Operational Policies
From Research Computing
| Table of contents |
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Introduction
Research computing policies and procedures are made available on the web for review. Our work, which involves interaction with several research and systems groups throughout CUNY, is facilitated by a clear and explicit statement of our way of doing business. We encourage comment on our policies and procedures. All policies are subject to approval by the Vice President for Information Technology and External Programs (http://web.gc.cuny.edu/provost/apit/).
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Research computing documentation
Research computing shall maintain the following documentation:
a. This document
b. Installed hardware
c. Software per system
d. Software license codes (with expiration dates, etc)
e. System and software passwords
f. List of users [active and inactive]
g. Form letters to send to users upon account activation
h. Description of the mailing lists
i. Research technology fellows internal communications
ii. Cluster computing list
iii. ICPSR CUNY Federation Offical Representatives list
i. System administration records
j. System configurations (configuration files, security enhancements, etc).
k. Network diagrams.
l. Action items for technology fellow meetings.
m. Minutes of Research Computing Committee meetings.
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General administrative policies and procedures
a. This document shall be reviewed at least once per year
by research computing staff.
b. Statement of the Graduate Center’s level of service
b1. On campus: cluster computing and LAMP web sites.
b2. Provided to other CUNY campuses
The Graduate Center (http://inside.gc.cuny.edu) will provide,
to other CUNY sites, assistance with distributed resource management.
Routine system administration is not available, except by special
arrangement in writing and for a specified period, subject to the
approval of the Associate Provost for Instructional Technology.
c. Account policy.
d. Account acquisition procedure (faculty account or faculty sponsored student
account).
e. All accounts must be authorized by the Assistant Director for
Research computing. Accounts are subject to the approval of the Associate
Provost for Instructional Technology and the Assistant Director for
Research Computing.
g. Description of services offered (shell account, access to
cluster, disk space allocation, etc).
h. Software evaluation and acquisition:
Research computing shall follow the procedures for evaluating
software as set forth here (http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_eval.html).
i. Proposals for new projects
j. Review of the research computing web site (weekly).
k. The research technology fellows shall meet with the Assistant
Director for Research Computing once per week. Meeting agenda and
action items shall be maintained and distributed to the participants.
l. The committee on Research Computing shall meet at least once per semester.
The meeting agenda shall be distributed to committee members in advance,
and minutes will be provided to the committee members.
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Internal system administration procedures
a. Email communications
i. within the tech fellow group should go to the tech fellow list
tech-l@listserv.gc.cuny.edu;
ii. communications with the wider research computing community should
go to the Cluster Computing list, cluster-l@listserv.gc.cuny.edu;
iii. communications to the CUNY Federation ICPSR Official Representatives
should go to icpsr-l@listserv.gc.cuny.edu.
b. System backups follow the IR policy (weekly, and kept for 90
days thereafter).
c. Maintenance procedures:
i. Cluster users should be informed about planned maintenance at least
48 hours in advance via the cluster users list and in /etc/motd,
and elsewhere as applicable.
ii. Cluster users shall be given the opportunity to request a
a postponement of planned maintenance, if this is feasible.
iii. Major upgrades, loosely defined as operating system upgrades or
crucial application software upgrades that will affect the
operation of the computational cluster or research web servers,
must be proceded with a backup of the affected systems. Backups
must be sufficient so that recovery to the pre-maintenance state
is possible in the event of a failure.
iv. Major upgrades must be performed at the system console. No OS
upgrades or kernel upgrades may be permitted remotely, except with
the approval of the Assistant Director for Research Computing.
v. All maintenance procedures must have the approval of the
Assistant Director for Research Computing. Although the Graduate
Center does not offer to take over the routine system
administration of systems on other CUNY campuses, wherever research
computing provides technical assistance outside of the Graduate
Center, any proposed off-site system modification must be
approved by the system owner (and users, if applicable).
e. Research computing shall implement automated facilities for maintaining
system images (e.g., SystemImager (http://www.systemimager.org)) and for automating system administration
procedures for cluster computing.
f. Research computing staff must prepare, in advance, plans of major
upgrades in writing, to be made available to research computing
staff and users.
