ACUS Makes Its Mark at the Discovery Park

By Dr. Elizabeth Hinkle-Turner, Assistant Director - Academic Computing and User Services with Curry Searle, Manager, Classroom Desktop Services  and Dr. Jesse Hamner, Manager, Research and Visualization Environment (RAVE)

Most UNT folks are familiar with the Academic Computing and User Services (ACUS) division of the CITC and many avail themselves of our services housed on the main campus (the Helpdesk, Data Management, Remedy call-tracking, Research and Statistical Support, and High Performance Computing) on a daily basis. However, ACUS also has two relatively new services - Classroom Desktop Services and the Research and Visualization Environment (RAVE) - headquartered at the Discovery Park which are rapidly expanding their activities and scope.

Classroom Desktop Services

Classroom Desktop Services, headed by manager Curry Searle with part-time assistant Christopher Lacko, is the brainchild of the Provost's Office and has been functioning since the Fall of 2008. The project was introduced in this article from September 2008. Now - only a year later - the department features four heavily-utilized classroom facilities with plans for more sites in the future.

Curry Searle and Chris Lacko at CDS headquarters, B188

Searle has held end-user support and systems management positions in various academic and administrative areas at UNT since 1993 and is currently working on his degree in the College of Information's Learning Technologies department. Lacko is pursuing a degree in Computer Science and Engineering. CDS's four computer classrooms are located at the Discovery Park in rooms B140 and 142 and D212 and 215.

Each classroom in the B wing features 48 Dell 960 Optiplex small form factor computers with 19-inch flat panel displays. These computers are new as of this past summer. Customized furniture allows the instructor to raise or lower computer displays by remote control so if computers are not needed for that day's work, they can be hidden away. Additionally, computer displays and availability can be controlled at the individual desktop level so the room can be custom-configured for optimal use:

The desks in the computer classrooms can be opened and closed as needed for computer use

Upstairs, room D212 is designed just like the first-floor rooms but with only 24 Dell 960's for a more intimate atmosphere. It also features 22-inch LCDs:

Room D212 offers a more intimate setting for computer classes and the desks can also be closed like in the large rooms

Currently the largest and most flexible computer classroom environment is offered in D215. Here 40 20-inch iMacs are housed in 'pod formation' allowing for collaborative instruction and team project work. Each 'pod' has four machines with a central monitor that can be switched to display the work of any of the machines in the group. This room has proven to be very popular with students working on programming projects such as iPhone apps. Soon the room will also feature an iMac teacher workstation to add even more flexibility for instruction. Below are some views of the iMac facilities in D215:

Searle describes the extensive technical setup used to power and manage the classrooms: "For Windows we use PXE network boot to rescue and redeploy new and failed systems. The Symantec Ghost server and suite of tools allow rapid, consistent and simultaneous imaging of dozens of systems across the network. The combination of Microsoft WSUS, McAfee Antivirus and Faronics DeepFreeze keep the machines in a secure, consistent state.

With the Macs we use Apple's OS X Server and Apple Remote Desktop to 100% remotely deploy (using a combination of NetBoot and Apple System Restore) and manage our OS X clients. Faronics DeepFreeze and its plugins to ARD provide the same consistent state preservation for our Macs as it does for our Windows systems. Our infrastructure uses four servers (Windows 2003, Mac OS X and Ubuntu Linux) providing these robust and scalable services. The systems we've developed are scalable and quick to implement additional managed clients."

For more information about Classroom Desktop Services, email Curry Searle at searle@unt.edu. These '110' computer classrooms can be reserved through the Registrar's Office.

The UNT Research And Visualization Environment (RAVE)

The UNT Research And Visualization Environment (RAVE) is an initiative by the CITC to enhance research at the university. An example of one of the largest research visualization facilities is currently at the University of Texas at Austin and data visualization labs have become an essential part of the services offered by top-level research institutions. Our RAVE is the inaugural facility of this sort at UNT and is generating a great deal of interest. Located in C236 at the Discovery Park and still under construction, the facility should be ready for use by the end of the fall semester. The RAVE is being built and managed by Denton newcomer, Dr. Jesse Hamner. Hamner has diverse experience in data visualization and related fields and has worked at the George Washington University, Emory University and the University of Alabama. He has been in academic IT for 15 years in various capacities. He finished his Emory University PhD in 2008; during his years in graduate school, he learned the value of visualizing complex statistics and maps so people could easily understand his results. Jesse's wife, Dr. Bethany Blackstone, is assistant professor of political science at UNT.

Dr. Jesse Hamner hard at work building the RAVE

Hamner describes the overall strategy, structure, and purpose of the RAVE: "The Research and Visualization Environment will promote research by using high-performance graphics and a very large display to interact with large images and large amounts of data. Some types of data cannot be effectively examined on a small screen, or at a low resolution. Similarly, some data such as large images cannot be scaled down to print to letter-sized or even ledger-sized (11" x 17") paper without compromising their readability. The RAVE provides flexible computing environments and data output options: the RAVE supports Windows 7 and Mac OS X 10.6 ("Snow Leopard") workstations, while Red Hat Enterprise Linux runs on the graphics cluster."

Hamner has been working as an 'army of one' (with occasional help from the Classroom Desktop Services team) on the facility which will initially have three high-powered Windows workstations ( Dell T5500 / Dual Quad Core Processor 2.93 ghz/24 gb RAM/320 GB SATA/Nvidia Quadro FX 4800 with 64-bit Windows 7) for visualization; one Mac workstation (Mac Pro 2.93GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 8GB (4x2GB) 640GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512MB ) for research and also presentation creation for papers and conferences; a 12-display video wall and cluster (Master Node: PowerEdge R710 2xQC 2.26Ghz,24GB RAM,2x146GB SAS R1, 3x1TB SATA R5, DVD+RW,Rdnt PS,RH 5.2/Precision R5400, 2xQC 2.66GHz, 16GB RAM, 250GB SATA, 2x512MB QUADRO FX1700, DVD+RW, RH WS 4.5/ Dell 3008WFP-HC); and a 64-inch color printer (EPSON Stylus Pro 11880). A smaller printer ( Dell 2130CN) is also available. All workstations have 30-inch displays.

The Epson 11880 makes REALLY BIG prints for research purposes

Initial software will include: ProEngineer, Abaqus/Explicit, Geomagic Studio, Ansys ICEM Workbench CFX FLUENT CFD, and Tecplot 360. The MacPro features Adobe products and Office products for the creation of high quality research presentations. There will be a charge for research printouts from the Epson 11880.

Popcorn anyone? Currently under construction, the RAVE video wall will allow researchers to view their data on a grand scale

Because the RAVE is still being built, access is currently by appointment only, but consultations are welcome to discuss research needs. Dr. Hamner can be contacted at Jesse.Hamner@unt.edu. More items will be added to the facility in the future and updates as to its progress and opening date will be featured here in Benchmarks Online.

So....we have been really busy building with exciting results! Both of these Discovery Park services and projects can be easily expanded to other locations at UNT as needed. Your questions and comments are welcome about research and classroom computing in Academic Computing and User Services and I can be contacted about this work at ehinkle@unt.edu.