Penn DC Task Force: Opportunity
To overcome
these problems
, we look to develop a distributed computing environment, or DCE. This is not necessarily the Open Software Foundation's (OSF) DCE, although we may very well choose OSF components, some of which are very attractive and affordable.
In short, we look to use computer and network-based tools to automate the management and use of our computers and network. Compared to some of our centralized peer institutions, Penn's DCE will require both distributed control (over the allocation of resources) and centralized management (of systems).
The experiences of other institutions, including Carnegie Mellon, MIT, University of Michigan, North Carolina State University, and Iowa State University, show that there are enormous advantages to be gained through a distributed computing environment. Experiences at Michigan and Iowa State are perhaps most relevant to Penn, as they have heavy emphases on supporting faculty research and workstation-based computing in decentralized business settings.
Aside from having very different management approaches and target populations, these institutions are remarkably similar in the benefits they expect to derive from their distributed computing environments. At the top of their lists is scalability. They all expect to be able to expand the number of workstations on their networks from ~1000 up to 10,000 without adding to systems staff, and to maintain a ratio of 200-300 workstations per support provider.
While the majority of these systems are Unix-based, the desire to integrate Macintosh, MS-Windows, AppleShare, and Novell Netware systems, is driving a number of efforts, which we may eventually be able to take advantage of. However, for the present, it is prudent for us to focus our efforts on Unix platforms.
In sum, creation of a cohesive distributed computing environment across large portions of the University promises great efficiencies for system managers by allowing configuration, documentation, training, support, and other time consuming activities to be amortized more broadly. In addition, a ubiquitous computing environment with a consistent user perspective will also greatly ease the learning burden we currently place on our students, faculty and staff.
