KAREN wiki

KIWI ADVANCED RESEARCH AND EDUCATION NETWORK

University of Waikato

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Contents

Contacts

Phone

  • +64 7 856-2889

KAREN champion

Professor Doug Sutton

  • Deputy Vice Chancellor
  • Email: dgsutton@waikato.ac.nz

Number of projects using KAREN

  • 7

University of Waikato Project Plan

News - August

Symphony

The university's central computing cluster, Symphony, is made up of fast commodity PC's. Symphony is a pilot project, begun in 2008, allowing researchers within The University of Waikato to explore uses for parallel computing without needing to find a lot of money up front. After discussions earlier this year, volunteers from the Department of Computer Science have begun work on a number of tasks aimed at increasing Symphony's usefulness.

Image:Waisymphony.jpgIntel Professional FORTRAN compiler version 11.0 is now installed on Symphony. While Computer Scientists haven't paid a lot of attention to FORTRAN for a long time, the language remains in use for a number of specialised tasks.

It has been used to install the newest addition to software available on Symphony, the ELCOM/CAEDYM hydrodynamic and environmental monitoring package. This is currently being used by researchers in the department of Biological Sciences, but like the FORTRAN compiler is available for use elsewhere in the university.

A detailed presentation on how to submit jobs to Symphony can made available on a few days' notice, or you can attend the next scheduled session at 4pm on Thursday, 20 August in G1.15. A less detailed guide to how to use the cluster for hydrodynamic modelling is also available.

For more information on Symphony or how to use it, university staff can contact Donald Neal on extension 6728. See also the Symphony Wiki.

News - June

Videoconferencing Rooms

Videoconferencing rooms at The University of Waikato are used to hold meetings, to allow presentations held here to be made visible to distant audiences, and to allow students to benefit from the work of Speakers at other sites.

The university videoconferencing rooms usually used with Access Grid or EVO software are:

  • KB.15 seats up to eight and is booked through TTG.
  • G1.15 seats up to thirty (twenty for conference participation) and is booked through the Computer Science office. Unlike the other two, this room is laid out as a seminar room.
  • SG.15 can seat rather more, and is booked through TTG (extension 5000). While this room's official launch is yet to be announced, it held its first international gathering in December 2008.

For support for these rooms, contact Logan Poole on extension 4008.

Videoconferencing over KAREN should also become possible for the second semester of 2009 from a series of rooms in L and S blocks: LG.01, LG.03, SG.02, SG.03, S1.04, S1.10. That list includes both dedicated videoconferencing rooms and conventional lecture rooms. Work to allow this is scheduled for the period after the end of teaching for the first semester.

The university also uses a number of rooms in Hamilton and Tauranga equipped with Polycom videoconferencing units. Some of these rooms are operated by Bay of Plenty Polytech, but all can be booked by calling Teaching Technology Group on extension 5000.

IPv6 Deployment

Staff in the departments of Computer Science, Mathematics and Statistics (and some in the Information and Technology Services Division) have had Internet Protocol version 6 access to KAREN since 2008. This is now also available to staff in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Where SCMS staff computers can automatically receive IPv6 addresses, computers in FASS can only use IPv6 if they have an address manually allocated to them by FASS IT support.

The university uses two distinct ranges of IPv6 addresses, which are used to ensure that some services can be reached only over KAREN. This guarantees that high-traffic services can be made available from within the university without internal traffic charges to departments.

See also IPv6 Migration.

News - November 2008

Desktop Videoconferencing Support

Support for desktop videoconferencing using the free EVO service is now available from local IT support staff for staff in

  • Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
  • School of Computing & Mathematical Sciences
  • School of Education
  • School of Science and Engineering
  • Waikato Law School

The university distinguishes between "dynamic" and "static" addresses. By default, you'll be given a dynamically allocated address, which will be able to communicate with the outside world only through proxies. To use desktop videoconferencing, you will need to ask your IT support people for a static address.


Current Projects using KAREN

Future Projects

  • Cross-institutional teaching
  • Gene Sequencing
  • Remote Network Data Collection

Traffic Count

Image:Waikaren10oct.jpgImage:Waikaren10octratio.jpg

November 2009 has been the busiest month yet for traffic out from the university over KAREN, in large part due to traffic from the WITS archive. This has meant that for the first time IP version 6 traffic has exceeded 65% of total outbound traffic. (IP version 6 accounts for just over 5% of inbound traffic.)

A significant proportion of outbound traffic - not carried by KAREN - is likely to be students accessing university resources, including video recordings of lectures, from their homes.