP numbers and addresses.
(Erick) That number will likely go up.
(Ray) IST is looking at the way we (Polaris) do management of software. They are looking at how we have done distribution and do not want to duplicate how we plan to move to Windows 2000.

(Jim) How big is the Terminal Server Client for Windows 95?

(Ray) We can install Terminal Server Client. There is not nuch to put on E: Drive. The issue is really on how many under-powered machines. One can put 40K into a really good server to allow Terminal Server to run very well, or to put the money into getting new machines which themselves could run Win2000 Professional properly. Nobody has yet requested having the Terminal Server Client for running Polaris workstations.

(Jim) Just an information note. Paul Guy will be leaving our group. We have no idea where, but it is a very real possibility that it is outside the university. Paul was a very big part of our Win2K team. Both Clayton and Paul have been the bulk of our experience. This has been made offical and can be mentioned. We have no idea about how this position or knowledge will be filled.

(Nevil) On a happy note, I would like everyone to know that my wife and I had a new son last week.

Congratulations from all!

(Jim) Is the write protect on F: Drive is not working?

(Erick) Yes, this is correct. I will look into this.
(Nevil) This is for the $PROTDRV=CEF and $SKIPDRV=CEF.
(Erick) Yes.

(Nevil) Is there a time frame for printer moves to be done by a certain time?

(Ray) It was to be by September 2000. Mike has moved the standard Watstar printer accounting system in Engineering so Samba mounts use the current accounting system.
(Jim) Watch for errors which I have seen. These errors depend on the version of LPD which the server is using and not a problem of Samba. When there is a roll over of 1000 it can cause a filling in of files which have not yet printed. So, one may get there print out with a ton of extra pages from someone elses job. One way to fix this, is to edit LPD to "Write new" and not "Append."
(Ray) We may not see this problem, since we do not use swiping to release jobs. Prints go to the queue and then the printer.
(Erick) Although, we may see this problem on a weekend when a printer goes out of paper.

(Nevil) What is the progress on Win2K?

(Hon) We have only the hardware and a lab set up. Currently, we just need to set up the VLan.
(Jim) Has licensing been done?
(Hon) Yes, Beth had stated that we have some 800 licenses.
(Ray) Potentially a major problem (a cost item) is software licensing currently we have only licenses for Windows 2000 Professional and Visual Studio.We still have to buy MS Office. As for software that is installed, we are still not that far. As an example, the scientific software (LabView) has some problems. We do not expect a working Polaris replacement until some time mid fall term.

Created by: sempson@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca 2000/07/19
Revised by: sempson@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca 2000/07/20