IT Services Guides

Devolved Departmental Public Web Serving Policy

• Guide X1.3

This Policy was adopted by the Senior Management Team, February 1999

1. Does your department need its own public server?
2. Non-public uses of a department server
3. Licensing of Departmental Public Servers
4. Commitment of IS to fulfil server needs of Departments on central server

1. Does your department need its own public server?

Information Services at Goldsmiths provides an extensive and ever improving range of network facilities throughout the College. These include the 'serving' of Internet material to the world at large via the JANET Network and making this available to users within the College. To do this effectively Goldsmiths has invested a great deal of money, skills and personnel. A new, state-of-the-art 'Enterprise' level server was introduced in late 1998, and two smaller servers assist in handling DNS resolution, our own web cache, and other related functions. Up to five highly skilled personnel are specifically involved in running the network, which has an impressive record of performance, stability and availability. Despite the continuing increase in demand for access to e-mail and the World Wide Web the capacity of the system is still far in excess of Goldsmiths requirments, and compares well with network systems in other institutions.

All academic departments of the College are now required to produce material for Goldsmiths web site to complement information produced centrally that is based on the published prospectuses. The Goldsmiths web site is managed by the Web Team, and monitored by the Web Steering Group and Web Editorial Group. This information is served on the World Wide Web by the Central College server, as are most of the departmental contributions to Goldsmith's Web Site.

With improvements in hardware and software it has become relatively easy for anyone connected to the Internet to set their computer up to serve data over the Internet. Indeed, some popular web development applications, such as Microsoft FrontPage and Filemaker Pro, configure the computer to do this by default. Whereas this may seem to bestow many advantages to the web developer, especially in the ability to port databases dynamically to the web, the technical, resourcing and management implications for an institution like Goldsmiths are immense. Specifically, these include:

• Duplication of Resources

  To set up an effective public web server requires a powerful machine, ideally dedicated to the purpose. This will cost a minimum of £2000, which may be large part of a departmental IT budgets. The serving facility that this machine will provide is effectively duplicating the higher quality service provided by IS at no cost to departments. Looked another way, the money spent could provide 3-4 decent machines for use by staff or students. IS is given a substantial budget to provide these resources. Is it fair to waste College money through unnecessary resource duplication?

• Technical Support

  Despite the ease with which a computer can be set up to serve data, running an efficient, 24-hour public web server that can cope with anything other than very light traffic requires specialised skills and knowledge and a great deal of time-commitment. Users who have to wait minutes to get a connection to your server will probably give up, and get a poor impression of both the department and the College as a whole. Security, search and index functions, backing-up, etc., are among the other technical matters that need to be addressed. Information Services has no resources (or policy) to support the running of departmental servers.

• Network considerations

  The College has invested in a sophisticated network with over a thousand connection points. This is designed, however, to allow fast delivery of data between College users and to/from the central network servers based in IS. It is not designed to facilitate public web serving from within, and trying to get it do so would place tremendous strain on the system at the expense of all other users. In addition, the College runs its own web cache to speed up delivery of popular pages and to cut down on transatlantic connection charges. A departmental server would not be routed to this facility, making access even by internal users slow and, once again, heavy on network resources.

• Personnel

  Often the desire for a department to have its own web server derives from the enthusiasm of an individual member, or small group, of staff who may well have the skills (if not the time!) to run a public web server. However, staff turnover at all levels is a fact of life, and when that person goes who is going to take over running the server? Recruiting competent technicians worth these skills in London is extremely difficult, as they can earn a lot more money in the commercial sector than here. Without meticulous planning and correct strategies the department could find itself without an effective web presence which would be damaging, not least to the College as a whole. It is unlikely that IS would be able to 'pick up the pieces' in such a case.

• Content control and security

  Internet content is becoming an increasingly contentious issue. Plagiarism, obscenity, breach of copyright, and incitement are but a few of the issues that plague the public conception of the Internet. Something the size of the World Wide Web is bound to reflect every aspect of the condition of humanity, and in reality the darker corners have little significance for the majority of users. As an institution, however we have to ensure (both legally and morally) that all the information we publish is acceptable, appropriate and accurate. The College has various sets of Guidelines that have a bearing on this, but the Head of Department is ultimately responsible for the everything published by the department. The central College web site and web server are monitored by the Web Team, the Web Editorial Group and the Web Steering Committee to avoid any inappropriate information being served. Departments running their own servers would have to have policies and procedures to protect their HoD from incrimination, and to protect Goldsmiths from the effects of such transgressions.

  The most likely way this could happen is throughout someone gaining unauthorised access to the Department web server, either physically or via the network. The server could be closed down immediately by the College (or the Police) on even the suspicion of illegality, thus suspending the service entirely. Similarly, if the server was stolen, damaged by fire, vandalised or if it breaks down, the service is suspended. Information Services has extensive duplexing and back-up systems to avoid this eventuality, as well as a carefully defined Disaster Recovery Plan and sophisticated physical and electronic security.

2. Non-public uses of a department server

Open access facilities provided by Information Services for staff and students are heavily used. Many departments provide computers for use by members of the department, especially where specialist hardware or software is required. Increasingly IT is being used in many aspects of the teaching and learning process, which is likely in itself to result in even heavier demand on central and locally provided facilities.

Departments may well benefit from having their own server restricted to providing information and resources to members of that department. Access would be restricted by password or IP protection, and although this would result in some extra network traffic it is unlikely to be as great as trying to provide a public service. Some of the uses to which an internal department server could be put are:

• Circulation lists
• Teaching and Learning materials and resources
• Links library
• Research material
• Timetable
• News Bulletins
• Bibliographies, reading lists.
• Student projects and experiments.

This would give secure access to information that the department might not wish to see published more widely (such as reading lists and teaching materials) from any Internet-linked computer (including, of course, those in IS), and perhaps result in cost savings on photocopying and other reprographics.

Official departmental information for public consumption would continue to be mounted on the central IS Web server.

3. Licensing of Departmental Public Servers

Given the availability and flexibility of Internet serving facilities provided centrally for College use by IS, a department must demonstrate a clear need for their own server. This is controlled by licensing, based on the fulfilment of a number of criteria and subject to the approval of a licensing committee.

These criteria might include:

• Demonstration of reason why an IS web server cannot be used to same effect
• Guaranteed provision of suitably skilled staff with enough time allowed to run server
• Confirmation (in writing) of HoD's responsibility for contents
• Nominated senior member of department staff given editorial control
• Back-up/Disaster Recovery Plan
• Evidence of adequate physical and network security
• Certification by IS that network node can support public serving
• Strategic plan for deployment and management of server
• Adherence to JANET Acceptable Use Policy and relevant College Guidelines.

The licence would be granted for a year and reviewed by submission to the moderating committee, who have the right to terminate the licence if the issuing conditions were not being met.

Public serving of data without such a licence is otherwise forbidden by College Regulation 23.4.9, which states:

Public Internet servers may only be established on the College network with the prior, written permission of the Director of Information Services. Permission will be granted only where a proposed server meets the criteria set out in the Devolved Departmental Public Web Serving Policy. Information Services may disconnect without notice any public Internet server on the College network not so authorised.

4. Commitment of IS to fulfil server needs of Departments on central server

Departments using the IS 'virtual' web serving facilities can expect the resources, help and support necessary to enable effectively and uninterrupted delivery of their Internet content. This includes:

• Provision of usage statistics
• Access to CGI scripts, including counter, form-to-mail, etc.
• E-mail forwarding from web mail-to links to preserve anonymity
• Advance warning of any down-time or other interruption to service
• Unlimited uploading access via FTP or mounted drive
• Within reason, no limit to amount server disk space
• Allocation of virtual server URL (e.g.www.biology.gold.ac.uk)