12 March 1996 Meeting Minutes

Lebanon High School
6 p.m.

Present: Jack Hughes, Dave Truitt, Tom Garoffolo, Kay Martin, Diana Lehr, Monte Bowman, Terry McCain, John Wallace

Guests: Representatives from Sun Systems RE Sun work system - VIA (Vertical Integrated Applications Incorporated) - Jim Gamble from Whitestown, IN.

Jack shared "THE CHECK" from the state grant that was received this past week. The money is here ! John Wallace will be designing a brochure that will help advertise the BCCN. The discussion then turned to a possible date for the City of Lebanon. Tom Garoffolo would like to have this done at the next meeting on the 25th if possible. May want to have the brochure in hand before doing that. Maybe do some desktop publishing before making a substantial investment in publishing. Jack shared several URL's for the development information as follows:

http://www.in-motion.net/~mccaint/demo/LCSC/LCSC.html/

http://www.in-motion.net/~jgh/lions/lions.html/

http://www.a1.com/bremc/bccn/

http://www.indy.net/~jjw/

Sun presentation: Sun specializes in access to the Internet - Sun uses Solaris O.S. - its own O.S. - basis is Unix - The Internet is Unix so it works better in info. protocol. The tools and pieces are there for Internet - add pieces to the Sun system to work - Sun has an agreement w/ Netscape - SUN - Stanford University Network. A pc is like a kid that adds on fingers - slower clock speed - 110 mg now the std - the demo machine is an 85mg (no longer made). John had faxed an old Sprint proposal to use as an example. External Mem possible in larger sizes - 1/2 gig in the demo unit. I 400 machine from SUN has 2 Gig of H.D. but does not include a monitor - primarily a server for the Internet - would be wise to just buy this monitor. The I 500 - 110 mgh - 5 Gig - w/ more expansion slots (400 - only one). Sparc 20 will be dropped and they do not recommend - Ultra 20 a new product that will replace the Sparc 20 - there is card that can be bought to allow direct T-1 access to the box (Not needed per Terry with the package that they will be providing on T-1). Tape backup is necessary - should be done on a daily basis. One year warranty on the equipment - people are available on short notice for maint. by beeper - AT & T sub's the maintenance (Ex: We do the applications and AT & T does the hardware problem.) This organization would sub-contract the hardware maintenance on our system. Upgrade in year one would be $ 1500.00 - his price would include on-site maintenance as opposed to mail-in with the standard warranty - the next year the rate would go up. As a not-for-profit we should qualify for free Netscape software. Tape drive is high maintenance - scrubs a lot of metal off tape in the process and they last about 5 - 6 backups then the tape is bad. "Hot-backups" - may or may not be able to do - debate in the industry. Security - good - firewalls are possible to upload - a login password is required to access - most of the security is add on - will come with minimum security and then we will add on. Need to look at how quickly things will grow - we could lease the system do to the ever changing market. 27 MB used by Solaris - memory is like $ cannot have enough of same. 16 Meg is what one unit comes with and 32 MB with the other. In the middle is where Terry thinks our needs might be in referring to the handouts. LEASING a distinct possibility. We cannot predict what our system needs are going to be. Should start with the middle system then add on. Will want additional hard drive space - 32 Meg RAM reasonable to start ? - $ 1100.00 for 32 Meg - sold at cost at time of purchase - hard to add memory once the machine is purchased. 1 KVA sold with the demo box - on- line as opposed to off-line sold - off line will kick in when the power loss is sensed - the other system runs on a battery all of the time. Cost of upgrade warranty within the lease ? - Think we can do that. - Possible to approach a local bank ? Martinsville working w/ a local cable company. Ethernet card within the box and also Novell already loaded for WAN. The company will not add any installation to the price - just buy the hardware. Service package is very important - the maintenance fees do not include the "David" things - such as tape backup, etc. - We have not lost any data that we cannot recover - used to dealing with murders and trial information for police agency. Summary 32 MB - 2 GB - Leasing - and a service package. Will provide some basic UNIX training - No GURUS ! CPU should be in a place where the administrator could spread out books and papers and away from general confusion - considerations for locating the server.

General Discussion: The prices are very competitive and the Sun is the Cadillac of the servers. Top sites are running on Suns. The price is affordable. There are some security problems that we need to address - use of manuals can be made to help fix some of the potential problems - back door things that need to be taken care of - network hooks - to allow the "talking" - No good location for the server within the halls of LHS - the Middle School has a better location for this but LHS has more machines capable of using the system. Location of the server is becoming an issue. - Jack needs to locate a good secure location. (There is a need to keep this on a need to know basis is the implication.) In- Motion is doing fine so far - Computol and Novell don't have things ready yet for Windows '95 - Lebanon Police have no problems with their department now.

Next Meeting - for this group - could be at the library - next Tuesday evening @ 7:00 p.m.

Tom Garoffolo's new email ID: moodyb@in-motion.net


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Last updated: 17 December 1996/tlm
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