Core Services Cumulative Monthly Report, November-December 2003

• Refining and Improving Core Infrastructure
• New storage model.
• Sep: Snavely began researching the Linux Logical Volume Management system as a potential management suite for NAS storage. Marsh and Snavely are both maintaining lists of promising technologies for NAS service to seed more focused research.
• Redundant web services.
• Oct: Marsh and Snavely made plans to try to use the storage subsystem originally purchased for dlps10 on quik.
• Integration of COSIGN single sign-on web authentication.
• Jan-Mar: Snavely coordinated meetings with Prettyman and Steinberg to inventory existing web applications that use authentication and develop a transition plan for moving to COSIGN.
• Production server replacements/upgrades. 
• Sep: Marsh installed and configured dlps10, a replacement server for dlps4. Marsh, with occasional assistance from Snavely, spent a substantial amount of time troubleshooting persistent problems with configuring the storage subsystem before putting the storage online.
• Oct: Marsh transitioned HTI services from dlps4 to dlps10, but after several days of full production load, Marsh and Snavely found problems with the storage subsystem and had to revert HTI service back to dlps4. Marsh began the purchase process for a Sun storage subsystem (at substantially higher cost) that should offer better support and allow the transition to dlps10 to happen as soon as possible.
• Oct: Marsh, in coordination with CAEN, formulated an upgrade plan for servers which are still running Solaris 2.6, which CAEN will no longer support starting in 2004.
• Nov-Dec: Marsh transitioned HTI services from dlps4 to dlps10, using newly-installed Sun storage.
• Nov-Dec: Marsh upgraded dlps5 to Solaris 8 and supported Steinberg in migrating proxy services to ting, a replacement server. dlps5 is online as a hot spare.
• Development server replacements/upgrades.
• Sep: Marsh upgraded ferment to Red Hat 9.
• Oct: Marsh and Snavely spent a substantial amount of time pursuing what appeared to be a problem with a storage subsystem on sangria, but what turned out to be a bug in file system diagnostics. Marsh upgraded all potentially affected servers to newer versions of the diagnostic software.
• DHCP/DNS services.
• Sep: Marsh, working with ITCS, transitioned DNS service from longjing to plumwine.
• Oct: Marsh, working with DSS, formulated a plan to cut over DHCP services from stella to sake during the upcoming holiday break.
  
• Image and OCR processing workflows.
• Sep: Snavely resolved a problem with DVD-R volume name recognition on lemonade, the new loading workstation, and signalled collection maintainers that we are ready to begin accepting tests of page image and continuous tone material submitted on DVD-R media.
• Sep: Snavely resolved reliability problems with data loading on lemonade related to the use of ssh, incorporated compression into the load process to marginally reduce bandwidth requirements, and added two additional CD-ROM drives for a total of two DVD-ROM drives and three CD-ROM drives.
• Sep: Snavely began configuring Samba-based file service on martini, but encountered persistent authentication problems.
• Oct: Snavely coordinated the purchase and installation of the library's first Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) switch for improved file service performance on martini. Initial testing confirmed substantial performance improvements, topping out at approximately 22MB/s sustained throughput.
  
• Oct: Snavely resolved the authentication problems with Samba and worked with Hall to begin live testing of file service on martini.
• Oct: Snavely took bill-ko, the old data loading workstation, offline.
• Nov-Dec: Snavely began to develop revised OCR server configuration and scripting to support a load-balanced workflow.
• Digital object integrity.
• Cost model. 
• Documentation.
• Security assessment. 
• Technology trends awareness. 
• Support and Development for Access Systems
• Library management system implementation.
• Oct: Marsh reinstalled Solaris 9 on gracie after a security incident. Marsh took this opportunity to implement several new security measures, including the Sunscreen host-based firewall, to substantially increase overall system security.
• Dec: Marsh ordered the new development server, storage, and two CPU/memory boards to upgrade the current server to production capacity.
• DLXS. 
• Persistent URLs. 
• Institutional repository initiative. 
• Oct: Snavely reviewed Ottaviani's draft of our institutional repository findings and contributed several comments for changes.
• Oct: Marsh researched requirements for installing DSpace on sambuca, discovering some difficulty and chains of dependency. Snavely and Ottaviani agreed to postpone DSpace installation until after the holidays, while in the meantime putting sambuca to use as a NAS test server.
• Collaborating with Other Areas of the Library and the University
• Library/Core Services coordination. 
• Integration with campus authentication.
• Miscellaneous/Unplanned
• Sep: Marsh installed the Perl module Net::Z3950, the Yaz tool kit, and Zebra for the adjunct files project.
• System Performance
  
• Central Campus server environment
• betty.umdl (MedSearch server): Currently being repurposed
  
• coffee.umdl (Oracle server for access control): No down time
• gin.umdl (WebCheckout server): 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
• tequila.umdl (Metalib and SFX server): No down time
• North Campus server environment
• dlps4.umdl (primary web server for DLPS and public collections): No down time
  
• dlps5.umdl (library proxy server): No down time
• dlps6.umdl (Oracle server for access control and usage statistics): No down time
  
• dlps7.umdl (Numeric Data server): No down time
  
• dlps8.umdl (non-public collections): Down on Monday, December 8 from 1:00-6:00pm due to a software misconfiguration.
  
• dlps9.umdl (Image Services): No down time