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The projects listed below represent ASET's major activities for the 2003 - 2004 fiscal year. While most are covered here, many ongoing core services and support for those services not fully described here, such as file service, newsgroups, network time protocol, e-mail, VPN and Web services to name a few, occur in the "background" simultaneously with major projects and initiatives.
Work continued on the Business Office Library and Database (BOLD) project this year. BOLD is a collaborative project between AIT and the ITS Business Office. It allows employees and management to view vital statistics about any purchased hardware products by including basic information about purchases as well as budget descriptions and contract information. Currently, BOLD is used exclusively by the ITS Business Office and has become an important aid in ITS, specifically ASET, for managing purchasing contracts with vendors. It currently holds close to 8,000 entries. Enhancements made this year include continued development on a new interface and a mechanism by which all paperwork associated with an order may be stored for electronic retrieval.
AIT continued to expand and improve services for providing dynamic content via the Web. On June 30, 2004, the first phase of a multi-phase rollout of Penn State Web Application Engines was begun. This service provides several application engines, beginning with PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP), php.scripts.psu.edu. Other dynamic content application engines such as ASP and JSP may be available in the future as part of future-phase rollouts. This service has been designed for all Penn State students, staff and faculty with Personal Web space; student organizations with Web space on the Student Organizations Web Server; colleges; other Penn State locations and departments with ITS Departmental Web space; and, courses with Course Online Accounts (COLA). While a database server was not provided for this service with Phase I, one is planned for a later release; developers and Web content providers may use independently operated database servers. At this time, this service is not designed for use with authentication via the Penn State Access Account or Friends of Penn State Account. For more information see the announcement or visit the Penn State Web Application Engines Web site.
This year, staff from ASET, specifically, Jim Leous in Emerging Technologies (ET), spent a significant amount of time on the eCommunications Cost Savings Committee. The committee investigates the use of information technology to reduce the costs associated with the creation, distribution, maintenance and disposal/ recycling of paper documents by replacing some with electronic communications. Solutions include replacing existing/future publications with their electronic equivalents; reducing the amount printed by supplementing paper documents with electronic information; and, implementing "print on demand" and "distribution by wire" of those documents that must be printed. The committee will make recommendations to the University Cost Savings Committee on the use of of Information Technology to save on the cost of creation, distribution, and disposal of paper communications.
During 2003 - 2004, several significant breakthroughs occurred with respect to Penn State's centralized e-mail services managed by ASET. A great deal of time and research has been spent developing technologically-effective and cost-effective ways to increase security, combat viruses and fight spam, without compromising performance.
Virus Protection
Continuing the effort against the proliferation of computer viruses at Penn State, ASET installed virus protection software on Penn State's backend outgoing e-mail servers (smtp.psu.edu) in May, 2004. Now, any message sent with a virus from Penn State through smtp.psu.edu will automatically forward to Security Operations and Services (SOS), also a unit of ITS, for notification. Soon after, testing began with virus protection software on Penn State's incoming servers. As a result of successful testing, virus protection software was installed on Penn State's incoming mail servers, email.psu.edu and mail.psu.edu in early August, 2004. Likewise, mail sent to psu.edu is scanned regardless of its final destination (mail.psu.edu, email.psu.edu or a departmental e-mail server).
SSL Enabled POP
ASET also continued the effort to increase e-mail security. After successful testing, ASET enabled secure e-mail connections using Secure Socket Layer (SSL), a procedure that transmits communications over the Internet in an encrypted form, for checking e-mail on Penn State's e-mail servers (email.psu.edu and mail.psu.edu), early in August, 2004. Though SSL POP as well as Kerberized POP (KPOP), another way to securely check e-mail, have been available as "opt-in" choices and though Penn State WebMail has always provided users with a way to securely check e-mail, the ultimate goal within the next year is to fully eliminate clear-text passwords for e-mail as well as other computing services. January, 2005 is targeted as the deadline by which encrypted, secure-only transactions for checking mail will be accepted by Penn State's e-mail servers email.psu.edu and mail.psu.edu.
Authenticated SMTP (AuthSMTP)
During fall 2003, ASET rolled out AuthSMTP. SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is the protocol computers use to send and receive e-mail. At Penn State, the SMTP or outgoing mail server is smtp.psu.edu, which e-mail clients use to send mail to smtp.psu.edu. The smtp server then routes the mail to its destination. AuthSMTP allows users who connect via a third-party dial-up, DSL or cable modem connection to use Penn State's outgoing e-mail server, verifying the sender of the message before sending it out to its destination. The authenticated version of smtp.psu.edu, which is authsmtp.psu.edu, requires a user to enter his/her password before being permitted to send messages. The new server authenticates senders of outbound mail to guard against abuse against the mail server by e-mail-related viruses and spammers.
In November, 2003, ASET began its trial evaluation of spam filtering on Penn State's e-mail servers. This spam filtering evaluation allowed ITS-operated Penn State e-mail servers to reject spam and minimize the impact to University networks and computers. Many "spammers" deliver their spam by using third-party resources without permission. The approach in this continued evaluation filters e-mail based on its origin rather than its content. On average, 10-30 e-mail messages per connection are rejected thus rejecting approximately four million spam messages per day, depending on the traffic for a given day. ASET plans to continue to explore new and alternative methods for spam filtering. In addition to continuing the current trial, other methods such as opt-in filtering also will be tested. For additional details surrounding the trial, please refer to the trial announcement and trial update.
Losing important data is catastrophic to those whose information is permanently lost. Offsite backup is the best way to avoid costly permanent loss. For several years, AIT has provided a for-fee backup service known as Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM). TSM is a central backup service, which acts as a file backup and archive server for the disk drives of any workstation or personal computer connected to the Internet. It supports twenty-five different platforms as clients and offers disaster recover and Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM). This year, the number of data in backups/archives increased from 40 to 60 terabytes. Of this 60, approximately 15 terabytes, an increase from 8 terabytes in 2003, are PASS backups. One thousand one hundred machines back up with TSM at least once a month.
In October, 2003, ASET began to provide free TSM backups to the open source project, Jabber. As a result, Jabber backs up their files to our TSM resources. This effort marks one of many happening ASET that demonstrate support for the entire open source community and open source efforts.
The file storage service (used for home directories, Penn State WebMail, the Penn State Portal, Personal Web space, Departmental Web space and other services) commonly referred to as Penn State Access Account Storage Space (PASS), was continued during 2003 - 2004. PASS permits finer access control to images and files and enables improved collaboration between individuals and groups. This year, the total storage capacity for PASS was increased to 6.5TB. Currently, there are 149,213 PASS home directories with 46,839 Personal Web Space directories, 156 Departmental Web Space directories, 685 Course Space directories and 657 Student Organization (Clubs) directories.
This year, 16TB of SAN disk space was brought online for use in PASS as well as other servers.
The default allocation was increased from 100MB to 200MB for the beginning of the fall 2003 semester. Plans are underway to increase the default PASS allocation to 500MB for the beginning of the fall 2004 semester.
During early spring 2004, staff in AIT created an information page for firewall users. Many people who use firewalls within a Penn State department or academic unit experience problems with accessing services. Unless specific machines/IP addresses for services are permitted to pass through a specific network via a firewall, users on that network may not be able to access services such as the PASS Gateway, file backup (TSM) and dial-up services. Importantly, port blocking at the border router increased the need to provide resources for those who use firewalls within the Penn State community. Providing the hostnames and IP addresses/ranges for servers greatly helped users and the information technology staff community. The page is updated on a regular basis and continues to grow as new servers are brought online.
A new digital identity service, known as Friends of Penn State (FPS), developed by AIT, continued to grow and gain momentum. The FPS infrastructure supports the delivery of a variety of centralized University services to potential students, alumni and e-commerce customers via the Web. A joint project between several ITS organizations, the FPS account management system has been designed to enable the development of Web-based information resources to more efficiently serve individuals outside the University. FPS is also part of the University's initiative to create a long-term relationship with the many individuals who use Penn State services such as library technologies, e-stores, World Campus, the Registrar's Office, Undergraduate Admissions and more.
In late April 2004, all graduates, beginning with spring 2004 graduates, were migrated to Friends of Penn State (FPS) accounts. As a result, all spring 2004 graduates were automatically granted a lifetime Friends of Penn State digital identity. Graduates-to-be received a notice via e-mail explaining FPS and how to confirm their respective lifetime digital identities via a set of three, easy-to-use Web pages.
On a related note,the ASET Communications Team developed an FPS visual identity/textual treatment and partnering "look and feel" for the FPS project and account creation Web pages. The visual identifier, created in part from feedback by FPS stakeholders and Web developers, has been designed for developers to include on Web pages that serve Web-based applications using FPS as the infrastructure.
In the area of High Performance Computing, the GEaRS group continued to expand its partnerships and collaborations with faculty members, assisting them to take advantage of computational resources primarily delivered on Intel CPU-based servers running the Linux operating system. GEaRS group staff members continue to maintain a strong commitment to teaching the use of application packages and libraries and supporting the same in research across many academic disciplines.
Lion-XE
http://gears.aset.psu.edu/hpc/systems/lionxe/
The Lion-XE computational cluster, a 128 node machine, was a partnership with 13 faculty members representing 10 academic disciplines. Built in January 2001, Lion-XE was decommissioned at the end of June 2004.
Lion-XE was built with a high-speed low-latency interconnect on 81 of its nodes dedicated to running high performance parallel jobs. Lion-XE consisted of 128 Dell PowerEdge 1550 servers, each with dual 1GHz processors and 1GB of RAM. Each node was one rack unit high so the entire cluster was built into a very compact footprint. For the period July 1, 2003 through June 30, 2004, Lion-XE ran 193,482 jobs and delivered in its lifetime 704,600 CPU hours.
For a listing of Lion-XE Partners, visit the Lion-XE PC Cluster page.
Lion-XL
http://gears.aset.psu.edu/hpc/systems/lionxl/
Lion-XL, a 1.3 teraflop machine, consists of a total of 176 Dell PowerEdge 2650 servers, each configured with dual Intel processors, 4GB of memory and a 36GB Ultra320 15K revolutions per minute (rpm) SCSI drive. The first subset of Lion-XL, 128 dual 2.4GHz CPU nodes, are connected with a Quadrics QsNet Elan3 high performance network. All 176 nodes are connected with fast Ethernet. During the period from July 1, 2003 through June 30, 2004, Lion-XL ran 103,623 jobs and delivered 2,732,318 CPU hours.
For a listing of Lion-XL Partners, visit the Lion-XL PC Cluster page.
Lion-XM
http://gears.aset.psu.edu/hpc/systems/lionxm/
In fall 2003, the GEaRS group deployed its most powerful cluster to date. Lion-XM consists of 128 Dell PowerEdge 1750s, each configured with dual 3.06 Intel Xeon processors, 4GB or memory and a 36GB Ultra320 15K rpm SCSI drive. Lion-XM is connected via a high-performance Myrinet network from Myricom.
During the period from October 1, 2003 through June 30, 2004, Lion-XL ran 169,199 jobs and delivered 873,405 CPU hours.
For a listing of Lion-XL Partners, visit the Lion-XM PC Cluster page.
Lion-XD Angstrom
LION-XD is a new cluster aimed at simultaneously providing better support for the development needs of the High-Performance Computing community at Penn State and exploring cutting-edge computational technology. It consists of 16 dual 2.0GHz Opteron blades, each with 4GB of RAM, and is connected via a high-speed, low-latency InfiniBand interconnect from TopSpin Communications.
Unisys
The Unisys ES7000 system's 32 Intel 64-bit Itanium2 processors provide access to large amounts of shared and high bandwidth memory. The centerpiece of the installation consists of a Unisys ES7000/430 with two domains of 16 Itanium2 processors at 1.5GHz each. The ES7000/430 will be particularly useful for researchers who need more than 4GB of memory per process and those working with large database applications. This clustered technology will provide an alternative approach to how GEaRS currently meets the high performance computing needs of the range of researchers it supports.
During the period from January 1, 2004 through June 30, 2004, the Unisys system ran 1,892 jobs and delivered 34,810 CPU hours.
Grid Computing (iVDGL/LIGO)/Pleiades Cluster
http://ligo.aset.psu.edu/
Computational grids are persistent environments that are expected to enable software applications to integrate instruments, displays and computational and information resources that are managed by diverse organizations in widespread locations. At Penn State, Dr. Sam Finn, Director of the Center for Gravitational Wave Physics, is a lead participant in the NSF-funded LIGO project. The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is a facility dedicated to the detection of cosmic gravitational waves and the harnessing of these waves for scientific research. LIGO is a partner in iVDGL (International Virtual Data Grid Laboratory), which is tasked with establishing and utilizing an international laboratory of unprecedented scale and scope, and is comprised of heterogeneous computing and storage resources in the U.S., Europe and ultimately other regions linked by high-speed networks, and operated as a single system for the purposes of interdisciplinary experimentation in Grid-enabled, data-intensive scientific computing.
As a part of the LIGO project, the GEaRS group has worked with Dr. Finn to build a Tier 2 computing facility. Pleiades consists of 128 Sun V60x compute nodes with 2 2.8GHz Intel Xeon processor with 2GB of memory, 28 Dell 1750 compute nodes with 2 3GHz Intel Xeon processor with 2GB memory, and 9 Dell PowerEdge 1750 file servers. Pleiades also has 35.1TB of storage organized in 18 RAID-5 Dell PowerVault 220S enclosures with 14 146 GB 10K rpm Ultra 320 SCSI disks per enclosure; 160 of the nodes are connected with InfiniconŐs InfinIO high-speed network fabric (6 Gigabits/second). Pleiades currently has a theoretical peak computing capacity of 1.3 Teraflops.
Lab-on-Wheels
The Lab-on-Wheels provides a mobile teaching facility capable of being deployed quickly and easily, and virtually anywhere so that the typical restrictions of site and time found in scheduling a fixed computer lab are removed. This allows the GEaRS group to present seminars or teach a hands-on workshop wherever the instruction is desired and most easily accessible to a larger group. In order to launch this initiative, GEaRS acquired nine Dell Inspiron 8200 laptops, each with 1.8GHz Pentium 4 processors, 1GB of RAM, and a 60GB drive. All laptops have both Windows and Linux operating systems installed to accommodate a wide range of software packages. The Lab-on-Wheels facility was designed to couple with GEaRS' Seminars-on-Demand initiative.
Seminars-on-Demand
http://gears.aset.psu.edu/education/
Seminars-on-Demand is a GEaRS group initiative designed to provide high performance computing and visualization-related education to the University community. The goal is simple: to deliver seminars that are tailored to precisely fit researchersŐ needs and taught at a time and place to suit his/her convenience. These seminars are taught using the GEaRS Lab-on-Wheels facility, noted above.
Major Partnerships
http://gears.aset.psu.edu/hpc/partners/
Bioinformatics
Bioinformatics involved the research, development or application of computational tools and approaches for expanding the use of biological, medical, behavioral or health data. These approaches help organize and extract important information from this huge wealth of new data and make it accessible and understandable to people in the medical and biological fields. GEaRS is working with the Huck Institute for Life Sciences, and faculty members in many academic departments to provide several bioinformatics-focused services including Compugen, a bioinformatics portal, and BioWeb, a bioinformatics server. This year, the GEaRS group worked closely with Drs. Blair Hedges, Anton Nekrutenko, Arthur Lesk, Ross Hardison and Webb Miller.
Many ASET staff members dedicated their time toward and participation in this year's "ITS the Event," held on March 16, 2004 in Alumni Hall at the HUB-Robeson Center. Many ASET services were showcased, including the Penn State Portal, Penn State WebMail, File Backup (TSM), Emerging Technologies, the VPN service, high performance computing services and visualization services.
Staff members from ASET, specifically AIT and ET, actively participated in the ITS Wireless Committee, which continued to look into the next generation of wireless network service for Penn State. The committee consisted of representatives from ASET, Telecommunications and Networking Services (TNS), Security Operations and Services (SOS) and Consulting and Support Services (CSS). For more information, visit: ITS Wireless SecureNet Web page.
In January, 2004, two new, more flexible Kerberos V authentication servers were brought online for central authentication. The new servers mark the continued effort to move forward with migrating core authentication services to Kerberos V. Kerberos is a network authentication protocol, designed to provide strong authentication for client/server applications by using secret-key cryptography. A free implementation of this protocol is available from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, though it is also available in commercial products.
The Napster project was by far the most intense, time-consuming and resource-intensive project for ASET staff, specifically AIT and ET staff, during 2003 - 2004. On November 6, 2003, immediately following Educause, President Spanier announced that Penn State had entered into an 18 month trial/pilot program contract with Napster. Penn State is the first in the nation to offer its student body a legal and quality alternative to illegal downloading. The service provides students with access to over half a million songs. The first phase of the pilot, marked by an aggressive timeline, was to deliver the service to Penn State students in residence halls at all locations by the start of the spring 2004 semester on January 12. During this timeframe, work on the Napster service was the dominant priority.
The challenge for ASET, between November 6 and January 12, was to come up with a way to leverage the current University authentication and authorization infrastructure in a way that would permit secure account creation with Napster while keeping network traffic in check. Shibboleth, an Internet2 middleware initiative designed to provide federated access management between Web-based resources, with an emphasis on security, scalability and privacy, was used for account creation. Shibboleth in this context allows Penn State students to authenticate into Penn State's "Shibboleth Origin Server" which asserts students' identity and other attributes to the "Shibboleth Target Server" at Napster. The LDAP edupersonentitlement URN:PSU.EDU:MUSIC was created to signify that individuals, in this case students living in residents halls, were entitled to use the Napster service. In addition, a local cache server owned and operated by Napster was setup within the Penn State network, allowing for faster downloads and reducing network traffic. By January 12 the pilot service was ready and in full production. As of 9:00 a.m. on that day, over 2,600 of the approximately 17,000 on-campus resident students eligible for Napster had successfully registered for the service.
The next phase is to offer the service to Penn State employees and all students by the beginning of the fall 2004 semester. The trial itself runs through spring 2005. For more information, visit the Online Music: Napster at Penn State Web site.
In May 2004, the Penn State Access Account Signature Stations were enhanced to include a short, educational video highlighting the "fine print" contained within University Policy AD20, Computer and Network Security. Those visiting a signature station must first watch the video in its entirety before they are permitted sign to obtain their respective Access Accounts.
The signature stations (which new Access Account holders must visit in order to activate their respective Access Accounts) are maintained by AIT and the ITS Accounts Services Office. The new signature stations run on Apple eMacs, with the latest OSX operating system and use Java 1.4.1. The software developed for the signature stations last year takes advantage of the Macintosh's higher graphics resolution capability. The signature stations also provide existing Access Account users with a means by which they can obtain their original password should they forget their current password or need to reset their password.
Signature stations are available at University Park and at other Penn State locations.
ASET continues to migrate the University-wide online directory from the older Ph/Qi system to several Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) servers. The LDAP server provides a much more robust programming interface, which allows programmers from University units (e.g. ITS, Office of Human Resources, World Campus and the Office of the Physical Plant) to design online applications that are more tailored to individuals or groups. Programmers in AIT replicated and enhanced the Web interfaces into the directory server using these programming interfaces. The LDAP protocol allows University data stewards to better control the release of directory information online. Citing privacy concerns, ITS, in cooperation with the Undergraduate Student Government (USG), designed a way for students to protect their local address and/or local phone number from being accessed via the online directory.
In addition, a searchable departmental directory component, added last year, as well as options for users to choose abbreviated or full directory listings, continue to be enhanced.
The Oracle Collaboration Suite Calendar (formerly CorporateTime Calendar) and scheduling client continued as a service to the Penn State community. This networked calendaring system allows its users to create meetings and events, compare schedules with others via the group agenda, as well as manage the scheduling and use of high-demand resources such as conference rooms and equipment. While clients are available for UNIX, Linux, Macintosh, Solaris and Windows, users can easily access and update their calendars via the Calendaring Web server, http://www.cal.psu.edu/ provided that he/she has a valid license.
Currently, 1,211 user licenses and 73 Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) synchronization licenses are in use, with 145 resources and 31 public groups. In addition, current versions of the software clients are available for the latest operating systems.
The Penn State Portal continued as a major University initiative, gaining momentum and popularity. Usage numbers steadily rose throughout the year among the student as well as faculty and staff population. In addition, several new channels and new features were added and/or enhanced, such as the Portal's built-in file transfer tool, the PASS Explorer, an expanded personal calendaring channel and a dynamic job search channel.
On September 1, 2003, the Portal's new look and feel was launched to the Penn State community. Current and new users of the Portal were greeted by fourteen new interface themes, which include nine color themes and five Penn State themes. The themes have been designed in response to user feedback and aim to improve the Portal's usability and to provide another way for users to customize and personalize their very own view of Penn State. Each new header image is paired with a complimentary color scheme, which users may modify and change at any time through the Portal's built-in Preferences screen. To correspond with the new look and feel, updated controls also were implemented, giving users the ability to more quickly and easily edit channels and access online help and documentation. In addition to its visual enhancements, the Portal offers over 380 channels of Penn State and external content including: news; student services; printing account status channel; an OHR job search channel; an enhanced PASS Explorer, the Portal's built-in secure file transfer tool, which now enables users to transfer multiple files to Personal, Departmental and other PASS-based Web space at one time; enhanced personal calendaring; and much, much more. To partner with the new themes, the ASET Communications Team created new Portal literature: a double-sided quick how-to guide for Portal users and content developers and a "hexagonal" marketing piece. The Portal Development Team plans to continue developing enhancements, both technical and visual, during the 2004 - 2005 year.
The Penn State Portal provides its users with a personal "one stop shopping" view of University and Internet resources. Portal users can chose the information that is most important and most interesting to them by adding and removing built-in content "containers" called channels. Content such as news, career planning and services, weather, Web cameras, student services, file transfer capabilities, The Daily Collegian, event calendars, and much more, allow users to build their very own, self-service Web environment. Subject-specific content can be contained and organized in one, convenient location via the Portal's Tab feature, and users may choose to change the Portal's default color scheme and welcome message, and change the Portal's refresh rate, to determine how frequently updates are made to his/her Portal.
During 2003 - 2004, ASET worked, in collaboration with other ITS units, on a Web Single Sign-On solution. After a great deal of research and prototyping of different solutions, a solution was determined called Penn State WebAccess. WebAccess is based on software (Cosign) developed at the University of Michigan as part of the National Science Foundation's (NSF) National Middleware Initiative (NMI), a program designed to develop the nation's higher education community's readiness for emerging middleware standards and practices. Just as NSF helped to fund many
universities' first connections to high speed national networks, it
is now funding and developing new ways in which we use those
networks.
During the summer, ITS enrolled its internal Web site, "Staff ITS" into the WebAccess service as a test bed for other soon-to-be enrolled services, including the Penn State Portal and Penn State WebMail. Whether a user reaches the WebAccess login page directly or via a protected service, the process is the same. Users must enter their respective Access Account userids and passwords. If the WebAccess login page is accessed via a protected service, the Web browser will redirect the user back to the service once he/she successfully authenticates. If the WebAccess login page is directly accessed, the user will be presented with a list of services that use WebAccess. Users also must logout from WebAccess when finished, in order to protect their respective Access Account userids and passwords. ASET plans to continue enrolling services throughout the year and documentation for Web developers interested in enrolling sites will be developed and published.
Penn State's Web-based e-mail client, which is similar to Yahoo! Mail, provides users with anytime, anywhere secure access to your Penn State e-mail via a Web browser. The easy-to-use interface lets users create and organize mailboxes, access directory services, create and add personalized signatures and change settings. Ideal for faculty members on sabbaticals, students who study abroad and staff members who frequently travel, WebMail helps our users stay up-to-date while away from Penn State.
During 2003 - 2004, WebMail underwent major software and hardware upgrades to improve performance and better handle the increased load of this very popular service.
AIT in ASET continued its work on developing and providing an Access Account Windows Active Directory (AD) Root domain for use within the University community to leverage the existing infrastructure, providing for a unified authentication and authorization domain between Windows Active Directory and the current Open Standards-based infrastructure. To date, the Commonwealth College (CWC) as participated in a pilot deployment of Active Directory; more participants are expected during the fall 2004 semester. As a way to update and recruit the Penn State community, the Windows AD Team held a town meeting in July 2004 which was met with success. Information about this and other Windows services related to Active Directory is found via the Penn State Windows Services Web site.
On August 11, 2003, ASET brought online the new and improved Penn State Search Engine. The change from Ultraseek to the Google Search Appliance was based on responses to a search engine evaluation survey, which was sent to the Penn State community for feedback in May, 2003. The survey was created and conducted by the University's Search engine Evaluation Team, which was comprised of individuals from University Relations, University Libraries and several ITS units. Announcements highlighting the change were sent in advance to the Penn State community as well as the Penn State Web developer/content community as the change to Google affects how the search engine is invoked from Web sites.
ASET, specifically AIT staff who maintain and support e-mail services, beta-tested IBM's SANfs with the current e-mail system. The beta-test did not prove to be successful for this environment. The ultimate goal is to test and implement a fast-accessed, shared filesystem for Penn State e-mail services. Work on such a solution will continue during 2004 - 2005.
During the 2003 - 2004 year, AIT entered into an arrangement with Thawte Technologies for the bulk purchase of SSL certificates for servers within pre-authenticated sub-domains of psu.edu. In addition to considerable cost savings, this relationship positions ITS to provide a quick turnaround of less than three hours within a normal business day to deliver a signed certificate, for a nominal, reduced fee, for those who wish to take advantage of this pilot service. Though this service is not "public" information to date, several organizations within the University already are participating and feedback has been very positive. Higher demand gives ASET the opportunity to offer lower prices, so ASET hopes to generate as well as accommodate interest in this program throughout 2004 - 2005. Draft information is available at http://aset.its.psu.edu/pki/.
Staff members from ASET participated in the ITS Streaming Solutions Committee during 2003 - 2004. The committee has been charged with determining a new streaming media system to replace the current system, IBM'S Videocharger with one that is user-friendly and can handle digital rights management, including compliance with the TEACH act.
ASET continued its partnership with the Division of Student Affairs to support the Student Organizations Web Server (a.k.a the Clubs server). In spring 2003, ASET began to migrate individual Web directories to allow for improved methods for managing the space. The full migration was complete by fall 2003.
The Student Organizations Web Server interface, developed by programmers in AIT, gives Student Affairs staff the ability to create space for properly registered student groups, alter access controls to Web space and update the individuals who are allowed to use an organization's Web space based on records maintained by Student Affairs. An agreement between ITS and the Division of Student Affairs offices at all Penn State locations allows employees to manage this space. Agreements are currently in place with several Penn State locations and several more are in the works.
The Visualization Group in GEaRS investigates emerging visual computing technologies and implements several leading-edge solutions in a cost-efficient manner to help faculty better integrate such tools in instructional and research programs at Penn State. The group provides facilities and consulting expertise in the areas of scientific and artistic visualization, digital animation, as well as digital media and hardcopy output.
3D Stereoscopic and Widescreen Multimedia Technology Classroom
http://gears.aset.psu.edu/viz/facilities/stereoclassroom/
Room 158 Willard Building was upgraded to enable 3D stereoscopic display of spatial data by faculty in their teaching. In addition to offering standard technology classroom capabilities, the new installation includes a dual-screen Windows XP graphics workstation and a multi-projector display to allow wide-screen projection of three-dimensional information in passive stereo using inexpensive Ňtheme parkÓ style polarized glasses. The Stereo and Enhanced Multimedia Classroom is the result of a combined effort of the University Committee for Instructional Facilities (UCIF), Classroom and Laboratory Computing (CLC), in Teaching and Learning with Technology (TLT), a unit of ITS, and the Visualization group, along with Media Technology Support Services (MTSS) of University Libraries. Stereo projection is provided under a research partnership with CyViz, AS of Norway.
Immersive Environments Lab (IEL)
http://gears.aset.psu.edu/viz/facilities/iel/
The ITS/SALA Immersive Environments Lab (IEL) is a partnership project between ITS and the School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA). The motivation for the lab has been to bring affordable, robust, easy-to-use, surround-screen, projection-based virtual reality (VR) techniques into the mainstream of teaching and research in the design arts and other disciplines. Under the faculty leadership of Loukas Kalisperis, professor of architecture, the IEL has become an integral part of the undergraduate architecture design curriculum, allowing students to better visualize their respective designs at human scale, as well as to combine virtual reality, more traditional presentation and multimedia techniques for better communications and understanding of the various attributes of their proposed design solutions. In supporting this activity, the IEL also serves as a test bed for evaluating underlying Open Source VR software development toolkits, and various aspects of system integration and end-user computing support issues associated with such specialized implementations.
In 2004, the Visualization group began extensive work in the IEL with John Messner, assistant professor of architectural engineering, on the development and assessment of VR tools and techniques for use in construction planning. Dr. Messner has received funding from NSF for the construction of a new VR facility, of similar construction to the IEL, for continuing his work in the efficacy of VR tools for teaching, research and professional practice in construction planning and related areas. These new tools involve linking building information models, construction scheduling information, etc., to interactive CAD models in order to better understand and communicate construction planning processes. A test case is under development using the new SALA Building currently under construction at University Park. The new building project has afforded a unique opportunity for the involvement of construction management staff and representatives of key subcontractors in order to gain their professional insight into the opportunities and obstacles likely to be encountered in the development of the proposed tools.
In 2004, four masters theses significantly involved the use of the IEL:
ACCESS Grid Node
http://gears.aset.psu.edu/viz/facilities/gridnode/
The Access Grid (AG) Node represents a global effort to deploy open solutions for high bandwidth group-to-group multi-modal telecollaboration over existing high-performance computing networks. The AG node supports large-scale distributed meetings collaborative work sessions, seminars, lectures, and tutorials, enabling group-to-group communications using multicast Internet-working, voice and video teleconferencing, and desktop applications sharing among multiple remotely-located participants. In room 140 Computing Building, the GEaRS group offers a local venue for members of the Penn State community to participate in Access Grid events from a University Park location. The room has helped enable members of the Penn State academic community to participate in scheduled Access Grid events or explore the technology for communications and collaboration with colleagues from other Access Grid-enabled institutions.
Display Wall
http://gears.aset.psu.edu/viz/facilities/displaywall
The Display Wall, located in room 139 Computer Building, continued to gain interest and use this year. It uses scalable real-time rendering techniques on a cluster of 12 computers to display high-resolution images with nearly 10 million pixels on a 6-foot-by-11-foot large-format screen. The 12-tile display makes it possible to view fine detail in complex visualization problems, or to alternatively serve as a very high-resolution workspace for display and cross comparison of multiple related images, application windows or related data. The facility seeks to enable researchers in many disciplines gain better intuitive insights into complex data relationships and additionally serves as a test bed for open source and parallel graphics development within a clustered Linux environment.
Sports Medical Research
http://gears.aset.psu.edu/viz/facilities/sportsmed/
The GEaRS group has participated in establishing a sports medicine VR lab in the Lasch Football Building. This work is in partnership with faculty from the Penn State Departments of Kinesiology and Psychology, and the College of Medicine at the Hershey Medical Center, under the faculty leadership of Semyon Slobounov, Associate Professor of Kineseology. The project has been funded by a College of Medicine DeanŐs Feasibility Grant with additional funding, equipment and in-kind support from GEaRS and the Departments of Kinesiology and Psychology.
The new lab combines VR display techniques with kinesiology and brain imaging measurements to understand better how kinesthetic responses to perceived motion and underlying neurological mechanisms may be affected by mild traumatic brain injury. Currently, subject data is being collected from Penn State football players to study the effects of concussions and other mild brain trauma. An additional study has begun that will be the basis of a doctoral dissertation for James Thompson, Ph.D. candidate in kinesiology. That study will focus on the assessment of Penn State Rugby players.
The Lasch lab builds upon pilot research conducted using GEaRS' Immersadesk VR facility and employs a VR display design that was developed for the ITS/SALA Immersive Environments Lab. Previous Immersadesk protocols also are being adapted for use by Pam Haibach, a Ph.D. candidate in kinesiology, in the study of perceptual/postural disturbances in stroke patients. Pilot data has been collected using student volunteers and the GEaRS Immersadesk. Subject trials with stroke patients is scheduled to begin during fall 2004.
In a related development during 2003 - 2004, programming and device integration assistance was provided in support of Dr. Semyon Slobounov's sabbatical research at NIH in Bethesda for assessing cognitive responses to postural imagery using MRI imaging techniques.
The server and software maintaining WebEvent, the calendaring software that delivers the University-wide events calendar at http://events.psu.edu/, maintained in conjunction with the Division of Student Affairs and the Office of University Relations, was upgraded this year to increase its event capacity and performance. Portal Team programmers, who help maintain WebEvent for aggregating into the Penn State Portal, updated the system during spring 2004 to use a MySQL database and mod_perl Apache libraries. This robust combination allows provides for faster page delivery and increases WebEvent's compatibility with the Portal. The machine serving http://events.psu.edu/ is maintained by and housed within AIT.
During 2003-2004, Dr. Stanley Aungst, assistant professor of Information Sciences and Technology (IST) and department head of Penn State Mont Alto's IST program, continued his joint partnership with ASET and Consulting and Support Services (CSS). Stan, who has worked with Advanced Information Technologies (AIT) for several years, continues to work with this group on projects related to DB2E, wireless computing, cryptography and hand-held wireless devices. One of his main projects, called Virtual Coconuts, a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and a supply chain management system, has been developed to give customers the status of their product in the supply chain via a handheld device such as a Palm Pilot, personal PC or WAP-enabled phone. Virtual Coconuts is a collaborative project between Stan, his students in IST, IBM and AIT staff. Other projects in which Stan is involved include a secure, Mobile Health Informatics database, a possible NSF-funded study of moving state agencies to the e-business world, and a beta test site for Authenicam with Iridian Software, which uses iris scanning technology for authentication. During 2002, Stan submitted a joint paper with Dr. David T. Wilson and Professor Emeritus Alvin H. Clemens, both of the Smeal College of Business, which proposes the eleven issues of wireless technology implementation in a business organization. Stan also is working with AIT and IBM on a paper on pervasive computing for an IEEE journal article. Finally, Stan and Russell Barton, associate dean of research in the Smeal College of Business, and AIT have teamed together to secure NSF funding for homeland security computing.
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Last revised: Friday, July 8, 2005.