SED-IT Standards

Here is where we describe standards, so that everyone knows what to expect, and we can do encourage standardization to make better support possible. However, as Orwell said - "Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous."

Contents

  1. SED-IT Standards
  2. Printer Standards
  3. Computer Standards
    1. New Computer Purchases
    2. Existing Computers
    3. Surplus Computers
    4. Computer Configuration
  4. Network Standards
    1. Port Standards
    2. Cable Standards
    3. Cable Colors
  5. Email Standards

Printer Standards

  • Every floor at SED will have a community networked printer.
  • Every community networked printer can be found shared on sed-win.bu.edu
  • Every community networked printer will have the toner handled by Page After Page
  • Every networked printer should have a static IP and a hostname conforming to sed-prt-NNN-bw or sed-prt-NNN-color, where NNN is the room number. (A "w" in front of the room number means "west" - aka 621 Comm Ave)
  • Every networked printer will have a label with the hostname on the printer.
  • Printers that are used by only one person in their room should not be connected to the network, and should be connected with USB cables instead.
  • If a new printer is purchased for a location expecting lots of print jobs, it will be purchased with a duplexer (double sided printing) to save paper and money.

Computer Standards

Contents

  1. Computer Standards
    1. New Computer Purchases
    2. Existing Computers
    3. Surplus Computers
    4. Computer Configuration
  • All faculty and staff get their own computer.
  • Full time faculty and staff will generally get their choice of a Mac or PC.
  • Surplus computers are available for labs and graduate students with offices.

New Computer Purchases

New computers must be purchased with:

  • Dual Core CPU
  • 2 GB of RAM
  • Dual display drivers
  • LCD monitors
  • DVD Player
  • Microsoft Office 2007 or 2008*
  • Optical mice
  • Speakers (online video is becoming more important)

Windows computers should be purchased with Windows XP Pro, not Windows Vista or Windows XP Home.

Macs should be purchased with the latest copy of OS X.

(*) If a user already has a desktop, you can use the same copy of Office for a laptop under MS licensing rules.

Existing Computers

Computers already in use should be upgraded to at least 768 MB of RAM. Please contact sed-it@bu.edu for an appointment.

Surplus Computers

Older computers that are given out for graduate student use must have at least 512 MB of RAM.

Computer Configuration

Please see Computer Setup under Procedures.

Network Standards

Port Standards

  • At least one network port in each room should be activated.
  • Data ports should be on lower left, telephone ports on upper left.
  • Appletalk ports should not be used.

Cable Standards

  • CAT5E cables should be used at all times. CAT3 patch cables (usually thin and grey) should be destroyed by cutting the ends off and replaced with CAT5E cables.

Cable Colors

Here are the recommended lengths/colors to buy.

  • 7 foot CAT5E - Red
  • 14 foot CAT5E - Orange
  • 25 foot CAT5E - Green
  • 50 foot CAT5E - Blue

The wavelengths of light go Red (Short) to Blue (long)

Email Standards

  • On Unix based systems, email should reside in ~/Mail, not the home directory. Webmail won't read outside ~/Mail
  • Whenever possible, email should be left on the server, where it is backed up and available from any computer.

SED-IT: standards (last edited 2008-07-19 22:06:17 by localhost)