Visualization can be an effective way to explore and understand abstract data. Due to the rapidly changing technological environment of sys admin work and the scale of data involved, enhanced visualizations might provide benefit in this domain; however, despite research efforts, to-date the tools for system administrators (sys admins) minimally employ the use of interactivity in models and provide limited visualizations in tools. This may be because sys admins have a culture of command-line interface (CLI) use that is at odds to the graphical user interface (GUI) that accompanies most tools that incorporate interactive visualizations. We designed a two phase study to gain a better understanding about the work of sys admins, their current tool environment, their preferences for CLI and GUI based tools, and their perspective about how the inclusion of interactive visualizations in tools and system models might enhance their routines. The first phase of contextual inquiries and semi-structured interviews with 37 participants gave us a rich understanding of system admin work practices and their desired functionality for future tools. In the second phase, an on-line survey with 331 sys admins allowed us to generalize our findings. Based on our research, we generated recommendations for desired tool features in each of the sub-domains of sys admin work (i.e., network, virtualization etc.,). We also conducted an analysis of the type of visualizations that could be implemented in future tools to support the challenging nature of sys admin work.

>Magister Scientiae - MSc / In this chapter, we provide the motivation and background behind the automatic optimisation of an operating system. We begin with a discussion of some of the difficulties of automatic operating system optimisation and the benefits of automatic optimisation technology which inspired our research. We then describe the research problem and aims. Thereafter, our approach and methodology are explained. Finally, the organisation of the thesis and summary are presented. 1.1 Background and Motivation In today's networking world, a mission-critical server requires consistently good performance [2] . To this end, almost all operating systems which run on such a critical server are managed by system administrators who should be skillful and experienced in tuning operating systems by adjusting system configuration and performance parameters of the operating system to run a specific system workload. This involves system capacity planning, performance metrics, workload characteristics, system settings, etc. Skillful system administrators are scarce and expensive. As computer hardware becomes cheaper and free critical computer software becomes more viable, e.g., Linux, Samba, Mysql, Apache, the total cost of ownership for building and maintaining a mission-critical server becomes more and more dominated by the cost of human resources. Furthermore, with the increasing number of new applications and services, a modern operating system offers more system parameters with larger ranges for more system classes than ever before. This situation serves as our motivation for a new generation of automatic optimisation technology for operating systems. The potential benefits of the automatic optimisation technology will be amplified as future applications and operating systems become more complex.

Gemeinsamer Workshop von Universitaetsrechenzentrum und Professur Rechnernetze und verteilte Systeme (Fakultaet fuer Informatik) der TU Chemnitz. Workshop-Thema: Infrastruktur der ¨Digitalen Universitaet¨ Der Vortrag beschreibt kurz ein Modell der technischen Seite der System-Administration, um dann auf Anforderungen und Konstruktion eines neuen Monitoring-Tools einzugehen.

This study focuses on solutions for the specific issues experienced by the distance learning program at the Lone Star College System (LSCS), a multi-college community college district located north of the Houston metro area. Utilizing practical action research methodology, the purpose of this study is to explore options for improving the LSCS distance learning program to better meet the needs of current and future distance learning students. This study combines a review of literature, local insights concerning the LSCS distance learning program, and discussions with other community college distance learning practitioners around the country for the purpose of developing an administrative proposal for the LSCS distance learning program. The study involves an exploration of the administrative and governance structure, a review of services provided to distance learning faculty and students, and an examination of quality standards for online courses and services. / text

The study is concerned with the education system of Botswana after independence. This period starts from the 30th September 1966, when Botswana became independent up to the present moment. Since then the education system has undergone many changes. Consequently the focus is on the nature and impact of these changes. The study identifies changes which took place with regard to the Education System of Botswana since independence as far as meeting the minimum requirements of education of developing countries are concerned. The minimum requirements that the education systems of developing countries, must meet are discussed according to the four central components of the education systems, viz. the education system policy, education system administration, structure for teaching and support services. After introducing the problem statement and background in the introductory chapter, the minimum requirements of education systems in developing countries are discussed in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 then deals with a historical perspective on the education system of Botswana before independence, concentrating on the different historical periods associated with educational development up to independence day. The study then discusses the determinants of the education system of Botswana after independence in Chapter 4, focussing on the particular factors influencing the Botswana education system. Finally, Chapter 5 evaluates the level to which the education system policy and education system administration of the education system of Botswana meet the minimum requirements of the education systems of developing countries, while Chapter 6 evaluates the level to which the structure for teaching and support services meet the minimum requirements of the education systems of developing countries. In general, the evaluation indicates that the education system of Botswana has undergone many positive changes and that the Botswana education system compares favourably with the minimum requirements expected of the education systems of developing countries. / Skripsie (MEd (Vergelykende Opvoedkunde))--PU vir CHO, 1997

As a result of Internet popularly, the World Wide Web, a killer application which improves the global network, is used much more frequently. Because World Wide Web is browsed through GUI (Graphic User Interface) which allows end-user to interact and operate with internet websites easily, more and more websites are created and operating. For this moment, the web based GUI proved its advantages that it can be applied not only to general website but also to electronic commerce, enterprise information system, and system resources administration. Today, the processing architecture evolves from early centralized processing architecture to recently distributed processing architecture which is composed of several servers and in which each server is responsible for a different system service. But because each system platform runs on its own unique operating system, system administrators have difficulties operating it. Due to increased numbers of servers, a well-defined systematic management architecture and remote management is necessary. This thesis contains the designs of web based system administration architecture through the designs of united library interface to increase the convenience of expansion on library. In this paper, a prototype system created during the research development will serve as theory verification and as an example for developers of future system management platforms.

The study is concerned with the education system of Botswana after independence. This period starts from the 30th September 1966, when Botswana became independent up to the present moment. Since then the education system has undergone many changes. Consequently the focus is on the nature and impact of these changes. The study identifies changes which took place with regard to the Education System of Botswana since independence as far as meeting the minimum requirements of education of developing countries are concerned. The minimum requirements that the education systems of developing countries, must meet are discussed according to the four central components of the education systems, viz. the education system policy, education system administration, structure for teaching and support services. After introducing the problem statement and background in the introductory chapter, the minimum requirements of education systems in developing countries are discussed in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 then deals with a historical perspective on the education system of Botswana before independence, concentrating on the different historical periods associated with educational development up to independence day. The study then discusses the determinants of the education system of Botswana after independence in Chapter 4, focussing on the particular factors influencing the Botswana education system. Finally, Chapter 5 evaluates the level to which the education system policy and education system administration of the education system of Botswana meet the minimum requirements of the education systems of developing countries, while Chapter 6 evaluates the level to which the structure for teaching and support services meet the minimum requirements of the education systems of developing countries. In general, the evaluation indicates that the education system of Botswana has undergone many positive changes and that the Botswana education system compares favourably with the minimum requirements expected of the education systems of developing countries. / Skripsie (MEd (Vergelykende Opvoedkunde))--PU vir CHO, 1997

This paper investigates the effects of automating system administration within a virtualized server environment. For system administrators, creation and configuration of new Virtual Machines has shown to be a common, and yet time and manual labour consuming task. Thus, this process has been studied thoroughly to find out in what degree it will lend itself to automation. The nature of the process was found to be well-suited for a high degree of automation. The automation tool is developed, presented and evaluated. A series of quantitative tests were orchestrated, testing both manual configuration and configuration by using the tool. The results were analysed, and it became visible that the manual configuration has an interruptive behaviour which is not the case in the produced process. The time improvements of the automation are approximated from the gathered test data and the results show a significant improvement in process speed-up with a test average of 300% corresponding to roughly 22 minutes per configured VM. Note that when calculating time saving and process speed-up the assumption is made that two employees are depending on the configuration which has been seen often to be the case. This work has shed light on the need for a more holistic estimation model of calculating process speed-up when you have factors as multiple people being dependent on a process and added time due to loss of operator focus (e.g. due to interruptive behaviour during the process). Furthermore, a strong case is made for the implementation of process automation in administrat ive tasks within virtualized server environments.

Every day system administrators perform many tasks that share one common requirement: information about the system.This information has to be up-to-date and reliable.To collect this information on demand and manually is time consuming and labour intensive.In the Network and Systems Administration (NSA) lab environment at the University of Skövde, there are many computers which need to be administrated.Today this is done by using a shared spreadsheet, a costly method with drawbacks.This project will search for answers to the question ``How can an automated client inventory improve the work of administrators at the NSA lab?''.To answer this question, a prototype will be created and its performance compared with the manual collection of information.In order to create a realistic and useful prototype, a list of requirements for inventories has to be assembled.The prototype has additionally to take the peculiarities of the NSA lab environment into account.The information has to be gathered without any permanent installation of a client, as there are no internal hard drives available.This detail makes it impossible for already existing applications to be deployed.The NSA administrators will then compare the performance of the prototype with the manual collection of data. They will conduct a trial during which they will be observed and afterwards answer some questions about the process. The results of the analysis of this data yielded a number of hypotheses.Common concepts like the time saving by automation get supported by this projects findings, but also less obvious observations are made. With the help of an automated network inventory administrators can become proactive and fix potential issues before they become problems.The extraction of information from a network inventory requires less knowledge about system administration, as the information is presented in an user interface.The user does not need to gather data as this is done by the network inventory.Only the extraction of the right information from the user interface is required.Information useful to the continued development of the prototype was collected as well. Improvements to the user interface as well as more automation should be added to the prototype in order to further improve the efficiency compared to the manual collection of information.

Gemeinsamer Workshop von Universitaetsrechenzentrum und Professur Rechnernetze und verteilte Systeme (Fakultaet fuer Informatik) der TU Chemnitz. Workshop-Thema: Infrastruktur der ¨Digitalen Universitaet¨ Der Vortrag beschreibt kurz ein Modell der technischen Seite der System-Administration, um dann auf Anforderungen und Konstruktion eines neuen Monitoring-Tools einzugehen.