Marginal Revolution: Uh oh

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Uh oh

George Mason is updating to a new network system. We are told, "MESA was designed specifically for George Mason University."

In other words, MESA has not been thoroughly tested, no other universities have found it worthwhile to adopt the same system and we will be utterly dependent on the designers. Ahhhrghhh! Run for the hills!

Posted by Alex Tabarrok on October 24, 2007 at 01:52 PM in Science | Permalink

Comments

I just read up on MESA at mesainfo.gmu.edu. From the description it appears to me that your previous setup was horribly out of date, and did not provide security and data integrity services that are now commonplace in both corporate and university settings. While I am not a fan of Novell, it is a complete system used by many corporations around the world, and I would guess that quite a few Fortune 500 companies use it.

Unfortunately, it appears that computer support for faculty will not be improved to a level that I would expect from a university, but your current system sounds even worse. Are professors responsible for their own computer systems for software installation and maintenance? Do professors have local admin rights on their laptops? You have files that are not backed up automatically to a remote location?

Embrace the change, and maybe demand a little more from your IT department.

When they say designed specifically for George Mason I assume they mean that they put together a set of packages (tools) that they needed for network administration. They may need a specific tool to monitor network switches, and another package as a domain controller, another as a file server, a tape backup system, etc. All individual components are pretty standard.

Posted by: Ross Williams at Oct 24, 2007 2:22:28 PM

"Are professors responsible for their own computer systems for software installation and maintenance? Do professors have local admin rights on their laptops? You have files that are not backed up automatically to a remote location?"

Ha ha! Have you ever worked IT at a Uni?!? It's the definition of "herding cats". The challenge in those environments is usually not providing the "services" you list but getting faculty to cede enough control to allow you to help them.

MESA looks like a very reasonable upgrade of the Novell infrastructure from someone who isn't there but has worked in these environments in the past.

As for hysterics about the "custom" Novell upgrade, any environment of moderate scale is going to have/require customizations. Anyone telling you otherwise is probably trying to sell you a "standard" PeopleSoft/Microsoft "solution" and associated consulting services. ;) Rather than grousing about the current upgrade, you should probably be thankful that the Director of IT/Comm hasn't swallowed that Kool-Aid yet or you would be in for some *real* migration pain. Novell upgrades usually tend to be pretty smooth.

Posted by: at Oct 24, 2007 2:37:38 PM

Thanks. I am feeling a little bit more optimistic!

Posted by: Alex Tabarrok at Oct 24, 2007 2:38:17 PM

Actually I am an IT admin at my college. It hasn't been hard for us to maintain control because the faculty see the benefits. They never have to worry about any software, a phone call to us and in 10 minutes it is on their system. They never have to worry about updates either. And if there is a hardware failure, we can have a new system for them with all their software and files on it in 30 minutes. And they can upgrade to a new computer and expect the same service. Drop off old computer, go to lunch, come back and there is a new computer with all software and files on it. We can also restore any file that was accidentally deleted. Our users have access to almost any piece of software with our license servers.

Essentially, it makes life a lot easier for them. They want us enough to give up some of their controls.

Posted by: Ross Williams at Oct 24, 2007 6:38:08 PM

just from quickly perusing their faq (and they don't actually A a lot of Qs there), it sure looks like they're using off the shelf kerberos and AFS. I think what they're saying is "we're not running shitty AD and Exchange"

Posted by: dbt at Oct 25, 2007 11:32:13 PM

Actually, the Novell system that was in use at Mason previously is no longer supported or developed by Novell, therefore the University was forced to move on. The new MESA system is based on Microsoft technologies, mixed with a few others and is a much better solution than what was available with Novell. It has been tested thoroughly by the University.

Posted by: BillofWrites at Oct 26, 2007 10:36:52 AM

Try teaching at an institution that has developed its own on-line course management system. And jst wait until it crashes, as it will do, at the least opportune times. Blackboard may not be perfect, but there's something to be said for having succeeded in the marketplace.

Posted by: Donald A. Coffin at Oct 26, 2007 2:00:06 PM

Folks,

Don't worry. George Mason is not nearly large enough to support using anything other than COTS (Commerical Off The Shelf technology). Will it be well implemented? I don't have anything to add on that point.

Posted by: Peter Schaeffer at Oct 28, 2007 6:20:12 PM

I would be scared too if Black Mesa was involved with my computer systems.

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