New World versus Old World
See also New World and Old World.
We're talking here about a project to revisit and revitalise all aspects of the technology landscape provided and managed by CSG. Rather than lift-and-shift where existing applications and operational strategies are re-homed in a new hardware and operating system enviroment, this project looked at what CSG was doing to support CSE's teaching and research needs versus what was actually required.
Thus it became a project a project of modernisation, of simplification where appropriate, of re-platforming where appropriate, and of discarding unnecessary bits and pieces, also where appropriate.
For example:
- Removing email and printing support on lab, login and VLAB servers because no one was using it,
- Removing ye olde booking system because this was an in-house developed tool, the developer and their maintenance expertise had long-since left the building, and we expect/hope that tutors will be able to handle interlopers in their tutorials,
- Handing over the job of Debian package management (installation, upgrades, dependencies, etc.) to Debian's own package management tools instead of using a CSG-created tool,
- Handing over limited responsibility and authority to change configurations and install new software packages related to teaching to CSE's own teaching staff while CSG manages the actual keep-the-host-doing-what-it-is-supposed-to side of things. Effectively, CSG supports the platform and teaching supports the teaching tools.
Underlying this is a now well-defined commitment to the Debian distribution of Linux and an equally well-defined commitment to tracking Debian releases as they become available.