Council on Academic Computing
2004-2005 Activities Report
THE PROVOST’S CHARGE
Provost Maher delivered the Council’s charge on October
21. He asked the Council to
Members of the Council periodically met with
representatives of CSSD to discuss security issues. Jynx Walton,
Director of CSSD, attends Council meetings and frequently discussed these
issues with the entire Council.
COUNCIL
RESPONSIBILITIES
Members of the Council discussed the role of the Council
at the September meeting. The Council on
Academic Computing was designed as a forum in which representatives of the
University’s campuses and schools could exchange information about academic
computing. Members of the Council should
facilitate the university-wide exchange of information by disseminating the
substance of the Council’s discussions to members of their campus or school.
COUNCIL RETREAT
Members of the Council met on July 26 to create an agenda
for the upcoming academic year. Issues
of interest included:
COMPUTING SERVICES
Communications
CSSD upgraded the University’s voice messaging system, Audix, and the University’s e-mail software over the last year. A new, on-demand teleconferencing service and
a secure VPN service were established as well.
The portals soon will be upgraded to support browsers other than
Internet Explorer and document sharing.
Copyright
Infringement
The University has received several copyright infringement
notices from the recording industry.
When it receives a notice, CSSD identifies the relevant IP address and
its owner, supplies the information to the company involved, and notifies General
Counsel of its actions. Any remaining
issues are then resolved between the named individual and the recording
industry.
Firewalls
Identity theft is an institutional concern at many
universities due to the increasing number of hacking attempts. Hackers target university servers to obtain
the information stored on them. CSSD is
devoting more resources to security in order to combat these problems. It currently installs firewalls for
departments that request them and soon will offer security audits to members of
the University community.
Spam and Virus
Filters
Spam and virus filtering has been available since June
2004. All e-mail messages are
automatically scanned for viruses. The
University’s virus filtering system removes approximately 400,000 viruses per
month. The spam filtering system must be
activated by individual users and is utilized by 10 percent of the University
population. The latter system catches
approximately 1.5 million messages per month.
CSSD offers its spam and virus e-mail filtering service to departments
as well as individuals.
Wireless Networks
Wireless networks are funded by the student activity fee
and are available in limited areas and only to students. A university-wide wireless network would
require a significant financial investment in order to coordinate effectively
the University’s different computer systems.
CSSD is currently studying how wireless access can be provided to the
entire University community.
Miscellaneous
Several additional issues were addressed:
PITTGRID: CAMPUS-
Grid computing began as a mechanism to link
supercomputers, enabling them to share unused resources. PittGrid will link
the University’s personal computers. The
University’s computing processors and storage are underutilized because they
are disconnected. They are available
only to individuals who are located where the resources reside. PittGrid will
harness all available computing resources to enhance the processing and storage
capacity that they normally possess. PittGrid will create an infrastructure and include a set of
tools that permit researchers across the campus to collaborate on research
activities and to share computing resources.
HIGH PERFORMANCE
COMPUTING INITIATIVE
The Council sponsored the High Performance Computing
Initiative in 2003. The purpose of the
initiative was to promote the application of high-performance computing in
novel areas and to increase awareness of the potential uses of high-speed
computing at the University. The project
funded through the Initiative was expected to provide a competitive advantage
to the University and faculty in their teaching and research.
Professor Connolly studies how the physical properties of
galaxies change as a function of the universe’s age and how galaxies cluster in
the sky. Large, multi-frequency imaging
surveys, such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (www.sdss.org),
form the foundation of Professor Connolly’s research. These surveys permit astronomers to study
hundreds of millions of stars and galaxies, but this research is data intensive
and presents many computational challenges.
It can take hours, weeks, or even years to process these data. Professor Connolly used the funds for his
project to test how grid computing can be applied to his research.
INFORMATION SESSIONS
CSSD Operational
Headquarters
The December meeting of the Council was held at the RIDC
park operational headquarters of CSSD.
CSSD has now built a network operations center at the site
and relocated the computer helpdesk to the site. The network operations center monitors all
traffic on the University’s network, which includes internet links within the
Pittsburgh campus and between the Pittsburgh campus and the regional campuses,
UPMC, the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, AT&T, and Stargate. CSSD uses Netcool
software to monitor and coordinate traffic on the University’s network. CSSD moved its helpdesk to the RIDC park
facility in July of 2004.
Cyberinfrastructure
Professor Znati worked at the National Science Foundation
(NSF) for the past several years. He
discussed the NSF’s Blue-Ribbon Advisory Panel on Cyberinfrastructure. The panel recommended that NSF create a
large-scale, interagency program that supports the broad development and
application of cyberinfrastructure. The program would integrate resources from
industry, government, academia, and international sources. The panel estimated the annual financial
costs of such a program to be $1 billion.
The panel’s report is located at: Report of the National
Science Foundation Blue-Ribbon Advisory Panel on Cyberinfrastructure.
Ray Hoare, from the Department of Electrical Engineering,
discussed his participation in the Pennsylvania Cyber Security
Commercialization Initiative (PaCSCI). The PaCSCI program was designed to support university student
teams as they commercialize their products and ideas. Participating students
are supported financially from the conceptual phase to the research and
development phase. If the product or idea is successful, the program helps the
students form a Pennsylvania-based company.
Professor Hoare leads a team of students at the University whose
project focuses upon virus protection and “network immunization.” His group is searching for cost-effective and
efficient solutions to this problem that can be embedded within switches and
routers.
Hagai Meirovitch
discussed the
MEMBERS
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Chair |
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George
E. Klinzing |
Office
of the Provost |
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Arts
and Sciences |
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Chemistry |
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Daniel
Mosse |
Computer
Science |
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Computer
Science |
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Health
Sciences |
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Julius Kitutu |
Nursing |
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Medicine |
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SHRS |
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Pharmacy |
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Professional
Schools |
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Angela
Foster |
GSPIA |
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Engineering |
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Laurie
Kirsch |
KGSB |
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Law |
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David
Robins |
SIS |
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Education |
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Regional
Campuses |
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Melanie
Anderson |
Titusville/Natural
Sciences |
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Gregory
Dick |
Johnstown/Engineering |
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Clara
Vana |
Greensburg/Library |
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Senate
Computer Usage Committee |
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Dental
Medicine |
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Staff
Liason |
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Computing
Services and Systems Development |