linux-ponder Services

Evolving list of service offerings

IS&T Provides:

Services/Software/Instruction/Problem Solving/Referral

• Software developed in-house when no other software is available to meet critical computing need. Critical is defined as agreement by MIT community and IS&T leadership that criteria such as uniqueness, breadth of use, and educational impact make the need truly critical.

• In-house re-distribution of software When doing so is more appropriate than forwarding user to an upstream source. This may involve simply creating in-house copies of the software, or may involve license negotiation and bulk or site licensing.

• In-house expertise on use of a key component of the computing infrastructure where referral to outside sources or local groups is deemed insufficient. Instruction on installation and/or purchase may or may not be part of the in-house offering.

• Referral to outside sources for software

• Referral to outside sources for expertise on use

For the Athena Cluster "IS&T Owned and Managed" class of service,
we provide hardware with OS and application and service integration.

For both individually and DLC owned systems, we provide the ability to
install an integrated set of applications and services on top of
particular OSs and hardware.

For each component Service offerings would be (independent of who
provides):
The software itself that implements a key component.
Instructions on use of the component.
Answering of questions about using the component.
Instructions on installing the component.
Answering questions about installing the component.

The interesting question is, "Who provides the service offering,
depending on the Component, Platform, and class of customer?"

Options are None, Upstream, in-house.

Simplifying approach to enumerating what might be needed:
Our OS on our harware vs. foreign OS on foreign hardware.