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ABSTRACT
Fifteen years
ago, the Undergraduate Research Computer Lab located in115 Lester Hall
consisted of daisy chained Apple Macintosh computer network. At that time
research mentors thought if students are going to work on research
projects during the spring and fall semesters not just during the summer
research program, specific software and hardware to support the programs
goals must be acquired and implemented.
The solution was to install SGI UNIX hosts along with a suite of UNIX and
Macintosh business applications and tools that students can use to explore
two and three dimensional computer based simulations when collecting
research data, creating research papers, and using academic software to
enhance their research skills.
Over the past fourteen years, the Undergraduate Research Computer Lab has
expanded from a single LAN into three segmented TCP/IP star based LANs
tied together via the ECSU backbone which consists of managed switches
that extend into each campus building d-marc. Two of the LANs are located
in Lester Hall room 115 and 116 and the third LAN is located in Dixon Hall
in room 216. Each LAN consists of a mixture of 15 UNX, 28 Macintosh, 40
Windows PCs, eight printers, and one video teleconference host. Within
Lester Hall room 116 two IBM Windows 2003 server hosts are used as web
servers, nia.ecsu.edu and cerser.ecsu.edu, for the Undergraduate Research
Program to communicate with its business partners, mentors, and
researches. Also located within room 115 is a Macintosh G4 OS X server
used as a Primary Domain Controller for 23 Macintosh G3 hosts. Also, in
the third office located in Dixon Hall, room 216, is one Tera Scan UNIX
server which is used to download satellite images from a NASA satellite
for analysis by students in the Undergraduate Research Remote Sensing
Education program. Within each office hosts communicate with one another
and the public using two transmission mediums, Ethernet Category 5e and
wireless 802.11b/g adapters.
The vision for the project is for the network team to wipe the slate clean
and redesign the network based on the University of North Carolina
Academic Computing Model. The network team goal for the 2006-2007 research
programs is to take a fresh look at the Undergraduate Research Computer
Lab network to make fully functional and secure.
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