Information Services Division:

Policies, Resources and Constraints for CSCI 577 Projects

The Information Services Division (ISD) at the University of Southern California (USC), as any organization, has some policies and constraints which will affect the CS577 Digital Library projects. Paying attention to constraints will avoid lose-lose situations. The Information Services Division also provides the CSCI 577 projects with some resources. Therefore, try to maximize the potential of those resources, and accommodate those constraints, in the system you are proposing.

Platforms

UNIX is the production platform within ISD
Production HTTP server is Apache 1.3
CGI scripts cannot be uploaded to the production machines without undergoing a lengthy approval process

cs577 account on nunki.usc.edu runs local HTTP server (apache 1.1.1) on port 8082. However, the cs577 account administrators (currently, the Teaching Assistants) are responsible for the administration of this HTTP server.
Currently, no NT Production box available 24 x 7

Security issues related to NT
Situation could change with Microsoft Premier support program
One NT machine could be made available for students. However, no guarantees on availability will be made

Mac's are still supported at USC
However, Mac Server based systems are not available for CSCI 577 students.

Digital Library Tools and Resources

Current system

The integrated library system that handles the acquisition, cataloging, online catalog, circulation and reserve functions of books and journals is SIRSI Corporation's Unicorn Collection Management System (http://www.sirsi.com)
Homer, the online catalog, is made available for public use via SIRSI's WebCat module ( http://library.usc.edu/ )
SIRSI's WebCat Gateway module provides access to ISD's digital archives databases: (http://library.usc.edu/uhtbi n/catstat.pl/52/ )
Documentation can be found at http://isd.usc.edu/isd/doc/s irsi/manpage.htm
Client-server software - UNIX based
Three interfaces:

command line interface (used by systems staff)
GUI (used by library staff)
Web interface (used by the public)

Uses the Dataware's BRS Search Engine for full-text search of bibliographic information (http://dataware.com/ )

Standard Database Management Systems used by ISD

Production Database: Sybase running on UNIX
Dataware's BRS Search Engine and database for full-text search of bibliographic information

Several tools and programs have been developed to help students

Students need not directly access the various library databases
Documentation on those tools and programs will be made available upon request
Typically, they follow the TCP/IP client-server model:

Server program, listening on a particular port, accepts connection
Server executes BRS script to extract data from SIRSI database, and returns result

Access to SIRSI data can be made available

If needed, access to just about any aspect of the SIRSI data can be provided as long as it isn't too personal about patrons and borrowing habits etc.
The desired data set should be specified

Programming Tools and Languages

Software Documentation Index by Topic: http://www.usc.edu/isd/doc/
Programming Resources at USC: http://www.usc.ed u/isd/doc/programming/programming.html
Web authoring resources: http://www.usc.edu/uscweb/authoring/
There are some CGI Web Utilities Installed at USC. For a complete listing and instructions on how to use them, refer to: http://www.usc.edu/us cweb/authoring/Utilities.shtml
Use the Java programming language when applicable (Java development tools will be made available)

Design Constraints

Build on top of Dataware's BRS search engine and database (when applicable). Candidate projects include:
• Hispanic Digital Archive
• Managing Multimedia Databases for Instruction
No CGI on production machines

Due to security considerations, CGI scripts have to undergo a lengthy approval process before being uploaded onto production machines
Often times, design during CS 577a assumes that CGI will be available, which leads to big design breakage during CS 577b

Use fully ODBC/JDBC compliant database communication

Should be portable to Sybase
Do not use vendor-specific architectures: e.g., Microsoft Data Access Objects (DAO)

Standardize around web-based clients as opposed to standalone executable programs or proprietary clients (however, may not be applicable for all projects)

Simple HTML/JavaScript based clients or
Java applets/applications

Should support both:

Netscape Communicator 4.0 or later
Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 or later
Refer to ISD's list of supported applications on the ISD web site

Experiment with Microsoft Internet technology, but NOT for production use.

Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS)
Active Server Pages (ASP)
Microsoft SQL Server

Avoid using closed architectures

Microsoft Access is suitable for Rapid Prototyping
However, it does not scale well, compared to Microsoft SQL Server
Try to remain ODBC-compliant even when using Microsoft Access
Should make it easier to port system to more scalable DBMS, or to any ODBC-compliant DBMS

ISD imposes security requirements upon all computers outside USC that attempt to communicate with a computer on USC's network. These security requirements sometimes prevent remote users who access the Internet through another ISP from accessing some resources. For a workaround, see http://www.usc.edu/is d/doc/dialup/ppp/extranet.html

Computer Resources

Current hardware configuration on staff machines:

PC Users have:

CPU: Pentium II 300 MHz
Hard Disk Drive: 2 GB
RAM: 64 MB
Operating System: Windows NT 4.0 Workstation

Mac Users have: iMac's with 64MG RAM

Network Resources

USC Network has a very fast backbone
Most of the USC Net has been upgraded to switched 10 Mbps to the desktop
Current bandwidth available: typically 10 Mbps to the desktop, many servers are on 100 Mbps links.
Network will be upgraded as the load increases
USC has a CalREN-2 connection