Nice and the PCs at Saclay ( DAPNIA )

Joël Surget

Nice and the PCs at Saclay 2

NICE and the PCs at Saclay ( DAPNIA )In 1997 : 600 PCs ( for 800 people )

( 200 Macs, 300 X-Terminals, 300 Unix Stations, some VMS ) ( ? )

160 new PCs in 1997 ( ? )80 new PCs in 1998 ( ? )The new PCs replace the old X-

Terminals

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W95 and WNTSome W3.11W95 and W98 : all the administrative

people Saclay-specific applications need W95

and MSOffice 95 Portables

WNT 4.0 SP3 : all the “scientific” PCs

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WHY ?Desktop applications ( MSOffice 97 SR1 )X-emulation ( Exceed 5 --> 6 ) Development ( Visual Studio 5... )Graphics applicationsInternet Browsers … Mail client :

Netscape Messenger --> Imap Server Outlook 97 --> MSExchange

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Organisation All the scientific PCs in one NT

domainBut other domains for :

administrative people Mail ( MsExchange Server ) WWW server ( IIS )

TCP/IP protocol only

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Unix/VMS/PC IntegrationPathworks for VMSSamba on Unix (not in production yet)No NFS/AFS/DFS... client on PCNo FTP/Telnet server on NT Wincenter ( --> NT Server Terminal

Server Edition( Hydra ) ??? )files/print services for Macintosh

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Installation/configurationOnly one PC model if possible

Today : Pentium II, 64 MbMade by the end user without any help Central services :

file, printing, mail distribution of products

NICE for the new PCs

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Nice at Saclay ( DAPNIA ) Portage of the CERN version since July

97 OS: French version Software: French version Local software Local configuration ( security, TCP/IP … ) Hardware differences

In service since January 1998

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New Nice versionsEasier to update

configuration files separate package some comments in the programs but always pb with the french version

Manually updated from CERN versionProduct manually installed

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NICE at Saclay ( DAPNIA )Automatic Installation by the End-

User but, the video driver, sound driver…

must be installed manuallyPortables installed manually by the

NT group (plug and play, dockable, modem…)

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NICE at Saclay ( DAPNIA )Nice 95 ( portables only ) and NICE

NT~65 simultaneous users today150 potential usersNew PCs: most of themOld PCs: only the “volunteers”

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NICE at Saclay ( DAPNIA )DAPNIA is located on 2 different sites

(4Km apart) 2 “nice” servers 2 “home directory and roaming profile”

servers with 115 Gb (70 Gb used) 2 “print” servers ( 60 printers )

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Pb after one yearVery few problems with the user

Happy with the “automatic” installation and maintenance

happy to have so many applications available

needs sometimes to mirror again the PC / server

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Pb after one yearDifficulties to do a good network

installation of the program (DLL, Registry…)

too many new versions (Exceed, Netscape, IE, Outlook, Windows…)

Pb with the “old” Nice PCs : IE4…Pb with the upgrade of some products

(licensing or need of the older versions)

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Future : some products locally installedToday : Internet Explorer 4.01

Outlook 98 ( with Office 97 on the network )in the next future Msoffice 2000 and IE5The official MS reasons are: Local disk is large enough

Network is lowLoad on the servers is too high

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Future of NICE : Windows 98 & Windows 2000

More and more portable with Call-back at home

Windows 98 for the portable waiting Windows 2000

Windows 2000 and IntelliMirror ?Mix of Intellimirror and Nice ?

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FutureWindows 2000 and Active Directory

…File systems : Fat16, Fat 32, NTFS 4,

NTFS 5…Physics on PCs ? ( CERN Libraries… )Accounting ...

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ConclusionMore and More PCs at SaclayPC with NT4.0 SP3 is today the new

desktop computer Nice has reduced the problem of the

installation and configuration of the new PCs

Waiting Windows 2000 impatiently