millerma@dino.cpe.ulowell.edu (Mark Miller) (12/19/90)
MASE Survey For Computer Administration Personnel
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At the University of Lowell's Center for Productivity Enhancement, we are
developing a Management And Security Expert(MASE) system to assist managers who
are responsible for distributed computing environments. MASE is a distributed
expert system that monitors the operating systems and applications of a
network. It is capable of gleaning the information provided by the different
operating systems in order to optimize hardware and software performance,
recognize potential hardware and/or software failure, and either repair the
problem before it becomes an emergency, or notify the systems manager of the
problem; and monitor applications and known security holes for indications of
an intruder or virus. MASE will eradicate much of the guess work of systems
management.
We are interested in learning what problems you have encountered. This will
allow us to further develop the system's knowledge base, giving it more
capabilities. In return, we will send you a summary of the results when they
are compiled. We will also be interested in Alpha and Beta test sites as our
work progresses. So, please take a few minutes to fill out this survey. The
results should be quite useful to all participants.
We need a representative sampling of what the problems are in the
maintainance and enhancement of network computer systems. The problems
are catagorized by the amount of "time spent" solving them.
Time Spent Categories
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15 min - 1 hour
1 hour - 4 hours
1/2 day - 1 day
1 day - 1 week
over 1 week
For EACH problem, use the Problem Template below. The recommended way
to complete this survey is to copy this mail to a file, and edit the
file so that only the problem template remains. Then identify at least one
problem that you have encountered from each time frame. The more problems you
can identify, the better the results of the survey will be. However, to get
valid results, we ask that you identify a minimum of one problem in each of the
time categories. Thank you for taking the time to fill this out, and we will
send the results back to you.
Fill them out and mail it back to millerma@raven.ulowell.edu.
("<>" is where you respond):
------------------------ problem template -------------------------------
Problem Description? <>
What Operating System(s) did this problem involve? <>
Elapsed Time Spent? <>
How was this problem identified? <>
How was this problem fixed? <>
What resources did you use? (Tools, Vendor Support, Local Guru) <>
On a scale of 1-5, with 5 being very prepared, did you feel you were prepared
to handle the problem before it occured? <>
On a scale of 1-5, with 5 being very prepared, do you feel you are prepared to
handle the problem should it arise again? <>
How many times have YOU dealt with this problem? (1, 2-5, 6-10, many) <>
How many times has your facility dealt with this problem? (1, 2-5, 6-10, many) <>
On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being most critical, how critical is this problem? <>
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Thank you,
Mark Miller
Research Manager
Center for Productivity Enhancement
University of Lowell
Lowell, Ma
Phone: (508) 934-2630
Fax: (508) 458-8289
Email: millerma@raven.ulowell.edu