April 2012 - Physics-Departmental-Computing

Wolfram - may be the saga draws to a close...
by David Colling 23 Apr '12

23 Apr '12

Dear All, I have just had a meeting with Kenny and agreed that we should buy an unlimited departmental license from Wolfram for Mathematica. The Department will underwrite this while it is decided how much each research group should pay and how much will be paid from the Department centrally. We have a fixed price from Wolfram to be paid annually for three years so there no additional uncertainty. Best, david

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Wolfram (the mail I hate to send)
by David Colling 19 Apr '12

19 Apr '12

Dear Jo, Kenny and Angus (cc'ing the Deparmental Computing list because of our discussions today), We have pricing through from Wolfram for the next "Comprehensive Deal". If I put these figures into a spreadsheet and assume that we keep the same number of licenses but have them all as Network Licenses, then the figures are as attached. I think that this is a reasonable approach as generally people want more licenses and were planning to increase the numbers however that would be more than compensated for by us moving to roaming licenses. Wolfram are quoting a figure of £13,782.50 for a departmental licenses. At the Departmental Computing Meeting this lunchtime there was much feeling that as a department we should have a license if it is at all possible and that it did rather make us look bad when people come here from elsewhere. John Conway expressed that it would be very useful for academics producing teaching material as they have nice tools for animations etc. I have also had undergraduates asking about it. Basically, is now the time for us to buy a departmental license? With some deal being made between the Department and the groups who already use it (and those would like to) etc. I suspect that the answer is that it is - even though I hate the idea after all that has happened with Wolfram. The only downside that I can see is that the departmental license would have to be negotiated every year as things currently stand, whereas the Comprehensive agreement is fixed for three years. I could ask if we can fix this for three years which I suspect that they might be willing to do. We need to make this decision quite quickly as the current agreement expires over the summer. Note that all prices are ex-VAT. Any thoughts would be welcome. Best, david

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Fwd: FW: MINUTES OF THE DEPARTMENTAL COMPUTING COMMITTEE MEETING 14 12 11 rev1
by David Colling 19 Apr '12

19 Apr '12

Dear All, The minutes as prepared by Vivienne (thanks Vivienne!). best, david -------- Original Message -------- Subject: FW: MINUTES OF THE DEPARTMENTAL COMPUTING COMMITTEE MEETING 14 12 11 rev1 Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2012 08:33:37 +0000 From: Frater, Vivienne A <v.frater(a)imperial.ac.uk> To: Colling, David J <d.colling(a)imperial.ac.uk> CC: Frater, Vivienne A <v.frater(a)imperial.ac.uk> Dear David, Please see attached the minutes of the last meeting for you to check and distribute to the committee, if there are no amendments that you wish to make. Kind regards, *Vivienne* Vivienne Frater Departmental Facilities Manager Room 216, Blackett Laboratory Imperial College London Prince Consort Road London SW7 2AZ Tel: 0207 594 7888 Fax: 0207 594 5470 v.frater(a)imperial.ac.uk

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Location and agenda for this lunchtime's meeting
by David Colling 19 Apr '12

19 Apr '12

Dear All, This afternoon's meeting will be in Blackett 532 starting at 12:30. I suspect that it will be reasonably quick as we have no big items of which I am aware at least. - Matters arising and actions - Huxley machine room space (what people are doing) - Desktop replacements - Teaching review - Licensing - News from ICT - News from groups. - AOB Best, david

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Meeting on Thursday Lunchtime
by David Colling 17 Apr '12

17 Apr '12

Dear All, It appears that the best day is this Thursday so I think that we should go with that. I am in a meeting at the moment and so will circulate an agenda tomorrow. Please send any agenda items. I have no surprises but the usual items. Best, david

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Fwd: RE: On a plane etc
by David Colling 16 Apr '12

16 Apr '12

Hi, Several people asked about using mathematica while travelling if we are reliant on network licenses and it appears that Wolfram have decided that people who use the network licenses can still have a standalone home license as they do now. This was the opposite of what was said in the meeting but I think should answer some of the fears expressed. Best, david -------- Original Message -------- Subject: RE: On a plane etc Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2012 04:27:56 -0500 (CDT) From: Paul Barnett <paulb(a)wolfram.com> To: 'David Colling' <d.colling(a)imperial.ac.uk> Hi David, I have spoken to customer services and it will still be possible for staff to have a standalone home use licence if they wish on their personally owned laptop. This will be allocated in exactly the same way as it is now. The inclusion of the ability to remote desktop/VPN to the licence manager will be just an added benefit Kind Regards Paul *From:*david.colling@gmail.com [mailto:david.colling@gmail.com] *On Behalf Of *David Colling *Sent:* 13 April 2012 17:38 *To:* Paul Barnett *Subject:* Re: On a plane etc Yes exactly that. Is there a solution? On Apr 13, 2012 11:16 AM, "Paul Barnett" <paulb(a)wolfram.com <mailto:paulb@wolfram.com>> wrote: Hi David, Good to meet you too. So are you saying that they are concerned that if they were unable to get a VPN or remote connection they would not be able to access Mathematica? Regards Paul Barnett Wolfram Research Europe Ltd ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Colling" <d.colling(a)imperial.ac.uk <mailto:d.colling@imperial.ac.uk>> To: paulb(a)wolfram.com <mailto:paulb@wolfram.com> Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2012 5:41:37 PM Subject: On a plane etc Hi Paul, Good to meet you today. I have been mailing the different group reps in physics and the greatest horror seems to be that they would not be able to use Mathemtaica when travelling in the new regeme if the have a network license. Is this actually true or is there a way around this? I am sure that this is something that has been considered at Wolfram. Best, david

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Wolfram and Doodle
by David Colling 12 Apr '12

12 Apr '12

Hi, I have cc'ed Jo and Kenny just to keep them informed about the Wolfram situation. A (not so) quick summary of this morning's meeting with Wolfram would be: - The current three year "comprehensive" deal expires at the end of August. This may be changed to the beginning of August to make college accounting easier. College would not loose money in such a deal. - Currently Physics spends £9,483.60 pa for the following licenses 55 Single Machine Licenses 3 License managers 17 Network Increments (i.e. movable seat licenses) - Physics is about half of the college spending on Mathematica with no other single department being significant. I also believe that there are some copies out there not purchased through the scheme but am not sure (I can think of one in HEP). - The comprehensive deal will change next time around. The changes include: o currently people who have it installed on their machines and use it with a roaming seat license are entitled to a home edition free that they can use on their laptop/at home etc which doesn't contact the license server and so doesn't count against the total. However in future this will not work in future and their extra installations must be able to contact the license server over the network and so count against the total number of seats. o the price has remained fixed over the last couple of rounds of three year deals but will go up slightly this time around. I was promised prices by Monday. - As we have discussed in our meetings, I suggested that we would probably like to change the balance of Single Machine Licenses to network increment licenses with ICT running the license servers. All were happy with this and if this is the approach that we take it is expected that some fraction of the rest of college would follow us. - The cost of an unlimited license for a department or group of departments (or even whole site) is dependent only on the number of UG and PG students registered on "technical courses" - apparently the medics are not technical but the business school is. - For Physics alone the cost would be ~£14K pa - an increase of ~50%. For FoNS as a whole ~£20K - so this is definitely a non-starter. Similarly all of college would be ~£30K which is more than £10K more than we are already spending. - I promised to get back to Wolfram with the expected ratio of single machine to network licenses. - Wolfram are keen to sell us unlimited access and so the gentleman from Wolfram suggested that he "might be able to [me] do a deal" which brings the cost down once we know the ratio of fixed to network licenses i.e. how much we expect to pay next time around in our current circumstances. - If we were to get an unlimited license, it would have to be negotiated on an annual basis and would not be part of a three year deal. - If physics do buy unlimited access then all the students would have a single shared key, whereas academics would have to apply for individual keys. It is almost as though Wolfram would be encouraging students to share it against the license agreement, especially with students in other departments. - If physics where to get an unlimited license it could change (increase) the pricing deal for the rest of college as there would be fewer licenses overall in the comprehensive pot. - As well as Mathematica College also buy 16 licenses for WebMathematica which allows Mathematica to be run through a webportal (it was assumed that these are used for teaching). There were a few other subtleties but that was the bones of the meeting and your feedback would be most welcome. I expect to meet the chap from Wolfram again on the 25th of this month. Now for planning the next meeting ... The promised Doodle poll for the next meeting can be found at http://www.doodle.com/6n2yqscddaatep4n we have a visit from the grants panel on the Friday 27th of April and so that is out for me. Best, david

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(Urgent) Wolfram and others (less urgent) matters
by David Colling 11 Apr '12

11 Apr '12

Dear All, I know that we didn't have a Departmental Computing Meeting last term. This was largely because I had a huge workload and so I apologise. I suggest that we have one before term starts that can cover both terms (we can always have one after the exams are over if needed). I will set up a doodle poll tomorrow. We have a meeting with Wolfram on Thursday and it would be very useful to have a list of what Mathematica Licenses we have currently and how many we would like in a perfect world. So if each group could drop me an email before 10:30 on Thursday (the meeting is at 11am) with this information i would be very grateful. Best, david

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