RAL PPD Computing Installation
(Gareth Smith - last updated 15-Mar 2000)

Changes since last meeting in red

Desktops (and Laptops)

• 80 PCs (Windows NT V4.0)
• 1 MAC
• 2 VMS AlphaStations
• All X-terminals taken out of use.
• PPD laptop loanpool of 5 Toshiba Portege 7010CT (running WNT V4.0) and 5 Dell latitude CPx laptops.

Servers

• HP-UX: D370 + D270 (running HP-UX 10.20)
• LINUX: PII/300 PC (running RH5.1) + Viglen LX2 dual PII/450 (running RH6.0)
              + Viglen LX2 dual PII/450 (to run RH6.1)
• NT: Alpha 1000A (file server, BDC) + DEC Prioris P5/90 (PDC, print server)
• NTrigue (P5/150) (running NT V4.0, except for NTrigue - 3.51) taken out of use. New Server (Viglen LX2 Dual 600MHz) running TSE (with Citrix Metaframe) being brought into use.
• NT web servers: 2 Intel servers (uni-PIII/450) + IIS (one Extranet, one Intranet)
• UNIX web server: 1 LINUX PC + Apache
• VMS: 2 Alpha 1000(A) + 7 AlphaStations (running OpenVMS V7.1)

LAN

• DEChub 900 and PPD FDDI (all in machine room) to RAL FDDI backbone
• PPD 10/100/1000 Ethernet: 3COM 9300 Gigaswitch + 10 3COM 3300 switches
• All PPD offices now connected to fully switched Ethernet (Gigabit uplinks)
• Using DHCP for laptop support

Mail

• 90% of PPD now using CLRC-managed Exchange service
• PPD has its own Exchange Server, purchased by us and run by ITD
• Supported MUA's are Outlook and Pine

Non-supported systems

• Systems in RAL labs and test beams (many of these are LINUX)
• LINUX on the desktop (3 users dual boot LINUX with NT). One group has bought 3 PCs and will have two systems (NT and LINUX) on desktops.
• Laptops not purchased by Computing Group (we offer initial installation of NT)

Other items

• Firewall implemented and Security Policy published (by CLRC). Firewall has been tightened up (TCP port filtering, UDP largely blocked.)
• Printing has been rationalised: all OS's print through a single server, run by ITD
• Colour printing on 1 HP Colour Laser and 1 new ink jet (HP 2500)
• A public PC and 6 physicist desktops are now equipped for Video Conferencing.
• Standardised on 19" monitors on PCs.

Link to PPD plans    Link to PPD Concerns