NRAO's Web Presence

• The Current NRAO Web Servers at various sites

• How we currently put a "(very) thin veneer" on top

• Recent Thoughts about Integration and Mirroring of our pages

• What do we want, and how do we get there from here?

• Conclusions, Suggestions for how to proceed

Official Servers (From East to West)

• www.aui.edu, auidom, Intel/Linux P-III/600, co-located in Charlottesville. AUI Corporate Server.

• www.nrao.edu, gibbon, an aging Sparc-20 in Charlottesville; our main portal.

• www.cv.nrao.edu, virtual server also on gibbon. Hosts the NVSS and FIRST surveys, and an ALMA mirror.

• www.gb.nrao.edu, sadira, a Sparc Ultra in Green Bank. Hosts some modest size surveys (to be mirrored in CV?)

• www.aoc.nrao.edu, zia, a Sparc Ultra Server in Socorro. Hosts the VLA and VLBA sites, and more.

• www.alma.nrao.edu, celeste, a P-II 400 in Socorro; NRAO's primary ALMA mirror (also gibbon).

• aips2.nrao.edu, tarzan, a Sparc Ultra 10 (?) in Socorro; hosts AIPS++ presence.

• www.tuc.nrao.edu, heineken, a Sparc Ultra 10 in Tucson.

• Through nefarious means (duct tape), we have the beginnings of a veneer of uniformity:
  • Automatic redirection of www.nrao.edu/~user/ via the findhomes.pl script;
  • The "gold" top and second tier pages created last year;
  • The phonebook database and search page;
  • Determined efforts by a few brave souls (!) to make the above work.

• Continued deployment of the web page redesign has not yet propagated down to the third tier.

• Apart from the tier 1 & 2 redesign effort last year, any appearance of uniformity has been implemented in ad hoc ways (kludges).

• We need to do better. The Web is our Store Front / Parade Float.

Mirroring

• First proposed in 1999 as part of the web page redesign

• Round Robin DNS and rdist/rsync/CVSup mirroring viewed as a reasonable approach

• Progress Stalled: funding, politics, lack of hardware, lack of official web staff, haphazard approach, uncertain scope?

• CV and AOC are likely candidates for such mirroring; TUC also (perhaps later), GB questionable (at least for giving outside users access, due to current network topology).

Integration

• Should we integrate our content under the www.nrao.edu umbrella?

• Migrate content gradually from www.<site>.nrao.edu?

• Which sites? CV, GB, AOC, TUC, AIPS2? ALMA? Not AUI.

• Should this be done via temporary redirects (breaks mirroring in spirit)?

• CV is easy: both on same machine anyway.

• VLA and VLBA pages currently being revamped; good candidates?

• Initial Mirroring could be between CV and AOC; add other sites once kinks worked out.

• Would be a lot easier if we had NRAO-wide Computing Infrastructure (NIS, UID/GID's, automount, etc).

• Do we really want to go "There" (unified web presence)? Lofty goals, but need committment from all groups involved (i.e., the whole Observatory, esp. management).

• This should be done within the context of Data Management.

• Our current Web Presence is barely above "pathetic": disorganized at tier 3, inconsistent, a "Maze of Twisty Little Passages, All Different".

• The Web is going to be the main portal for Scientists to access NRAO's services in the future: proposal submission, data mining, observation planning, etc.

• The Web is already the main portal for the Public to discover our mission and our work. THIS IS IMPORTANT!

• We have been charged (indirectly) with presenting a uniform front.

• We need to discuss and decide how best to achieve the goal of a unified Web Presence in a reasonable timeframe.

• Let's get to work!