Difference: ProblemTracking (5 vs. 6)

Revision 62007-10-12 - TamaraMunzner

  META TOPICPARENT 
 name="ImagerLabAdministration"
- META TOPICPARENT
+ name="ImagerLabAdministration"
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+ Problem Tracking Procedures
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+ Imager-Tech Group and Problem Tracking Procedures
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+We have established a wiki page under StatusReport, that is used to track open system administration issues.
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+The committee has the following members:
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+This page tracks all known open problems. Progress on the issues on this list will be discussed with the technical staff on a weekly basis (Wednesdays this term).
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+ Tamara Muzner		- faculty rep
  Glen Lee		- techstaff rep for Imager
  Cheryl Lau		- imager-tech czar
  Christopher Batty	- Windows and Mac czar
  Tiberiu Popa		- Linux czar
 

 Current Open Problems 

The main avenue for technical problems is always the helpdesk,
help@cs, for problems like "my graphics driver no longer works". Most
of the time, those problems get fixed quickly. Sometimes things are
more complicated and drag on for longer. We keep track of those in a
Current Open Problems list, and have weekly meetings to track the
progress and keep things from falling through the cracks. We often add
items to that list ourselves. It's a wiki, so you can add items to the
list yourself if there's something that is lingering unresolved for
longer than a week or so. Our weekly meetings are currently Thursdays at
11am, we'll address everything that's been added by Wednesday morning.
The list itself is at StatusReport


 Czarships and Sudo 

In Imager, specific representatives (czars) have sudo admin
privileges. Tibi (stpopa@cs) is the Linux czar, and Christopher
(batty@cs) is the Windows/Mac czar. Sudo access is intended only for
problems that are urgent, after normal hours, and relatively
straightforward. (Of course, the czars do not commit to on-call 24/7,
but if they're around they'll try to help you out.) We send mail to
the techstaff after every sudo to let them know what we fixed, so that
they're aware of it for the record.

 Imager Technical Information 

We maintain a list of technical and/or policy tidbits that general
Imager folks might need to know. It's up at
ImagerTechnicalInformation

 Conference Freeze Dates 

We're also trying to be proactive about freezing system updates for
specific machines before conference deadlines relevant for their main
users. We are maintaining a list of upcoming conferences, and the list
of machines that will be frozen for those. Again, it's a wiki, please
add information yourself if there's a conference that's not currently
listed that should be. That list is at
ConferenceFreezeDates
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+In order for this mechanism to work, we need your collaboration. If you encounter a problem with the computer systems, you should do the following:


 send mail to help@csDELETEthisTEXT.ubc.ca as usual.

 if the problem does not get resolved within a few days, add it to the above wiki page. Make sure you list your name, so we can contact you if necessary. Also specify the help system tracking number. Any entry that makes it by Tuesday around noon will be discussed at our meeting in the afternoon.

 if you have problems or question regarding the wiki, contact Cheryl Lau (cherylsl@csDELETEthisTEXT.ubc.ca). Cheryl is not responsible for solving the problem, but she takes care of the tracking, and might be able to tell you the result of the discussion at the weekly meetings.

 once your request to help@cs is addressed, please send Cheryl a note, and remove the entry from the wiki.



In addition to this mechanism, we also have 3 students to fix urgent(!) problems, or perform trivial tasks that would take the technical staff too long to get around to. The three are:


 Tiberiu Popa (stpopa@csDELETEthisTEXT.ubc.ca) for Linux
 David Young (hdfy@csDELETEthisTEXT.ubc.ca) for Mac
 Ken Rose (kenrose@csDELETEthisTEXT.ubc.ca) for Windows



Tibi already has sudo access on the lab's Linux machines, and has been using it for some while to help people out. The exact mechanisms that David and Ken can use to help with Mac and Windows will have to evolve. It is likely that Macs will see Linux-style management at some point. The situation for Windows is more complicated due to registry fun.

We will review this new mechanism after a few months, so if you have any concerns or suggestions, send email to heidrich@csDELETEthisTEXT.ubc.ca, or talk to your supervisor.


-- WolfgangHeidrich - 07 Feb 2006
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+-- updated by Tamara 12 Oct 2007

-- originally started by Wolfgang 07 Feb 2006

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