Dispatch #5: 2007/12/21

Has it been almost a year since the last one of these? Oh, my. Well, let’s send 2007 out in style.State of IT TalkFirst item of business, there’ll be a division IT talk on January 14, at 2PM in 221-A216. There, we’ll go over what we’ve been up to, and what we’re planning on doing, plus we’ll have a Q&A as always. Mark your calendars, bring your questions, but please leave the tomatoes and eggs home — we bruise easily. So I don’t spoil it all in advance, this will be a bit brief in terms of a dispatch.Among the things we’re planning on doing and will be discussed at the talk:

• Mail server upgrade: we’ll go over what our plans are from moving from the old mail server (can you believe we’ve been using this one since 1999?) to the new system, including:
  • new mailing list server with web-based management
  • new mailbox host with web-based management and improved spam filters
  • new web mail interface (you can still use your favorite mail client, though)
  • user-friendly server-side filters
  • multiple domains (mcs.anl.gov, alcf.anl.gov, cls.anl.gov, clownpants.mcs.anl.gov)
  • no more home-made SSL certificates
  • …and much much more!
• Trouble Ticket System changes — phasing out the orphaned Req and what our options for migration are.
• Print server upgrade, including:
  • single server for linux, Mac OS X, Windows
  • no VPN or authentication from wireless required, regardless of OS
• Web migration, including:
  • retiring old web servers
  • migrating pages to new server

We’ll try to have some sort of option for remote attendance of this via web. If we pull that off, then we’ll also be announcing our new service that allows you to hold meetings over the web! 🙂Mac TutorialOne of the things we’ve been up to is rolling out the new Mac infrastructure to the administrative staff here. Now that we’ve got a nicely sized Mac user community here, we’re going to offer a couple of workshops for those who may be new to Macs to help them adjust to it. The first one’s going to be geared solely toward the admin staff, but the followup will be open to the division. This will be in late January — more news once the date is set.Holiday CoverageWe’ve got coverage lined up for the whole break to handle urgent issues. Please be understanding if something takes a little longer, we’ll obviously be short staffed. If you notice something is out of sorts, go ahead and send us some mail at [email protected] and we’ll get to it as we can.Also, as a group, we’re taking what we expect to be the least busy afternoon of the month tomorrow to have a little end of year holiday luncheon, so we won’t be around in the afternoon.

That’s about it for this much belated and all-too-brief Dispatch. Without getting too sappy here, you all are the best bunch of users any of us has ever had the pleasure of serving, and every day we’re reminded of this in your interactions with us. Thank you all for a great year, and here’s to a relaxing break and a great 2008! Oooh, a rhyme. How lovely.

* (clownpants.mcs.anl.gov not available in all states, void where prohibited, consult your physician.)