Core Services Cumulative Monthly Report, April 2003
Overview
Significant improvements to the development environment were made as we
deployed replacements servers for fizzie and kukicha with current technology.
Notably, the primary development servers at this point are all on the Linux
platform.
Additional activities included proof-of-concept work on new high-volume OCR
production in coordination with digitization staff and the setup of version
control on our SFX installation, as a technical management group was formed
and given responsibility for day-to-day operation of the service.
- Refining and Improving Core Infrastructure
- New storage model.
- Nov/Dec: Marsh and Snavely continued to collect information
on NAS and SAN related technologies for our upcoming storage needs and
new storage model.
- Apr: Snavely confirmed with Bonn that LLMC plans to fund
two storage servers and two web servers to meet redundancy recommendations.
- Redundant web services.
- Production server replacement.
- Nov/Dec: Marsh replaced DLPS1 with a new Sun 280R server,
dlps8, and coordinated the transfer of services.
- Nov/Dec: Marsh and Snavely coordinated the removal of
failing storage equipment from dlps4.
- Jan: Marsh replaced DLPS3 with a new Sun 280R server,
dlps9, and coordinated the transfer of all services with the exception of
Pictures of Record pending a DNS registration change.
- Feb: Snavely coordinated the configuration of backup
software on dlps6, dlps7, dlps8, and dlps9.
- Apr: Marsh coordinated the transfer of Pictures of Record
from dlps3 to dlps9, working around persistent DNS registration problems.
- Development server replacement.
- Nov/Dec: Marsh prepared and ordered configurations for
replacement servers for fizzie and kukicha.
- Apr: Marsh installed
and deployed clamato to replace fizzie.
- Apr: Marsh installed
and deployed sangria to replace kukicha.
- DHCP services.
- Mar: Snavely transferred the load-balancing DNS server
from kombucha to sake, the new DNS/DHCP server.
- Image and OCR processing workflows.
- Nov/Dec: Snavely began planning work for the LLMC project
with Bonn and Stephenson.
- Jan: Snavely, in coordination with Stephenson and Pagliere,
made a small modification to the DLXS Pageview table to allow the handling
of companion contoen page images.
- Feb: Snavely revised existing load scripts to handle
"continuing content" on image media.
- Mar: Snavely, working with Hall, began investigation
of the PrimeOCR "job server" functionality to better balance OCR load.
- Apr: Snavely, working with Hall, successfully set up
a proof-of-concept OCR "farm" using job server functionality and proposed
a partial architecture for OCR workflow.
- Digital object integrity.
- Cost model.
- Nov/Dec: Snavely developed a provisional model for tracking
server administration costs and began to apply the model to generate several
cost estimates.
- Documentation.
- Technology trends awareness.
- Nov/Dec: Snavely began receiving subscriptions of several
IT publications.
- Mar: Marsh attended
the Rubi-Con computer security conference in SE Michigan.
- Support and Development for Access Systems
- Library management system implementation.
- Nov/Dec: Marsh, Snavely, and Prettyman researched server
configurations for the LMS development server. Many different configurations
were explored and many sales quotes generated. An eight-processor Sunfire
4800 with two attached 400GB disk arrays was chosen and ordered.
- Jan: Marsh, working with Sun staff, installed and configured
the LMS development server in room 10.
- Feb: Snavely coordinated the installation of SFX on the
LMS development sevrer with Ex Libris.
- Mar: Snavely coordinated the installation of ALEPH on
the LMS development server with Ex Libris.
- Apr: Snavely prepared a configuration for the production
Metalib/SFX server according to Ex Libris recommendations, and placed
the order.
- Apr: Snavely, coordinating with Farber, Plantinga, and
Steinberg, proposed and set up CVS on the LMS development server to facilitate
version-tracking and release processes.
- DLXS.
- Feb: Marsh successfully coordinated the use of the staging
server, jolt, as a new environment for conducting the workshop.
- Mar: Snavely met with Zieske to gather information on
the workings of the stats system.
- Production OAI harvesting.
- Nov/Dec: Marsh and Snavely coordinated a meeting with
data preparation staff and developed a plan to run data preparation and
OAI harvesting on the same (new) server. Funds for the server will be supplied
jointly by the OAI grant and Core Services.
- Institutional repository initiative.
- Collaborating with Other Areas of the Library and the University
- Library/Core Services coordination.
- IT Commons.
- Nov/Dec: Snavely contributed heavily to the Authentication/Authorization
and Directory working groups to help prepare final reports, due at year's
end.
- Jan: Snavely continued work at a slower pace in both
working groups on various tasks in follow-up to the final reports.
- Mar: Snavely contributed to soucing and prioritization
dicsussions in both working groups.
- CHEF/DLXS integration.
- Nov/Dec: Snavely participated in a joint meeting with
other DLXS staff and the CHEF group to help provide a better understanding
of the DLXS system.
- Feb: Snavely and Powell discussed strategies for exploring
collaboration between DLXS and CHEF.
- Integration with campus authentication.
- Nov/Dec: Snavely joined the COSIGN co-design group and
attended his first meeting to get an overview of the COSIGN system architecture
and workings.
- Feb: Snavely attended another COSIGN co-design group
meeting to gather information on the proposed "Friend" system to handle
authentication of non-UM affiliates.
- Apr: Snavely began a discussion within the LMS group
which will investigate the steps necessary to integrate COSIGN with ALEPH
and identify issues associated with the rollout of COSIGN for DLS resources
in general.
- Miscellaneous/Unplanned
- Nov/Dec: Marsh, working closely with DSS, reorganized space
in room 10 to consolidate space usage and accommodate new servers.
- Nov/Dec: Marsh applied OpenSSL and sendmail upgrades to
resolve security vulnerabilities on several servers.
- Nov/Dec: Marsh upgraded Perl from 5.6.1 to 5.8.0 on all
systems not scheduled for near-term retirement.
- Jan: Marsh, in coordination with Blanco and Simpson, began
an iterative problem-solving process with ESRI to address several problems
with the ArcIMS system.
- Mar: Marsh began the installation of a LOCKSS server.
- Mar: Snavely, working closely with technical staff at Oxford,
set up rsync for synchronizing EEBO content from DLPS servers to the mirror
at Oxford, and integrated the rsync configuration into existing local
update scripts.
- Apr: Snavely, working closely with Syrigos, set up rsync
for synchronizing geospatial content from the geospatial lab to DLPS servers.
- System Performance
- Central Campus server environment
- betty.umdl (MedSearch server): No down time
- coffee.umdl (Oracle server for access control): No down time
- hank.umdl (Library Web Server): No down time
- myrna.umdl (MIRLYNWeb server): No down time
- opal.umdl (SilverPlatter server): No down time
- North Campus server environment: All services were unavailable
on Friday, April 11 intermittnently throughout the day due to a persistent
denial-of-service attack aimed at other servers located on an adjacent network.
- dlps3.umdl (Image Services): Taken offline
- dlps4.umdl (primary web server for DLPS and public collections): No
additional down time
- dlps5.umdl (library proxy server): No additional down time
- dlps6.umdl (Oracle server for access control and usage statistics):
No additional down time
- dlps7.umdl (Numeric Data server): No additional down time
- dlps8.umdl (non-public collections: No additional down time
- dlps9.umdl (Image Services): No additional down time