From the issue dated October 19, 2001
|
|
|
A University Replaces Many PC's With 'Information Appliances'Experiment at Michigan Tech shows potential and limitations of the approachBy GOLDIE BLUMENSTYK Houghton, Mich.
Michigan Technological University's new Sun Ray computers are strikingly quiet, less prone to viruses than personal computers,
Still, it wasn't gee-whiz technology that prompted the School of Forestry, the math department, and more than a dozen other departments here to ditch hundreds of desktop PC's in favor of the new "information appliances." Nor was it the thrill of seeing how this long-hyped notion of "network computing" might work in higher education. For most of the Michigan Tech departments and students that made the switch -- and there are plenty that haven't or won't -- the expectation of saving time or money was reason enough. Mechanical engineering, for example, put the Sun Microsystems devices in its general computer lab and on the desks of about 140 faculty members and graduate students last year. Another 140 will be added this year. "It's not been the cure-all, but generally, we've had fewer problems" than with PC's, says the chairman, William W. Predebon. And the department has been able to put computers "on a lot of people's desks at a reasonable cost." Significant Savings At the business school, professors estimate that switching from PC's to Sun Rays will save about $200,000 over five years, figuring in the expected saving in maintenance costs. Hoping for similar savings, technology officials from a small but growing number of institutions are calling and paying visits to this campus of 6,000 students in the woodsy northern reaches of the Upper Peninsula. With about 1,100 Sun Rays already in use, Michigan Tech is the first university in the country to deploy information appliances in such a big way in computer labs and academic departments. Even so, its experiment has had only mixed success. Besides the ambivalence in many departments, few students have chosen the computers for their personal use. Sun, Compaq, and the few other companies that make the appliances promote the idea as a less costly, more efficient approach to campus computing. So do some technology experts in academe. But others are skeptical. They note that the price of PC's has been falling and will probably continue to drop, minimizing the savings that can be realized by using network appliances. And more and more colleges are eliminating computer labs and requiring students to supply their own PC's or laptops. "I'm not sure the network machine is going to save you the money you think you're going to save," says Michael Zastrocky, an analyst who follows technology issues in higher education for the Gartner Group, a consulting-and-research company. Unlike traditional personal computers, the Sun Ray network appliances have no hard drive, or any moving part, for that matter. They display information from a powerful central server, and send information back, just as a regular PC does. But with the appliances, most of the computing is handled by the server, not the desktop device. The user's data remain on the server, not the appliance. 'Dumb Terminals' Such devices, connected to mainframe computers, were known not so many years ago as "dumb terminals." The new versions, connected to today's more sophisticated servers, are like "dumb terminals on steroids," says Kevin Pon, business-development manager for the Sun Ray line. The devices offer many of the features that PC users have come to expect, like color displays and audio and video capabilities. With network appliances, technology staffs don't have to buy, maintain, and upgrade individual PC's. Instead, they can focus on the servers, where virtually all of the processing hardware and software is located. Typically, as many as 80 Sun Rays can run off a single server. It's a slight variation on the approach known in geek-speak as the "client-server model." But instead of being hooked to a powerful PC -- a so-called fat client -- the server is tied in to the simpler appliance, or thin client. Administration is simpler, and the devices themselves cost less than full-fledged PC's. Technology officials here say the experiment is already proving useful. "Trying to manage desktops has been a no-win situation for organizations," says James Cross, Michigan Tech's vice provost for information technology. "This is a futuristic model that we think can bring value to us over the long haul." The university's approach demonstrates the feasibility of using information appliances on a campus computing network, he says. If a network can be made flexible enough to handle a Sun Ray, it could also be used in the future for other thin-client devices, like smart cell phones. "We're not hung up on the name 'Sun Ray,'" Mr. Cross says. "We're hung up on the thin-client model. It's not how many we have out in the residence halls, it's how we manage the centralized servers." Not for Every Campus As the Michigan Tech experience unfolds, however, officials here warn that this model is probably not for every campus. For one thing, most institutions won't realize quite the cost savings that Michigan Tech has: The university received deep discounts from Sun because of its long relationship with the company. The list price for appliances in the Sun Ray line starts at $399, though academic institutions are eligible for discounts. And other colleges may lack expertise in Unix, the operating system that Sun uses. Michigan Tech, with its heavy emphasis on engineering, uses Unix computers extensively. Sun Rays arrived here just over a year ago, when about 1,700 of the devices -- more than 10 truckloads -- were delivered to the campus. "We bought more than we needed, in case they really took off," says Brenda K. Helminen, who helps coordinate the Sun Ray effort for Michigan Tech. The information-technology department expected nearly one-third of the 2,500 students in dormitories to lease the computers, because the price was so attractive -- just $100 per se-mester. Officials believed that students would appreciate the convenience, especially during the Upper Peninsula winter, which is long and harsh. "Does it make sense to make them march through the snow to the labs?" asks Daniel J. deBeaubien, a network specialist who also coordinates the Sun Rays' use. But so far, fewer than 100 students have elected to use the new computers in their dormitory rooms. Demand from academic departments has also been lower than expected. An Underwhelming Response Evidence of the underwhelming response can be found in an old produce warehouse rented by the IT department a few miles from the campus. About 600 Sun Rays remain boxed and piled six high on pallets, waiting to be claimed. IT staff members now realize their miscalculations. For one thing, most Michigan Tech students come to college already owning computers. And many of them, pursuing technical lines of study, prefer a computer that they can tinker with more readily. Like most students, many here also want to use their computers to download music. The university installed an MP3 player on the Sun Ray network, as well as instant-messaging software. But because the computers are on a shared network, users can't store as many music files as they might be able to on personal computers. For just $28 more per semester than the cost of leasing a Sun Ray, students in Michigan Tech's three dormitories can get both a standard PC connection and a Sun Ray. Compared with the price of the PC connection -- $68 a semester -- the network appliances are a bargain. Students who have used the Sun Rays say they like them -- and their price -- though they note that for PC users, the Unix environment can take some getting used to. Early this semester, some undergraduates encountering the machines for the first time were noticeably flustered. The math department has used them for a year in its computer labs; in the business school, they were just installed. It was "intimidating" at first, says Ashley Parks, a freshman struggling to master a Sun Ray in the math department. But as she learned a bit more about Unix, her anxiety faded. "We started working on it in 'Fundamentals of Engineering' class, and it looked less scary," she says. Derek Chapel, a freshman majoring in electrical engineering, ordered his Sun Ray because he couldn't afford to buy a computer, and figured that the device would be adequate for e-mail and writing reports, at least for his first semester. The Sun Ray can read the smart chip that Michigan Tech uses on its ID cards. "It's really easy," he says. "I put my card in the slot, and e-mail pops up." He can sit in his dorm room and use the appliance to gain access to the software that his department uses in its labs. Using Two Machines Scott Palmer, a resident adviser who re-upped for a Sun Ray this year, says he's now accustomed to going from the computer in his biology lab to the computer in his room "without really skipping a beat." In his room, he's put the Sun Ray on one desk and his PC -- connected to the regular campus network -- on the other. He tends to use the Sun Ray for class work and the PC for playing computer games and listening to downloaded music. (The audio on the Sun Ray is "kind of tinny," he reports.) The Sun Ray servers come with Star Office, a package of programs for word processing and creating spreadsheets and presentations. The software, which Sun provides free, is the company's answer to Microsoft Office. Although some students and professors aren't as familiar with Star Office as they are with Microsoft Office, Mr. Palmer says he's become so comfortable with it that he has downloaded another copy for his PC as well. Sun executives tout the software as a big selling point for the Sun Rays -- a way, they say, for institutions to save money because they won't need to buy licenses for Microsoft Office, or at least not as many. It hasn't turned out that way at Michigan Tech. The business and the forestry schools, for example, provide Microsoft Office to their Sun Ray users even though doing so requires jumping through additional technical hoops. The schools have also devised their systems so that students can switch to a configuration that works like a Windows-based system. "We turn out students who go into a corporate environment that uses Windows," explains James O. Frendeway, an associate professor of business and chairman of the school's computing committee. At both schools, though, the initial hoop-jumping seemed worthwhile. Forestry switched to Sun Rays in a 16-seat computing lab where students use sophisticated software that analyzes geographical data. Typically, that software gets upgraded three or four times a year. When the lab was PC-based, that meant performing upgrades on 16 machines. The school could have tried using a single server to deliver the software to the PC's, but that sort of approach usually requires that all of the computers be configured exactly alike -- and that rarely happens with PC's. Indeed, in the business-school computer labs and faculty offices, it seemed that every one of the 100 PC's was set up a little differently, and "managing this mess was a little hard," Mr. Frendeway says. School officials considered other brands, including a Windows-based client-server model sold by Compaq. But the Sun Rays seemed to make the most sense. "The part that I like the most is this," Mr. Frendeway says, escorting a visitor into the lab. For a moment, the object of his enthusiasm is hard to recognize. And then, as he raises his hands and enjoys a few seconds of true quiet, it becomes apparent. The familiar hum of PC fans is absent in a lab full of Sun Rays. For most of Michigan Tech's departments, though, the real incentives are the university's budgeting model and the deep discounts from Sun. Departments here provide for their computing needs out of their own budgets. So when the IT staff began offering Sun Rays to academic departments for less than $200 each, many faculty members couldn't resist. So far, 17 of the university's 22 schools and departments, besides the IT department itself, are using the Sun Rays, though some only in a limited way. A Marketing Tool? The changeover makes some people uneasy. Dana M. Johnson, an assistant professor in the business school, says the switch there to Sun Rays makes everybody too dependent on one server. She also has qualms over the choice of provider. In the business world, "who is using it?" she asks. "Are we just a marketing tool for Sun Ray because Sun gave us this so inexpensively?" People in the electrical-engineering department, too, are wary of the network appliances. For computer labs, "they're great," says Scott Ackerman, who manages the information systems there. But they're not necessarily appropriate for faculty offices, where many professors want to load their own software onto their computers. "I've refused to put them there," he says. Mechanical-engineering professors have declined Sun Rays because the devices lack the computing power they need for particular research projects. And some other professors have turned them down because they just don't like Unix. They'd rather spend more from departmental funds to get the Windows-based machines they prefer. Nor have Sun Rays penetrated the university's general administrative offices. David Hale, who manages computers for some 600 people in financial aid, auxiliary services, fund raising, and several other offices, says he'd love a solution that would let him manage computing from a single site. The fund raisers, for example, are off campus, in downtown Houghton, while the public-safety office is in Wadsworth Hall, a dormitory. Mr. Hale is also responsible for the computer connection to the president's house, which is a few blocks from the main campus. "Anything that we could do to keep us from running around" would help, he says. But he doesn't find Sun Rays an attractive option. For one thing, he'd have to upgrade the network wiring in the administration building -- and because it contains asbestos, that's a $400,000 job. And many of the people whose computers he manages would still need Microsoft Office, or other specialized software, like that required by the U.S. Department of Education for financial-aid reporting. A switch would not be simple. Moving Forward, Slowly Some other institutions are moving forward, if slowly, with their own Sun Ray deployments. The University of the Pacific, which bought 700 of the machines last year -- probably the second-biggest investment in Sun Rays by a college -- has put 250 of them in academic areas and 100 more in residence halls. It will deploy the rest over time. "This hasn't replaced PC's for us," says Louise Stark, an associate professor of computer engineering. But if the appliances work out in testing, "the next time we're ready to replace a PC lab, we could do it with Sun Rays." John Camp, associate vice provost for information technology at Wayne State University, in Detroit, is hopeful that the network-appliance model will prove successful in a campus environment. Wayne State has 700 PC's in its undergraduate library. "I would love to be able to replace those fat desktops with Sun Rays," he says. So far, he's put about two dozen in an engineering lab and three dozen in a computer-science lab. Officials from Aims Community College, in Colorado; Bryant College, in Rhode Island; Kettering University, in Michigan; the University of Texas at Austin; and the University of Minnesota at Duluth are among those who have inquired about Michigan Tech's Sun Ray program. Like Mr. Cross, his Michigan Tech counterpart, Mr. Camp says the question for universities is not whether the Sun Ray is good or bad, but "Can we effectively roll out a thin-client device?" With more and more institutions struggling to manage all of their desktop computers, he says, such experiments are important. http://chronicle.com Section: Information Technology Page: A31
|
Copyright © 2001 by The Chronicle of Higher Education