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Project Proposals for project period September to end December 2013 (T3)

Development of new computing services by the computing staff is scheduled in project periods (three per year). The next project period starts in September 2013 and the process of prioritising which projects will be resourced starts now (August).

Please add your proposed project to the following table, completing the Title, Description and Proposer fields. You may wish to create a new wiki topic for your description. If you wish to lend support for an existing project, add your name to the Supporter(s) field. Computing staff may respond to the proposals in the Computing staff comments field.

Title Description Proposer Supporter(s) Computing staff comments
CO Documentation Review Overseeing the review of all CO internal documentation See (https://devproj.inf.ed.ac.uk/project/show/280) CEG    
MPU Internal Documentation Review Reviewing MPU internal documentation. See (https://devproj.inf.ed.ac.uk/project/show/281)      
Infrastructure Internal Documentation Review Reviewing Infrastructure internal documentation. See (https://devproj.inf.ed.ac.uk/project/show/282)      
Services Unit Internal Documentation Review Reviewing Services Unit internal documentation. See (https://devproj.inf.ed.ac.uk/project/show/283)      
RAT Unit Internal Documentation Review Reviewing Services Unit internal documentation. See (https://devproj.inf.ed.ac.uk/project/show/284)      
US Unit Internal Documentation Review Reviewing US Unit internal documentation. See (https://devproj.inf.ed.ac.uk/project/show/285)      
CEG Internal Documentation Review Reviewing CEG internal documentation. See (https://devproj.inf.ed.ac.uk/project/show/286)      
Touchscreens - run with Rasperry PI Turn results of experimentation with running the touchscreens with a Rasberry PI into a managed system.See Blog for more details. CEG    
Touchscreens - Media and System Status A new experimental "media" tab was added to touchscreens for systems status, posters and other promotional material and allowed simple user submission of material. Turn results of this into a proper service. See Wiki for more details. CEG    
Video Meta Data Index After some trials with setting up a new video meta data service (like http://video.mit.edu ) develop this into a full service. See Wiki for more details. CEG    
Firewall Hole Monitoring Develop a small service to cache (extract from LCFG) machines and firewall holes and to automatically remind users on an annual basis to reconfirm that they need the holes. Add a webmark form to allow users to submit requests for holes and update the holes they have. RAT    
Project Submission The MSc/UG4 dissertation/project submission mechanism is antiquated and increasingly flaky. Review what we should do with it. RAT    
Hadoop Component Spending a bit of time on the Hadoop LCFG component could be used to add features such as dynamic and automated node removal and addition, better monitoring and improved installation. RAT   see https://devproj.inf.ed.ac.uk/show/291 for more details
Securing Web Servers Our web servers are not as secure as they could be. The MPU recently took steps to harden the ssh servers, we should look at doing something similar for the external facing web servers to limit any possible damage and reputational harm that could be caused should they be compromised. Services Unit   See https://devproj.inf.ed.ac.uk/show/287 for more details
Mimic Uni Web Redesign The main University Web Site has recently been given a new look. In the past we have tried to mimic the University's look on our own hosted web pages. We now have 3 different styles for www.inf.ed.ac.uk pages: The new look Polopoly hosted content, the previously mimicked Uni look that we use in our Plone content, and the last pre-Polopoly pages. neilb   More details at https://devproj.inf.ed.ac.uk/show/288
AFS Automation Develop tools to automate various AFS tasks (https://devproj.inf.ed.ac.uk/project/show/135) Services Unit    
TiBS component Improvements to the existing TiBS component (https://devproj.inf.ed.ac.uk/project/show/150) Services Unit    
AFS Benchmarking Develop tool for AFS performance benchmarking (https://devproj.inf.ed.ac.uk/project/show/159) Services Unit    
Bug Tracking Tool Improved Bug Tracking Tool (https://devproj.inf.ed.ac.uk/project/show/183) Services Unit    
Web space to AFS Move user and group web space from NFS to AFS (https://devproj.inf.ed.ac.uk/project/show/243) Services Unit    
ERA/PR Enhancements Investigate how best to make use of the contents of ERA within the School (https://devproj.inf.ed.ac.uk/project/show/189) Services Unit    
LCFG client (cont) Remove dependencies on obsolete modules (eg libxml) (https://devproj.inf.ed.ac.uk/project/show/274) MPU  
LCFG config to git Evalute move of LCFG configuration from svn to git (https://devproj.inf.ed.ac.uk/project/show/289) MPU  
Use LCFG to preconfigure Apple Macs A project to use LCFG to preconfigure Apple Macs - eg LaTeX , Kerberos, AFS, etc See https://devproj.inf.ed.ac.uk/show/277 mp-unit
MPU wee projects bundle A number of MPU wee projects have not been resourced because prioritised projects have been seen to have higher priority. This project would tackle the wee projects which we consider to be of highest priority.

  • Boot component - introduce component timeouts to break deadlock
  • LCFG access.conf component
  • Reimplement LCFG network component in perl

https://devproj.inf.ed.ac.uk/project/show/264

MPU    
Research data audit https://devproj.inf.ed.ac.uk/project/show/290 ascobie    
Produce a talks.caml not-a-service See Iain Murray's proposal at ProjectProposals2012T3 (See also Devproj 292) ascobie   (originally proposed by Iain Murray in 2012)
Options for two-factor authentication Examine the options for two-factor authentication. https://devproj.inf.ed.ac.uk/show/279 inf-unit    
OpenLDAP: investigate slapd-config Investigate and test slapd-config with a view to using it for our slapd configuration https://devproj.inf.ed.ac.uk/show/266 inf-unit    
Enhancement of wallet to support external X.509 certificates Every DICE machine in Informatics now stores its SSH host keys in wallet, but X.509 certificates are not yet being stored there owing both to uncertainty about exactly what it is that we want to store, and the lack of easy-to-use documentation and interface software. This project aims to plug those gaps. https://devproj.inf.ed.ac.uk/show/240 inf-unit    
Intrusion Detection System https://devproj.inf.ed.ac.uk/show/102 (natural follow-on from #103) inf-unit    
Jabber service Our current jabber not-a-service has a few rough edges. Bring it up to scratch. https://devproj.inf.ed.ac.uk/show/221 inf-unit   As a side-effect, the service should be taken over by a more appropriate Unit

If a project is considered to be feasible, a member of computing staff will contact the proposer in order to flesh out the proposal (eg outline a plan of work, cost the project etc) in order that the project proposal can be prioritised against other projects. The deadline for submitting a project for this period is 26th August 2013. Projects submitted after that date may not be considered for T3, but will be considered for T1 2014 (January-April).

Projects are prioritised by the Director of Computing (Perdita Stevens), Head of Computing (Alastair Scobie), the computing unit heads (George Ross, Tim Colles, Alison Downie, Craig Strachan) and the School Administrator (Liz Elliot). The Informatics School Computing Plan drives project prioritisation, with other factors such as unplanned but high priority School requirements and expertise availability being taken into account.

-- TimColles - 07 Aug 2013

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Topic revision: r11 - 02 Sep 2013 - 15:22:42 - GeorgeRoss
 
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