Math Computer System Physical Server Elimination Plan

Brief summary of impact, and recommendations for users

Too busy to read this entire page? Here are the aspects of the plan that most may impact you in the short and medium term.

• Planning to leave the university? Your email account may be shut down and permanently deleted shortly after you leave (regardless of whether you are using username@math.northwestern.edu as your "primary" email address). Please plan accordingly.
   
• Disk storage space on our servers is eventually going to become scarce. Please plan on using alternative storage. Don't request an increase of disk quota on our local servers.

(We will add additional warnings and recommendations as needed.)

Find additional information below.

Introduction

This is to inform you of a plan to eliminate local physical servers for the Math department computer network, and its impact on users. The time frame to implement it is 2 years, to be completed by the Summer of 2020.

The Math department has been a pioneer in developing its own subnetwork within the NU network, with its own subdomain math.northwestern.edu, and server services, including mail and web servers. There are also many customized services running on our servers, such as the Math calendar, and the course scheduling database. On the other hand various considerations, among them increasing need for security, and NU strategic decisions have driven initiatives to move some of those services from the Math department local network to more central operational units within the university.

By now some functions have been migrated to central servers of the university, in particular the main part of the Math web server was moved to WCAS in 2015, and email was migrated to the MS Exchange in 2016, so the need for physical servers hosted at the Math department has decreased. This has some advantages, such as budget savings derived from not having to purchase physical servers, increased security, and a better integration with the rest of the university. But it also brings changes that will impact users in various ways.

Current impact (as of 2018)

• Access to email: After the transition of email services to MS Exchange Math email accounts have become de facto NU email accounts, and must be accessed with the tools provided by the university of NU accounts, such as the NU webmail.
   
• Email accounts: When users leave the university we used to keep their email accounts for a period of time that allowed them to transition smoothly to their new places. That is not possible any more, after the transition of email accounts to central NU servers university general rules apply. IN PARTICULAR AFTER A USER HAS MOVED OUT OF THE UNIVERSITY HIS OR HER EMAIL ACCOUNT MAY BE SHUT DOWN AND PERMANENTLY DELETED - PLAN ACCORDINGLY. Check NetID expiration rules here. Check also if you are eligible for some form of alternate email service from the university (e.g. students may obtain an alumni account after they graduate).
   
• Remote logins: Users need to use VPN to login remotely to their machines from outside the NU network.
   

Incoming changes and future impact (2018-2020)

Future changes and impact:

1. Retirement of one of our two physical servers by Summer 2018. At this point the impact will be probably minimal since most functions of the server that is being retired have been moved to the remaining server, expected to be in working condition until Summer 2019. We are also using a virtual machine (VM) in a secure area of the university (DMZ) to host some services, at this time working mainly as a reverse proxy server to serve web pages still hosted on our local network (such as the ones with course schedules automatically generated from our scheduling databases).
    
2. Retirement of most functions of the second and final physical server during Summer 2019. THE MAIN IMPACT ON USERS WILL BE A DRASTIC REDUCTION IN DISK SPACE FOR HOSTING USER'S HOME DIRECTORIES AND WEB PAGES. To palliate it users are suggested to start exploring alternative storage and services, in particular:
    
   • File storage solutions such as Box.
      
   • Personal web pages such as NUsites.
      
   The machine may keep working as printserver until its final retirement.
    
3. Final Retirement of the second and final physical server by Summer 2020.

Depending on needs, without physical servers some services such as the calendar database, course scheduling, and local web pages can be maintained by moving them to the VM, but be aware that the storage capacity of the VM is very small compared to the current capacity of the physical servers, and that will leave little to no room for personal storage.

Questions?

If you have any questions or suggestions please contact your system administrator.

Last Updated: Miguel A. Lerma - December 16, 2019