April 30th, 1999 by Dana Roode
The implementation of UCI’s new network backbone began in January and is proceeding on schedule. The Gigabit Ethernet, fault-tolerant, backbone “core” has been tested and placed into production. The implementation team is in the process of connecting buildings to the new core that had been on an interim Fast Ethernet backbone. The team is also configuring and testing the building switches that comprise the rest of the backbone.
The plan is to move the bulk of campus subnets to the new backbone over the summer. Moving departmental subnets will require a few hours of network downtime in each building. Each outage will be scheduled in advance and announced on the UCInet-OPS@UCI.EDU LISTSERV mailing list. In addition, the full schedule will be maintained on the Web:
http://www.nacs.uci.edu/communication/backbone-schedule.html
The new backbone will address rapidly growing communication needs, provide a foundation for ongoing departmental network improvement projects, and ensure continued, reliable operation of the critical campus data communication infrastructure. For more information, please see:
http://www.nacs.uci.edu/communication/plans/backbone-plan-1998.html
Questions about the project may be addressed to Garrett Hildebrand, whose e-mail address is GDH@UCI.EDU.
April 30th, 1999 by Dana Roode
UCI System Administrators have been busy getting ready for year 2000 (Y2K) and the associated software “bugs” we have all been hearing about in the media. NACS’ Distributed Computing Support (DCS) group is no exception.
DCS has reviewed the 260+ UNIX systems and servers it supports and has identified those that are not considered “Y2K compliant” by their Operating System (OS) vendors. Approximately one-third of DCS-supported systems still require an OS upgrade to make them Y2K compliant (about 30 others have been upgraded in recent months). It is hard to say whether or not an upgrade of a given system is absolutely required, as some Y2K problems have limited impact and may not affect a work-group’s particular use. However, vendors make no promises unless compliant software versions are installed.
Systems running Digital UNIX (DU) 4.0d, DU 4.0e, Irix 6.5.3, Red Hat Intel Linux 5.1, Solaris 2.6, or Solaris 7 are compliant. DU 4.0d and Solaris 2.6 are compliant with the patches that DCS has already applied. DCS is working on upgrading systems running other OS versions, but it is a large task that DCS will be busy with for the rest of the year or longer. If you are the owner of a system that needs to be upgraded, you may contact DCS to review your upgrade schedule.
In addition to Y2K issues in operating systems, application software that is important to end-users must be checked for Y2K compliance. Contact your software vendor for more information, or DCS for general advice.
For more information on Y2K efforts, contact DCS (DCS@UCI.EDU), or see:
http://www.nacs.uci.edu/support/sysadmin/Y2K/
April 30th, 1999 by Dana Roode
NACS hosts monthly meetings of campus computing supporters: the CSCs (Computer Support Coordinators) and CLCs (Computing Lab Coordinators). NACS staff and others will present on Y2K topics during two summer meetings of these groups:
Meeting agendas, schedules, and locations are announced and discussed on the UCICSCG@UCI.EDU LISTSERV mailing list, which anyone may join.