1. The Infrastructure
The Auburn University College of Engineering network is comprised of local area networks (LAN) located in the Engineering buildings on the main campus of Auburn University. The LANs (actually virtual LANS) are connected to the Auburn University network (AU-net) via fiber-optic cable which is connected to the internet and Internet 2 and other University resources.
Hosts connected to the College of Engineering network include 200+ Sun workstations and servers, 1500+ Intel based personal computers, 200+ Linux systems, 100+ Macs, and a variety of other computers including a 60 node Linux compute cluster. Services provided by the network hosts include distributed file service, tape archive, network printing, network job execution, computer lab management, and desktop systems management. The College of Engineering network also provides connection to the services provided by the Office of Information Technology (OIT). Suns, Linux systems and Macs are managed using NIS protocols and Windows clients are managed using Active Directory.
An important design goal of the College of Engineering network is the idea of a consistent environment for the users. This means that a user can login to any system on the network and have the same environment. The user's home directory is there, the file system looks the same, and most all of the programs will be available. Due to licensing costs, not all machines can run all software packages, but this is a problem of economics.
This policy is the result of efforts to educate the users of the network as to what services are available, what the rules are, and how to more effectively utilize network resources.
These policies are in addition to but do not negate University policy. Which ever policy is more restrictive takes precedence.