Project Log

My college is on an open road

Professor Shailendra Kelkar on how open source technologies have helped the Parshvanath College of Engineering at Thane save more than Rs 50 lakh

Some time back our regional engineering college had a network of 75 remote boot nodes based on Novell NetWare 3.12 server. When we wanted to expand the network, we found ourselves restricted by the number of user licences we had. While we could have got additional licences, we decided to look at alternatives that would give us the benefits of scale and cost. The expanded network had to be stable, scalable and easy to install and maintain without sacrificing on the availability and quality of services. In addition, the system had to be free of viruses and licencing issues. The chosen network operating system also needed to act as glue in integrating the existing Novell NetWare network and Windows 2000.

We decided to go in for diskless nodes as it would mean fewer administrative hassles and would let us save on hardware costs. We had three choices when it came to diskless nodes—Windows-based, Novell NetWare-based or Linux-based. We concluded that adopting open source technologies was the best bet for us. Most of our students who had gone to the US suggested that Linux was gaining prominence in the enterprise segment there. Hence, any exposure to Linux would be beneficial for students. Moreover, choosing Linux meant that no operating licence was required per node. Other factors such as no virus threats, requirement of small storage space for each node profile, and generation of minimum traffic during booting per node also influenced our decision. The integration of existing operating systems such as Novell NetWare and Windows was possible using Linux with its emulated NetWare Server and Samba. The emulated NetWare feature allows Linux systems to access NetWare servers as clients. Once a Samba server is up and running, there is access to Linux files and printers from any Windows-based host.

After going through a lot of documentation and other resources on the Internet, we found that most of the drivers and solutions available were either too simplistic or too complex. We resolved to develop our own drivers for the various LAN chipsets that we were using. We also wrote drivers to support the detection of the various types of hardware.

We have called our open source initiative Liberation UX, as it means liberation from paid software Shailendra Kelkar Professor Parshvanath College of Engineering

With the availability of high-speed network cards, remote access is as fast as that of a local disk, making diskless nodes a viable alternative to fully-equipped PCs. Using diskless nodes also eliminates the cost of software upgrades, and for system administration such as backup and recovery. This is because the entire process is centralised on to the server. Diskless nodes just need a network card to enable remote booting. Today, our network consists of more than 350 remote nodes that support triple booting, i.e. DR DOS, Linux or local disk booting. The speed of booting is an advantage as any of the 350+ remote booting nodes is up and running in less than 10 seconds. The network is also highly scalable as the nodes can be added or removed easily.

Using Linux diskless nodes gives us the ability to use old machines for accessing applications. In our network, we are even using 486 machines with as little as 16 MB RAM.

Depending on the user profile, access to every application is possible using old machines. For example, users can access the in-house online library management system and student attendance system on the server. Today, we have over 2,500 users on our network.

Our college is a heavy user of open source technologies, and we try to adopt this system wherever possible. The open source technologies in use range from compilers, assemblers, scripting tools, database servers, Web servers, mail servers, office suites, ircuit simulation software, mathematical tools and CAD systems. For example, we use Octave, an open source high-level language for solving linear and non-linear problems numerically. We also use Ng-spice, an open source electrical circuit simulation software. Qcad, an open source 2D CAD system, is used by our first-year students.

GIMP is used for image manipulation, and OpenOffice.org for general office automation tasks. Our entire library system uses the open source databases MySQL and Postgres SQL at the backend. We have replaced almost all commercial systems with open source systems. We have also successfully developed an open source smart-card reader interface.

We have called our initiative Liberation UX, as it means liberation from paid software. The total cost savings using only diskless nodes can be estimated at Rs 50 lakh. Using OpenOffice.org, we have saved roughly Rs 70,000. Hardware costs saved by using other open source software are in the range of a couple of lakh.

In conclusion, educational institutions can benefit tremendously by using open source technology. More so, new opportunities are emerging in the Linux arena, and exposure to Linux can only help students build the base for a prosperous career.