Desktop Support
Sun, SGI and Linux Workstation Support
Information Technology Systems and Services provides support for Sun and SGI workstations for a monthly fee (for Linux support please see below). The monthly fee covers both the costs of some items that are purchased as well as an allocation of staff time for routine and recurring tasks. Unix workstations are generally more complicated to administer than a Macintosh or Windows based desktop system, and ITSS staff are trained to provide support for Unix operating systems. The monthly cost is usually charged against a Research Grant, and all faculty, graduate students, and some staff can apply for research grants. The monthly costs cover the following items:
- Licensing costs for the operating system (Solaris, IRIX). We buy from a site license coordinated by the UofM TC campus. Please note that if you do not participate in our program you must license your system individually with them each year.
- Upgrade support. Our staff will upgrade the operating system on your desktop at least once a year.
- Security support. Our staff will install patches that stop hackers from obtaining root access to your system.
- Administration support. Our staff will be the administrator of your system, working only as needed with the operating system to make sure your desktop is reliable and correctly inter-connected with our servers and networked printers.
- Home file service support. Our staff will set up your system so that the files you change will be kept in our home file service area and automatically dumped to our tape archive system (Note: file storage charges apply for home storage).
- Licensing costs and installation of current compilers. This includes both the compilers provided by the vendor as part of the UofM agreement (this is not all possible compilers, see below) as well as the GNU C and C++ compilers.
- Desktop move support. Our staff will aid in moving your equipment from one location to another by changing the necessary parameters to match the new network location
- Binary support. Our staff keep a shared binary area current to insure that your Unix system has the current command set available.
- Public Domain and Site License support. Our staff keep a shared binary area current to insure that you have access to the most commonly used public domain or site licensed software. Mathematica and WordPerfect are examples of site license products, and pine and emacs are examples of public domain programs.
Monthly charges are usually covered by our Research Grant program.
- Linux support. Currently RedHat is the version of Linux we are supporting. All Linux support is done on a time and materials basis. We may have a monthly rate for this support starting next fiscal year (2000-2001).
- Specialized software. Researchers often need to use a specific application. The software might come from a public domain archive, a vendor purchase, or from another institution. Usually the software has to be obtained, compiled and installed to make it effective. Our staff has a lot of experience and knows how to integrate new software so that it doesn't interfere with the Unix operating system.
- Customized desktop support. There are a variety of interfaces to the Unix operating system, and our staff can help you set it up to use the right X, Openview or Telnet style interface to suit your needs.
- Compute server. ITSS has a compute server that usually has the fastest cpu speeds and largest memory on campus. There is a charge for cpu usage beyond a minimum per month. Our staff can arrange for free run so that you can obtain a ballpark cost figure for your applications.
- Desktop or filesystem backup. Although we encourage everyone to use our home file service, some disk intensive operations work better if the data is kept locally on your desktop. We can arrange to dump specified areas (or all) of your desktop disk so that it is kept on archive tape in case of a disk failure.
- Specialized hardware. Researchers often need to use specialized input or output devices. Our staff have experience adding hardware to Unix desktops, and can often provide support for installation of various devices.
- Hardware diagnosis and repair. Often our staff can interface between your hardware problems and the various vendors involved. We often work with Sun and SGI on hardware items, for example, with our central servers.
Please click here if you would like to request one of the above services.
If you have questions or comments please feel free to contact us by emailing dburrows@d.umn.edu or by calling 726-8846.
Last Revised on 10/10/1999 djb