Services Provided By CS IT

SCOPE OF SERVICES

The CS IT Support Group offers a variety of I.T. services to its customers (CS Faculty, students, staff, etc.)

Our goal is to provide friendly, helpful IT support in a timely manner. We are very customer-oriented and strive for keeping our users informed and up-to-date with the status of support requests and the status of our CS computing infrastructure as a whole.

We provide a documentation wiki we call the CS IT Support Wiki at https://support.cs.jhu.edu with extensive details on the many services we provide.

We are available via email at support@cs.jhu.edu.

For general user support, we are available M-F 8:30am - 5pm.


As the CS IT group resides in Malone Hall, most of our support and services are directed there.

Our CS IT Support services can be broken down into three categories:

Below is a comprehensive list of the services that the CS IT Support Group provides to our users. You can find more specific details about these services within the categories found in our aforementioned CS IT Support Wiki. If you have additional questions, please email at our support address.


Computer Systems We Manage/Maintain/Support

We maintain...

  • CS Office staff (MH 160) computer systems.
  • Centralized servers providing CS online services.
NOTES:

  • CS IT does not offer direct support for individual's or research lab computer systems (laptops, desktops, servers, tablets, smartphones, network equipment, etc.)

  • CS Faculty and researchers and their students typically self-maintain their own systems. (This includes server room rack setup and server installs.)

  • If you're having an issue with your own system, or need to configure your own system, we might be able to offer you advice, but, for any support work to be done on them, you may want to consider contacting JHU's IT Help Desk at 410-516-HELP or submit a JHU IT Service Request. Optionally, you might be able to have WSE's (Whiting School of Engineering) IT group look at your system. They can be reached at wsehelp@jhu.edu

  • Additionally, CS IT does not purchase, spec, or price out computer-related equipment for other than the CS Office Staff systems, the CS Teaching Computer Labs, and for CS central infrastructure support.


CS Online Services

CS IT provides the following online services to CS-affiliated users.

  • CS Email Services: CS runs its own email services and can provide you with a CS email address, if requested. (A CS Linux shell login account automatically provides you a CS email address. You can choose to forward CS email to your preferred email address.) For receiving CS mail, we provide both IMAP and POP services. We also make a available a web interface for CS email access we call webmail. CS also provides mailing list services. Additionally, we filter our emails in a variety of ways to combat spam. All email stored on our email servers is backed up regularly.
  • CS-based DNS Service: We can set up hostnames in the cs.jhu.edu domain for your CS-affiliated system.
  • CS-Web Services: We provide space (via a linux shell login) and instructions for creating webpages accessible through our CS webservers.
  • MySQL Database Service: CS hosts its own MySQL database service and can provide you a database for you to design and maintain. Our databases are backed up regularly.
  • Virtual Machine Services (VMs): CS hosts a Virtual Machine server for coursework and light research. CS faculty, instructors, and students may request a VM be created for CS class use and CS-related school projects. A created VM is then configured and maintained by the requestor. VMs are not centrally backed up.
NOTE:
Please remember that other than for the CS office staff's systems, the CS Teaching Lab computer systems, and the CS infrastructure servers, CS IT does not provide direct support (repairs/configuration/etc.) for other people's/labs' computers.


Infrastructure

Network

Malone Hall contains several different networks used by different groups within the building. Three of these are networks available for CS user access.

CS IT provides:

  • Network jack-activation for CS-related offices, including initial troubleshooting of the actual network port.
  • Static or dynamic IPs. Note: We do not configure an individual's or research lab's computers' network configuration. Due to the differences in network configurations amongst the variety of operating systems that exist now, we merely provide you the IPs and related information with general CS Networking documentation.
  • We can provide you a network cable, if needed.
NOTES:
We do not manage Wifi in Malone Hall. For Wifi, please see Wireless Networking.
CS does not have its own perimeter firewall, however, JHU does. For firewall issues, please see Requesting Open Ports on the JHU Firewall.


Printing

  • We provide access to the CS IT-Managed printers located on each floor of Malone Hall, in addition to the department's copier in Malone Hall 154.
  • We also change toner in the CS IT-managed printers when necessary.
NOTES:
The CS IT group does not supply or change paper in the printers we manage. Users can obtain paper from the CS Admin Office, Malone 160.
Our CS IT-managed printers are currently available to anyone to print to from your own system on the CS (and some JHU) networks. However, the CS IT group does not configure user-owned or research labs-owned computers to print to our printers.


Additional Infrastructure Notes

Audio/Visual (including conference room and office A/V) services and support in Malone Hall are handled by other groups within JHU. Please see: Audio-Visual.
Power or HVAC-related issues in a room or office are handled by JHU Facilities.
Support for office telephones or cellphones is handled by JHU Telecommunications.
For office furniture issues, please contact Debbie DeFord in Malone Hall 160, so she can direct you to the appropriate person.
Malone Hall room scheduling is handled by the CS Dept's Administrative staff. Please visit http://engineering.jhu.edu/siteauth/malonerooms/request.html