UMBCs Information Architecture

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UMBCs Information Architecture

• Robert Banz (banz_at_umbc.edu)

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Overview of UMBC

• UMBC is a medium-sized Doctoral/Research-Extensiv
  e University.(per Carnegie Foundation)
• 11,000 Students900 Faculty
• (source http//www.umbc.edu/newsevents/Facts)

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Office of Information Technology

• Responsible for deploying supporting the IT
  infrastructure used in teaching, research and
  administration.
• 70 full time staff (60 of which are UMBC
  Alums!)
• Central IT administrationcentrally handles all
  departmental IT, with few exceptions

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Core Systems Group

• 4 Full Time staff, 2 Students
• Responsible for
• Multi-platform file services (AFS)
• Middleware Architecture Development
• Enterprise Electronic Mail
• Enterprise Web Services
• Other Services

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Core Systems Group

• Running
• 80 Solaris, Linux or IRIX servers
• 20 Win2k Servers
• OS Breakdown

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Multi-platform File Services (AFS)

• AFS Andrew File System
• A Distributed Network Filesystem
• Supported clients for
• Virtually All nix systems (including MacOSX)
• WinNT
• AppleTalk support provided by Atalk/AFS bridge
  and Netatalk
• UMBC has gt 1.4 TB of AFS-served storage
• For more information on AFShttp//www.openafs.or
  g/

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Middleware Architecture Development

• Kerberos 5 Authentication System
• Enterprise LDAP Directory
• Realtime updates from core business systems!
• Linkages to other systems
• Active Directory
• Blackboard CMS
• NIS

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Enterprise Electronic Mail

• An Open Source Solution
• Sendmail for transport
• Procmail for delivery
• UW IMAP/POP for reading
• OpenAFS for file storage
• SpamAssassin for Spam Filtering
• 300,000 messages sent/delivered daily!
• We use Solaris for the OS, and McAfee
  Anti-Virus for virus scanning, though And our
  WebMail service is commercial, but we dont count
  that

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Enterprise Web Services

• 7 Solaris Web Servers, 3 SGI(using Apache,
  mod_perl, PHP, Tomcat)
• www.umbc.edu
• myUMBC web portal
• userpages.umbc.edu
• Administrative applications (WebAdmin)
• Web Single-Sign-On (WebAuth)
• others
• 15 Win2k servers
• Webmail, Blackboard, MS Project, others..

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Other Services

• LPRNG Printing
• UNIX Shell Accounts
• Linux/IRIX Labs
• Usenet News
• CorporateTime Calendar
• Listproc Mailing Lists
• UNIX OpenSource/3rd Party Software Distributions
  (w/ emt/depot)
• Computer room managment
• and other duties as required.

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Control

• Systems are managed via cfengine(http//www.gnu
  .org/cfengine)
• Volatile data is kept off of machines
• Machines arent backed up, with few exceptions
• Data, software, configurations stored in AFS
• i.e. a Solaris server can be jumpstarted,
  patched, configured, and brought into service
  with no human interaction!

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Demarcation

• Provide specific services, with specific
  expectations
• We provide IMAP POP service, but we dont
  support IMAP or POP clients
• We provide PHP services, but wont help you
  program them.
• etc.

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Delegation

• Follow this logic
• If its policy driven, it can probably be
  translated into code
• If its code-able, you can probably make a nice
  web interface to it
• If its on the web, Helpdesk can probably handle
  it

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Why dont you use more Linux?

• Rule 7 Be an OS bigot with your friends, but
  dont be one professionally.An OS is a tool,
  just as a screwdriver is you wouldnt use a
  Phillips head screw driver on a Torx, eh?
• The large Solaris numbers come from
• LOM.
• Strong SW vendor support iPlanet, Oracle
• Stability
• LOM.

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Will you use more in the future?

• The answer to that is YES!
• The hardware is becoming more manageable
• i.e. Dell now has serial console support, now all
  they need is to steal Suns LOM ?
• A reasonable filesystem finally exists XFS
  and md SCSI drivers are improving.
• SW Vendor support is growing...

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Were do you use it now?

• Linux1, 2 3! (obviously)
• AFS Fileservers hfs1, hfs2, hfs3, hfs4 hfs5.
• Usenet News server
• Console Servers

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Back to Architecture

• A layered approach
• Based on an authentication infrastructure
  (Kerberos 5), and
• A cross platform filestore
• Most services are layered on top of this
• Including the management services for Kerberos
  the filestore

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Mail Services
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Mail Services Hardware
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Directory Services
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Directory Services Hardware
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AFS File Services

• 2 major styles in service
• Intel PIII850, running Linux
• 8 18G Ultra160 SCSI drives
• w/mirroring, capacity 72G
• Sun (NetraT1V120), running Solaris 8
• 8 36G Ultra160 SCSI drives
• w/mirroring, capacity 144G

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AFS File Services
will be in service 11/2002
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Console Services

• Provide serial console access and logging to
  100 systems.
• Includes logging, and remote access to consoles
  via SSH
• Managed by
• 1 Linux box w/3 Cyclades 32-port cards THIS
  MACHINE HAS BEEN UP FOR gt 3 YEARS!!!!!!!!
• 1 Cyclades TS-2000

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The End?

• Questions banz_at_umbc.edu
• Problems helpdesk_at_umbc.edu
• Presentation will be available athttp//www.memb
  rain.com/pres/lug/20021006/