Observations on Computing Resources
by JS
The University of Michigan certainly seems to have a complex relationship among the specific departmental computing organizations and the umbrella university. I’ve had interactions with the DCO (Department Computing Organization), CAEN (Computer Aided Engineering Network), and ITCS (Information Technology Central Services) all to get my accounts set up.
The whole infrastructure seems to involve some not-quite-identifiable set of loosely coupled accounts. As an example, I have two pieces of paper from the DCO with the same account username and different passwords. I don’t really even know what they are for. Now my perspective and experience on this is colored by my somewhat non-standard status as visiting scholar/temporary employee. If I were a normal graduate student, I’m sure most of my confusion (and perhaps the process complexity) would have been factored out using some sort of streamlined process.
I will note that computing resources seem to be confined specifically to labs, rather than broadly available for department use (as is the case with the UTCS clusters), though UMich does seem to have a specific (but separate) center for those kinds of computing needs, something more akin to TACC than the normal condor clusters that I’m more familiar with.
Also, I have a printing quota (or should soon), so I can no longer print out entire Ph.D. theses without worry. I also don’t have a personal workstation, which is standard for UTCS. I suspect that these differences are easily the result of differing department philosophies. I’ve heard that UTCS is fairly socialist in many of its approaches to resources. That is certainly a benefit for graduate students, who get to sample more freely from the collective resource pot than otherwise, but it is probably not so good for faculty, who see larger chunks of grant money swallowed up by department level commitments.
