Calar Alto Computer Department News for 2007

We can speak about two main lines of actuation this year.

First of them is the big improvement on or Windows environment. As a new Windows 2003 Server, we installed a Dell PowerEdge 1900 which speeds up all administration operations. Together with it, the new Windows Server entrance computer was upgraded so now, external user can see better perfomance when working with Calar Alto Windows environment remotely. Now the Windows main server is also serving a CAD application. 

The second actuation line has been a big effort for introducing Calar Alto Servers into the virtualization world.  The idea was to use some servers for hosting all our Linux server together with having spare virtual machines for every of them. For this purpose, we installed three Dell PowerEdge 2900 and one PoweEdge SC440. The first three servers will have all our main Linux server as virtual machines and, on one of them, a spare virtual machine for each of the main servers. We converted the last SC440 on a powerful NAS system for sharing some data (like the weather data) between the main virtualized servers and the spare ones. On next figure, you can see the schematic of the whole system.

Together with those main lines explained above, normal actuations as installing security patches, new user computers and other related tasks were carried out throughout this 2007.

Continuing with jobs oriented to port observation rooms into the laboratory building,  we have prepared the new 3.5m observation room at the laboratory. For that purpose we have installed two dual head Dell Optiplex which have capable overlay graphic cards (24 and 8 bits simultaneously on the same screen) and developed the necesary jobs to bring ethernet network to this room.  

Also, we have improved the anti-spam system, following our anti-spam policy. Some new filters have been added, as those for DNS and black/white lists queries, together with the creation of our own white/black list. At the end of the year, a new system was built up for fighting against spam: nolisting .  

To conclude this year news, we have to mention the totally new engine for the weather application. The new program is relaying on a Linux server (a virtualized one) which interacts with the weather station through the ethernet network. Although from the user point of view, no appreciable differences can be found, for the people who must deal with it  is much more confortable. This new application now has a module for informing (via e-mail) about program errors. Also, all the application can be managed remotely. Finally there are some new outputs which were asked for by several people. However, the compatibility with previous programs that took weather data is total. No changes needed on such applications.