The Open Computing Facility

About the Open Computing Facility (OCF)

The OCF is an all-volunteer, student-run, student-initiated service group dedicated to free computing for all University of California, Berkeley students, faculty, and staff. The mission of the OCF is to provide an environment where no member of Berkeley's campus community is denied the computer resources he or she seeks, to appeal to all members of the Berkeley campus community who have unsatisfied computing needs, and to provide a place for those interested in computing to fully explore that interest. Among our services, we offer free webspace, email accounts, and printing (250 pages/semester).

The most important aspect of the OCF's offerings to the campus community is that we provide computing services that are otherwise unavailable. We stand as the only general provider of webspace for students and student groups. The OCF is the only accessible place student groups can obtain a groupname.berkeley.edu domain name - which aids their fundraising and improves their appearance of professionalism when hosting events and dealing with off-campus entities. We host websites for professors and GSIs from a variety of departments. Even Socrates, the campus computing system which requires payment for the same services, refers faculty and staff to the OCF. Our free email service, username@ocf.berkeley.edu, offers a Berkeley-based email account for years after the campus CalMail system closes accounts of those who have graduated. The Alumni Association offers a similar service, but only as part of a fee-based package.

To help people explore the field of computing and educate them about the resources available, the OCF also provides a variety of educational services. We offer DeCals in System Administration at the beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels. Every year, our volunteers help hundreds of students and groups in person or via email, and sometimes even phone consultation. We have documented common support issues on our wiki, and offer friendly customer service. It is not uncommon for a student to come into a lab and ask for help with a broken laptop, or a new webmaster asking for basic HTML help to get assistance with their questions. For a group of unpaid volunteers, we are very proud of the level of service we provide.

Why we are applying for funding

While the OCF is funded by the Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC), our budget has been in steady decline despite our appeals to the finance committee every year. While the ASUC has cut out funding due to political infighting, our user base grows and our equipment ages. We therefore survive on generous donations and grants that have dried up after the dot-com bust.

Fortunately, we have been extremely lucky to obtain two high-end servers through Big Ideas' Thomas Kalil from Sun Microsystems. We are also slated to receive three used printers from Cisco, courtesy of an alumnus staffer who snagged them from salvage.

We are always securing more resources to fully meet the needs of everyone in the campus community, and we do not have enough to meet a large number of them. Our primary resources are our servers and desktops.

Expansion Plans for April 2008

The OCF is currently housed in the Heller Lounge/Multicultural Center, inside the MLK student union. A recent expansion plan was approved by both the ASUC-Auxiliary and the ASUC Senate, tripling the amount of space available for our organization and users by taking over rooms in the basement of Eshleman Hall. The new space will be ours by April 2007. While we are excited that the new space is promised to us, we will have next to nothing to put in it since our existing computers and servers will remain in our primary lab.

Since Eshleman's hours are open well into the night, this would be an excellent opportunity to provide a computer lab that would be open 24 hours a day. Currently, there are no campus computer labs open 24/7 that are available to all students, faculty, and staff. For example, Soda Hall is only available to students taking Computer Science classes, and the libraries are only open 24/7 during finals.

The campus demand for such a facility is easy to imagine. Every night, residential computing facilities kick off dozens or even hundreds of users when closing time nears. With the often nocturnal nature of student schedules, this facility could be a safe place students can work late into the night.

New Desktops for the Expansion Facility

The OCF maintains a lab with approximately 24 Windows 2000/XP and Linux desktops for general use. A third of these desktops are at least 7 years old, and suffer from chronic hardware failure. Even when they are operational, they are barely sufficient to run the increasingly multimedia oriented applications our users desire. The age of the desktops are an impediment to recruitment of new staff and users, and also prevents us from exploring new software. Recently, for example, Microsoft donated 5 copies of Windows Vista, but our desktops are woefully inadequate in terms of meeting Vista's hardware requirements on even the most basic settings. Upon installation, Vista assigns a hardware readiness score known as the Window's Experience Index. It gauges how well Vista will run on a system assigning a score from 1 to 5.9. Our computers were given the lowest possible score, a 1, letting us perform only the basic functions without the functionality that Vista is designed for.

With a grant, we will be able to build new ones from scratch or purchase pre-made desktops. There is a definite demand for additional desktops from our users. During peak hours, it is not uncommon to see a half a dozen users waiting for someone else to log off. And, with the new facility in Eshleman, we will certainly be needing additional resources to deploy.

Project mission:

The OCF is an all-volunteer, student-run, student-initiated service group dedicated to free computing for all University of California, Berkeley students, faculty, and staff. The mission of the OCF is to provide an environment where no member of Berkeley's campus community is denied the computer resources he or she seeks, to appeal to all members of the Berkeley campus community who have unsatisfied computing needs, and to provide a place for those interested in computing to fully explore that interest. Among our services, we offer free webspace, email accounts, and printing (250 pages/semester).

Required resources:

1. Total project needs: $50,000
2. In-kind contribution needs: 30 Computers, 2 LaserJet Printers, Site Licenses for: Microsoft Office, Vertias NetBackup, Bakbone NetVault, Symantec/Norton Ghost, Matlab, Mathematica, Maple, Adobe Creative Suite, National Instruments Labview

Project page URL:

• www.ocf.berkeley.edu