What services does TIG provide?
Infrastructure Summary
The CSAIL network connects all locations in the research areas of the Stata Center with gigabit Ethernet at a density of one port per 25 square feet of office space, for a grand total of more than 4,000 gigabit networks ports. The network backbone is 10-gigabit Ethernet with a 30-gigabit core mesh connecting the three redundant backbone switches. CSAIL has aggregate outside connectivity of 1.1 Gbit/s. The wireless network in the Stata Center consists of 71 Cisco Aironet access points operating at 54 Mbit/s with support for IEEE 802.11b and 802.11g standards, providing full coverage of all research areas of the building. Currently, TIG has about 2,450 systems active on the network. External connectivity is 1 Gbit/s.- Storage summary:
| AFS 19 servers 16.5 TiB total space 11.3 TiB used |
NFS - medium-speed 2 servers (zim and samurai-jack) 20.0 TiB total space 14.7 TiB used |
NFS - high-speed 1 server (phobos) 14.2 TiB total space 11.4 TiB used |
Facilities
If something about the building seems wrong, like temperature, stuck doors, broken fixtures - just about anything that has to do with the building itself - just let us know. We either fix the problem ourselves, or manage the assignment of problem resolution to the appropriate parties so you don't have to understand the behind-the-scenes complexity. See the Facilities site for details.Network
We provide support for the data network throughout the entire Stata Center with the exception of the Student Street and certain areas below ground. This is very different from most of the rest of campus, which relies entirely on MITNet. We provide DHCP throughout the network, except in areas where research groups have opted to run their own DHCP server. By default, every blue-colored data jack in offices and open lab areas is "live", meaning that it is connected to the network, enabled, and will provide an IP address, DNS server info, netmask, and other necessary information via DHCP. There is no need to register or do anything other than just plug your computer in with an ethernet cable and make sure that your computer is configured to use DHCP. We can provide an ethernet cable if you don't have one; see "How do I Get Help?" below for more info. In the case of a wireless network card, you only need to associate with the "StataCenter" network. This means you can be up and running on the network in just seconds.- well-maintained spam filters
- automated Bayesian spam/ham learning
- virus filtering
- easy-to-use server side custom filters
- vacation auto-responders
- webmail access from any browser
Web/Database
We provide website virtual hosting for individuals via people.csail.mit.edu, and research project hosting at hostnames that you can specify. Our virtual hosting servers include support for most popular web site tools, like PHP4 and MySQL. If you need a service that we don't currently offer, just ask; it may already be in the works, but if not, we'll do our best to accommodate your request.Authentication
The CSAIL computing infrastructure uses Kerberos V5 at the core for authentication. Each user should apply for a CSAIL "Kerberos Principal", which is a strong authentication credential that is built upon cryptographic techniques. Think of it as your passport to all of the computing and information services CSAIL has to offer.File Service
Kerberos works in conjunction with AFS, which is an authenticated, global network filesystem (as opposed to unauthenticated file systems like NFS) to provide a high degree of fault tolerant, globally available file service that has a much more robust access control model than standard UNIX permission modes. You can even create your own user groups, without sysadmin intervention, and assign those groups specialized privileges to your files. AFS also has a built-in recovery feature called "snapshots" that allows you to quickly restore a file that you've mistakenly deleted. Additionally, we do provide NFS and SMB volumes for groups that have needs that are not addressed by AFS, such as high-performance computing. We encourage you to use AFS for the majority of your storage needs, however.Software
We have site license agreements for many commonly used software packages, including Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Office 2003, Adobe Acrobat, Matlab, and many others. We can provide you with media and license keys, as well as installation support if your research group doesn't have their own system administrator. For more information on what TIG has available, go to CSAIL's Software Distribution Center. We also provide mirrors of a number of popular Free and Open Source software projects.
