Computer registration at ASU (Was: Re: Linux at ASU Conferenc e?)

[Austin Godber]

Kevin Brown wrote:
>> I've pushed for it for a number of years :).
>>
>> Working with UNUG I think ASULUG could definitely make a difference. 
>> Maybe
>> we could finally get all those SunOS 4.1.3 boxen out of there :).
> 
> 
> Replacing the machines costs money and money is in short supply for 
> things like "unnecessary" system upgrades.  When I last worked at 
> Datacomm, money was so short they were trying to resurrect about a 
> half-dozen SparcStation 5 and 10 machines and run SunOS 5.9 on them to 
> replace other aging machines that had been doing certain tasks 
> uninterrupted for quite a while (dial-in modem statistics, dhcp pool 
> utilizations, tacacs, etc...).  I wasn't able to resurrect them to run 
> 5.9 (mostly due to hard drive size and having been EOL prior to SunOS 
> 5.8). Datacomm couldn't afford new drives (even just 2GB SCSI drives) to 
> upgrade them, so I doubt that a new box could have been bought to 
> replace them (even just an Intel desktop running Linux).

It's not really Datacomm or IT that has the problem (well, it ultimately 
ends up being their problem).  It's machines owned by faculty or staff 
who can't properly administer them.  The real problem is people who 
don't have the proper support have machines that they rely on and will 
not give up.  ETS tells them they have to go, install the latest distro. 
  When in reality that is not the truth.  Getting someone in to turn of 
BIND and Sendmail on a webserver and update apache.  Then ETS, (who 
technically provide support for these people) can just worry about those 
services (upgrading, etc).  Or something along those lines.  Or if 
someone could provide better instruction/research support (e.g. if a 
research group needs a web site they shouldn't have to run their own 
machine if they don't want to.).  Some of this may exist to an extent. 
But right now, from what I hear from profs it is pretty harry.

Austin