Schematic view of the department network
The computing facilities include two general purpose computers, a dedicated file server, a network of workstations and a number of microcomputers. The departmental general purpose computers are a SPARCserver 670MP/512 and a SPARCserver 10/402; a SPARCserver 2 functions as a secondary file server. The total disk space is currently approximately 17 Gbytes. All these computers and the workstations run SunOS, the Sun version of the UNIX operating system. Together these systems support a wide variety of languages and software tools including electronic mail and news, graphics and visualization tools, several typesetting systems, and relational database systems.
The workstation network consists of about 40 SPARCstation workstations. The department also has a number of X-terminals. Networking is based on ethernet and CDDI (Copper Distributed Data Interface). Both Sun OpenWindows and pure MIT X11 window systems are in active use. The workstations are used as tools for software development, mainly in research and higher level teaching.
About 140 microcomputers are available, ranging from basic old IBM PC machines, through i286 and i386 types up to the heaviest i486 class. As the network solution, PC-NFS is used. The microcomputers are used mainly in introductory and intermediary level courses. Students use the MS-Windows environment, the dBase IV database management system, and Pascal as their primary programming language.
The network of the department is connected to the university backbone network, giving access to computers at the University Computing Centre as well as to the FUNET wide area network that links Finnish universities and research establishments. The computers operated by the Computing Centre include VAXes running under VMS and Sun, Solbourne and HP machines running under UNIX. Services provided by the Computing Centre include Oracle and Ingres database management systems, SAS statistical analysis package, NAG numerical library, and Pascal, Ada, and Prolog programming environments.
In addition, the department has access to Cray X-MP EA/432, Convex C3840, IBM 9076 SP1, and SGI Onyx VTX computers at the Centre for Scientific Computing within the Finnish State Computing Center.
The national FUNET network is further connected to the
Nordic University Network, Nordunet. The Nordunet has a 1.5
Mbps terrestrial connection to the National Science
Foundation network in the United States, so the department
has a direct Internet connection.
Schematic view of the department network