Academic Mainframe Services to be Terminated in 2003

By Dr. Philip Baczewski, Associate Director of Academic Computing

This announcement is to finalize what was proposed in the November 2001 issue of Benchmarks Online as well as in an E-mail to the faculty Academic Mainframe account holders list. Having received only three comments back from faculty in this regard, none of which were negative, the shutdown of the Academic Mainframe system will occur as proposed. The timetable for this process is as follows:

• Immediately: cessation of creating new individual Academic Mainframe accounts.

• Summer 2002: provision of documentation and support to help researchers move files off of mainframe storage.

• Fall 2002: continued support for account holders to assist in moving data and programs off of the mainframe.

• Spring 2003: final attempts to contact researchers and assist them in moving files off of the mainframe.

• Beginning of Summer I 2003: termination of all individual accounts for Academic Mainframe Access. This means that after the Spring 2003 semester, it will no longer be possible for individuals to log into the Academic Mainframe. All files and programs should be transferred off of Mainframe account by this time.

• August 31, 2003: expiration of Academic Mainframe licenses and final shutdown of the Academic partition of the UNT IBM Mainframe.

ACS staff have made plans to assist people in moving data from VM and MVS storage to an alternate location, with the researcher's desktop workstation or Novell home directory as the first recommendation. Most desktop systems are more than capable of supporting the type of data analysis activity that is still done on the Academic Mainframe.

If you have any questions about the termination of Academic Mainframe services, please direct them to Dr. Philip Baczewski,Associate Director of Academic Computing, (baczewski@unt.edu).