Annual Report 2010 - Fachgruppe Informatik an der RWTH Aachen ...

Overview
Since 1985 the System Adminstration Group (Rechnerbetrieb Informatik, RBI) operates
several computer labs and provides technical support for the Department of Computer Science
at RWTH Aachen University. The principal task of the RBI is to install, maintain, and evolve
the local network and several central services, including fileservers, a database server,
mailserver, and webserver. Students, faculty, and staff have free unlimited access to the
computer labs operated by the RBI.
The computer labs are used in computer science courses and for student and faculty research
projects. Especially for novice users a user helpdesk is offered during business hours. The
labs are provided with PCs running the Debian GNU/Linux operating system. The computers
are equipped with various hardware extensions and software to support the students in doing
their exercises and projects. All computers are part of the local area network and provide
unrestricted access to the campus backbone and the internet.
Equipment
Computer Laboratories
The RBI operates five labs in the basement of the E1 and E2 building. The labs are
particularly intended for practical courses and student research projects. A user helpdesk is
located next to the labs in both locations and provides support for lab users and installation
support for students. The labs offer a total number of 52 networked computers based on Intel
and AMD CPUs and running the Debian GNU/Linux operating system, additional workplaces
for teamworking und laptop users, and beamers and flip charts for presentations.
Most GNU tools and many other free- and shareware tools are installed on the lab computers.
For documentation purposes the typesetting system LaTeX and desktop publisher OpenOffice
are available. Programming languages are particularly important and C, C++, Fortran, Pascal,
and JAVA including extension libraries, source code management systems like CVS and
subversion as well as source level debuggers are available. Coding is done with popular
editors like vi and XEmacs.
In addition the computers in the labs are configured for cluster grid computing. The N1 Grid
Engine software is used to schedule jobs on the cluster.
Server Equipment
• Currently the RBI operates 2 fileservers based on Sun Fire X2100 machines and RAID-
Systems with a total harddisk capactity of 30 terabyte.
• Install servers for Linux speed up and simplify the installation of the computers in the
labs. The operating system is automatically installed from network including
customizations.
• A dedicated mailserver provides email service for the students and cluster users.
• Furthermore the RBI provides the primary webserver of the department.
• A database server contains the database of the computer science library and handles all
inquiries.
Local Area Network
Since 1986 the Department of Computer Science runs a computer network according to the
IEEE 802.3 standard. 100BaseT and 1000BaseT twisted pair cables are widely-used.
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