Managed Services & Consulting - UnixOps

This contract service provides for proper functionality of the tools and network services necessary for productive use of distributed computers and workstations. Examples include file servers, application servicers, database servers, web servers, etc.

Unix/Linux Full Support Services

More about Full Support for Windows and Unix/Linux:

If you contract for Full Support, you must provide a single point of contact for your system for technical and policy questions. We will accept calls or trouble mail from any user of the system, however we cannot provide end user training.

The subscriber is expected to purchase licenses for their Operating System and application software, so that we may legally keep you running a current version of your vendor's OS. ITS Site Licensing sells OS and application licenses for most major architectures, by offering yearly vendor software maintenance contracts. Managed Services offers a Redhat Linux site license to the campus community at no additional charge.

Data backups are considered mandatory for Full Support service. The customer will either provide their own backup hardware and manage a dump system themselves, or purchase this service from MS&C, or contract with MS&C to manage their own backup hardware. IT management is pointless if your data can disappear irretrievably at any moment.

A subscriber must contract for a minimum of 6 months of Full Support service. If a subscriber is not able to commit to a at least 6 months, then that subscriber should consider a "One Time Localization" or Time & Materials Consulting Services offered through our Time and Materials Support.

High Performance Computing Cluster Full Support Services

Managed Services is happy to announce a new offering for customers, a fully managed High Performance Computing Cluster (HPCC) Service. Managed Services will build an HPCC and provide total support for the environment including cluster management software, batch queue scheduling software, 24/7 monitoring including historical data, and software installs. This new offering can save thousands of dollars in software costs otherwise spent on commercial products. In addition, our pricing model is set to ensure even the smallest of budgets can afford our services.

As with any of our service offerings, we provide full support of the HPCC cluster including:

Web Site Hosting

MS&C offers Web Site hosting on our equipment for a flat fee of $50 per month. This service exists on redundant Red Hat Linux front-end servers running Apache and PHP, with a backend database server running MySQL. This price allows a quota of 4 gigabytes of disk storage on both the front and back end machines. We do not support SSL encrypted web traffic on this shared service. Customer web sites and databases are backed up daily at no additional cost.

This service is appropriate for departments that wish to make use of dynamic content on their site, or departments using a vanity domain (non-colorado.edu) URL.

Windows File Hosting

This service provides secure, reliable file storage for users of Microsoft Windows workstations. The service is priced at $3/GB per month. This service utilizes redundant hardware for reliability, and customer data is backed up daily to an off-site location for added protection.

This service is ideal for smaller workgroups that do not have extensive data storage requirements. Groups with storage needs over 100GB should consider contracting with MS&C to support a dedicated file server for the department, college, or program.

Network Management Services

MS&C manages essential campus network databases, including "addhost" and "uniquid". The addhost database contains the master list of allocated IP addresses in the colorado.edu domain and also provides information on every host such as machine type, physical location, and contact information. MS&C creates the master host table and DNS records for the domain from this information in the addhost database.

The uniquid database maintains unique UIDs for all users across campus and maintains a list of host accounts that are associated with that particular UID. The uniquid database also enables the use of campus mailhomes and first.last email addressing. The information in these databases has become increasingly important as the demand for networked computing on campus continues to grow.

Time and Materials Support

MS&C will install any essential network services or operating system software for users on an hourly fee basis. This service has a lower priority than services to contract customers and can be provided only as opportunities permit. For our current hourly fee please see pricing.

One-Time Localization

MS&C offers initial setup of new machines for a one-time flat fee. This service includes OS installation, configuration of all network services, and security hardens to meet UCB IT security's standards on your system. We will also install any software packages you provide us at that time. For an additional per-package fee, you may opt to have any of our precompiled application software packages installed on your system as well. See pricing.

Backup Support

Copies of information regularly stored on the subscriber's computing system's fixed media disk(s) are made nightly to a backup medium to avoid loss of data in the event of a hardware or software failure. Monthly snapshots of UNIX backups are retained on tape for 12 months for the subscriber's benefit. Windows backups are considered disaster recovery only, and no archival data retention is offered for the Windows platform. Backup charges do not include the cost of the storage media (currently SuperDLT). Essentially, this means the media itself remains the property of MS&C unless the subscriber would like to purchase the backup tapes from us.

Purchasing Recommendations

MS&C offers consulting for computing hardware acquisitions free to our contract customers. Consulting, research, and vendor negotiation for non-contract customers would be billed at our hourly rate. MS&C can take delivery and assemble new hardware if the customer would prefer.

MS&C can assist members of the campus IT community who are not in complete compliance with ITS policies to become so.

MS&C Services

Microsoft Full Support Services