One thing that we are hearing more and more in our conversations with faculty is the need for students to be able to use applications that are written for the PC/Windows environment. The problem is that managing a cluster of such machines is a time-intensive activity that does not scale to a large environment. Developments in the NT world have finally brought about the prospect that we will eventually be able to achieve a scalable solution to the problem of public clusters of PC/Windows machines.

We hope to be able to develop the tools that will enable us to centrally manage NT client workstations across campus with the same robustness, security, and efficiency as are characteristic of our current UNIX-based clusters.

We intend to bring a number of services into the NT environment, including Kerberos, access to our central AFS file system, remote management, quick installation of client machines over the network, and serial reusability. What this means in practical terms is that once our goals are accomplished, students would be able to sit down at any NT client machine in a public cluster with the assurance that they will be able to access they personal files, applications software, and other basic services and tools (e.g. email). Also, if one of these machines gets corrupted, our staff will be able to quickly reinstall it over the network and put it back to its original state. There will be no need to keep passwords on individual machines, or servers, but rather the central Kerberos authentication system will be used, as it is for most other uses here at MIT. The fact that we are aiming towards a scalable solution means that adding another 100 machines to the environment will not mean the addition of additional system managers to hand-tend these machines.

Miki Lusztig, Senior System Programmer, MIT IS.