scco@ur-tut.UUCP (Sean Colbath) (02/25/86)
I'm a little hesitant about posting this topic for various reasons, but
it seems fairly appropriate to this group, so here goes...
I'm interested in hearing what attitudes various people have to 'billed
computing' in an academic situation. I have had experiences at various
universites where different attitudes were taken, from no billing what-
so-ever, to extremely strict 'billing'. It seems to me that this attitude
that all computing time must be 'billed' to someone, and accounted for in
terms of real money is rather defeating, if you are not in a profit-making
situation (ala CompuServe). In addition, since these funds are usually
'funny money', it is rather silly to impose a limit at all.
Most of the setups I have seen work along the following principle: Each
user is allocated some amount of funds (funny money?) for some period of
time. At one university (university X), this amount would run something
along the lines of $10/week, while at university Y, students could get
personal accounts of yy/YEAR! (where yy is *very* small), and class accounts
would be allocated some amount like $300-400/semester, depending on
expected usage. In both of these cases, once the 'limit' was reached,
either through extensive CPU consumption, printing, or what have you,
the users were 'locked out', and could not log on again.
However, at university Z, CPU time was essentially free to all. The only
users billed were external to the university. It was fairly easy to get
an account, and CS majors (+EE and some other sciences) got accounts
when they declared their major that would last their whole 'academic
career', thereby saving a lot of paperwork. Printing was free (although
standard printout was greenbar), and there were no other extra charges
(tape mounts, connect time).
At universities X and Y, users would also accrue extra charges, ranging
from disk space to tape mounts and connect time (on local direct connect
terminals!). However, in some cases there seems to be a double standard
at work. At a specific university Y, only the large IBM mainframe was
strictly account controlled - VMS and Unix machines (of which there were
many more) had essentially unlimited time/printing/whatnot.
Please forgive my ambiguity - the names are left out to protect the
innocent/guilty.
It seems to me that the administration at the various billed facilities
took several rationales to justify their system. One, it simply helped
control system load - i.e. you could play games all you wanted, but
you had to 'pay'. Two, it was 'necessary' because of external 'customers'.
Three, it eliminated much disciplinary action (i.e. Six copies of War
and Peace on the laser printer).
All of these rationales are valid, I suppose, but I believe that they do
more harm than good. Having accounting restraints puts unnecessary pressure
on students - not only do they have to worry about getting a project done
before a deadline, but they must meet their funds deadline as well - and
a student who is simply having a little trouble one week might be left
out in the cold. Second, it restricts creativity. I know many students
who like to do *serious* programming in their own time. They are unable
to do this because of these restraints (sure, they could use PCs, but
it *really* isn't the same thing). As far as the disciplinary argument
goes, University Z simply took disciplinary measures on a case-by-case
basis. If you screwed up (printed 80,000 lines of printout in prime-time),
your id would be 'yanked' (i.e. you couldn't log in) and you had to make
an appearance in front of the operations manager, which was really enough
to strike the fear of god into you. Invariably the id would be restored,
but you would be unlikely to do that particular thing again (sorry, voice
of experience ;-)).
Sorry for this long diatribe, but this is something I feel rather strongly
about, and many universities have turned toward this (even Dartmouth,
where until recent years, *all* students had free & unlimited access to
the mainframes). As a result of this billing, CPU time is surely going
down, but some CPUs are left almost entirely idle (University Y).
I'm interested in hearing your opinions on this, either via mail
or to the net.
Sean Colbath
UUCP: ...allegra!rochester!ur-tut!scco
BITNET: SCCO@UORVM
"You can and must understand computers now!"
- Ted Nelson, Dream Machines/Computer Libmc68020@gilbbs.UUCP (Tom Keller) (03/01/86)
In article <393@ur-tut.UUCP>, scco@ur-tut.UUCP (Sean Colbath) writes: > I'm interested in hearing what attitudes various people have to 'billed > computing' in an academic situation. I have had experiences at various > universites where different attitudes were taken, from no billing what- > so-ever, to extremely strict 'billing'. It seems to me that this attitude > that all computing time must be 'billed' to someone, and accounted for in > terms of real money is rather defeating, if you are not in a profit-making > situation (ala CompuServe). In addition, since these funds are usually > 'funny money', it is rather silly to impose a limit at all. I see the entire concept of 'billing' for educational computing time as a symptom of a much larger problem in education. Many years ago, RA MacNamara, then Secretary of Defense, decide that the way to improve the efficiency and costs of the military services was to run them as if they were a corporate business environment. The result is clearly evident to anyone with a brain...specifically, unworkable bureaucratic inertia and a virtually helpless military. In recent years, there has been a strong push (mostly from the right wing) to run educationaly institutions as businesses. The results will be much the same, I fear. Inordinate concern with cost factors, particularly cost factors that do not really affect the overall financial picture, but APPEAR to be significant (such as CPU cycles on an educational computer) results in the needs of the students (and faculty) being ignored, or at best placed in a less significant attitude vs perceived costs. In case I haven't made myself clear: I'm a'gin it! -- ==================================== tom keller {ihnp4, dual}!ptsfa!gilbbs!mc68020 (* we may not be big, but we're small! *)
putnam@steinmetz.UUCP (jefu) (03/03/86)
In article <393@ur-tut.UUCP> scco@ur-tut.UUCP (Sean Colbath) writes: >I'm interested in hearing what attitudes various people have to 'billed >computing' in an academic situation. I spent some time in an environment where computer time was strictly controlled (and billed using the usual funny money artificial constraints), and worked out several methods to get more time on the machine. These ranged from talking others into signing up for accounts they would not use and getting their passwords (considered strictly illegal by the powers-that-were), to becoming a TA in the comp sci dept and using the (usually quite expandable) class accounts, to devising methods to obtain passwords illegally (remarkably easy, but by the time i had figured out how to do it, i no longer needed the accounts -- oddly, i came across my first password this way in a core dump -- i always wondered how many more people had found the same thing). One of my favorites was to wait till a limited account was almost empty then to start a marathon session which would last for hours and run every resource hungry program that i needed to run. This could manage to spend (timed right and used to its fullest extent) several tens of times the whole account in one swell foop. This enviromnent created two classes of computer science major, those who had computer time, and those who didnt. Very biased. It seems to me that computer resources should be more like library resources. Free and available to all, essentially uncontrolled. Charges are reasonable on things like printouts, tapes... (although they should certainly be minimal), just as there is a charge to use the copier in the library. If there is not enough computer time, get more. This is a legitimate overhead for a university. For universities to (as this one did) sell time to outside companies and then to limit student use because of this overhead is specious reasoning at best. Imagine the furor that we would get if student use of a library was cut off every day for several hours because some company wanted to use it. An even more disturbing problem comes in those environments where students are being charged real dollars for computer time. This is very biased, and will certainly lead to major inequities in computer use. Whats the solution? I dont know. But charging for computer use is not it. -- O -- jefu tell me all about -- UUCP: {rochester,edison}!steinmetz!putnam Anna Livia! I want to hear all.... -- ARPA: putnam@GE-CRD
jpd@kepler.UUCP (John Donovan) (03/04/86)
Distribution:net.cse
This topic seems to be taking a political direction and missing
the point. I have worked in and directed non-profits and found
them to be among the worst run operations immaginable. Even
though their goal is to deliver services to their clients (students/
the public/et al) and not to just make a profit, they have some
responsibility to use their scarce funding in the most efficient
manner possible. In this way they can extend their services to
the greatest number of persons.
Businesses use cost accounting procedures to help them allocate
scarce resources in the most efficient manner. If you don't
know what your costs are and your resource drains, you can
hardly plan for the most effective resource allocation to
accomplish your goals.
Big computers are scarce and expensive resources. You need to
know how to allocate the real costs of running and maintaining
them. this fact isn't altered by the fact that you've decided to
eat the costs involved because you're nonprofit. If you want
to make a policy decision to allow Johnny to develop computer games
on your Cyber 760 and that crowds out some comp sci research,
you need to know you are doing that. Without account billing
information, you con't realize that is what is happening.
The billing can be made painless if it is keyed to account
numbers that register when you log in. The billing information
can be handled in a manner that is transparent to the user.
Well...that's too many words about a tiny topic. Just
couldn't let it pass...!
--
----
... John Donovan, MicroPro Technical Communications
{ill-crg,dual,pyramid,ptsfa,hplabs}!well!micropro!kepler!jpdrcj@burl.UUCP (Curtis Jackson) (03/05/86)
In article <393@ur-tut.UUCP> scco@ur-tut.UUCP (Sean Colbath) writes: >expected usage. In both of these cases, once the 'limit' was reached, >either through extensive CPU consumption, printing, or what have you, >the users were 'locked out', and could not log on again. At University M (University of MS), we were allotted X dollars of CPU time (printing, etc. was not counted except for CPU usage involved), and once you used it up all you had to do was go to the Big Cheese at the Comp. Center and prove to him that you were doing real work and hadn't frittered away your time playing games and that you were real sorry for the runaway you left running that bogged the system and ate up your entire semester alotment in 3 days and.... Invariably you would get more funny $$$. Or you could do like I did and get a job programming for the systems department and get unlimited logins...I'll never forget typing in the command 'grades' out of curiosity and getting the response "Name of student: ". Talk about killing a program FAST -- I could just see the Lyceum Cops coming after me just for typing in the name!! -- The MAD Programmer -- 919-228-3313 (Cornet 291) alias: Curtis Jackson ...![ ihnp4 ulysses cbosgd mgnetp ]!burl!rcj ...![ ihnp4 cbosgd akgua masscomp ]!clyde!rcj
chen@gitpyr.UUCP (Ray Chen) (03/05/86)
I think that billing is silly. There's no reason to bill on a machine that's being used only by students and faculty. You can keep accounting statistics if you want, but why bother billing when all you do is give the user more "money" if runs out? It wastes cycles, time, and it just annoys the users. I can see billing in a situation where the University is selling time to outside users. However, then I think the University should make a decision. Are they running the machine for the students and faculty, or are they trying to make money from the outside world with it? It's very hard to do a good job of both on the same machine. The situations call for too many conflicting administrative policies. Profit-oriented machines need accounting, billing, and *strict* security. An academic environment can be much looser. If a University decides it wants to make money, they should admit it and get a separate machine for the outside world. Ray Chen gatech!gitpyr!chen
brad@kontron.UUCP (Brad Yearwood) (03/07/86)
> Businesses use cost accounting procedures to help them allocate > scarce resources in the most efficient manner. _Business_ is NOT about "allocating scarce resources" - it is about making resources profitably less scarce. Cost accounting is one tool that can be used to optimize certain aspects of the business. > Big computers are scarce and expensive resources. Not scarce enough if they are still used in significant numbers in the earlier stages of CS education. Big computers are needed to solve big problems. Little computers are much better for little problems. Perhaps it's more important to impress people than teach them. > Well...that's too many words about a tiny topic. Agreed, and now twice too many.
ladkin@kestrel.ARPA (Peter Ladkin) (03/08/86)
In article <671@steinmetz.UUCP>, putnam@steinmetz.UUCP (jefu) writes: > I spent some time in an environment where computer time was strictly > controlled (and billed using the usual funny money artificial constraints), > and worked out several methods to get more time on the machine. These ranged > from talking others into signing up for accounts they would not use and > getting > their passwords (considered strictly illegal by the powers-that-were), to > becoming a TA in the comp sci dept and using the (usually quite expandable) > class accounts, to devising methods to obtain passwords illegally > [ and more, worse] > Whats the solution? I dont know. But charging for computer use is not it. This is known as gross irresponsibility. Who do you think paid for the time you were using? Peter Ladkin
ladkin@kestrel.ARPA (Peter Ladkin) (03/08/86)
In article <1500@gitpyr.UUCP>, chen@gitpyr.UUCP (Ray Chen) writes: > I think that billing is silly. There's no reason to bill on a machine > that's being used only by students and faculty. I've mentioned it before, but for those who missed it..... Research done on government contracts *must* adhere to certain accounting principles. Those include appropriate billing for computer time. Peter Ladkin
thomas@utah-gr.UUCP (03/09/86)
We run accounting on all our "big" machines here (except the
instructional vax) for one very good reason. It provides a mechanism to
transfer money from the federal government (via "research grants") to
the computing facility. The facility, even if it were to never buy
another piece of equipment still requires many K$ each year to keep
running. It's a lot easier to convince the auditors (the source of much
evil in the world) that charges for computer "time" are reasonable than
to convince them that you were justified in getting $X in your grant and
"giving" it all to the facility. Never has anyone been "kicked off" the
machine for using too much CPU time (this includes my 1000 hour ray
tracing runs). The little machines (Apollo, Sun) that are typically
used by one person are charged on a flat per month "maintenance" fee.
All of this is "funny" money only in the sense that when your grant runs
out, you can still keep using the machine (with no penalty).
It is an extra added attraction that we can charge "outside" users *real
money* to use the facility.
--
=Spencer ({ihnp4,decvax}!utah-cs!thomas, thomas@utah-cs.ARPA)