Е-LIBRARY TECHNICAL SOLUTION:

AN EXAMPLE OF ETU ”LETI”

Yury Isaev

Center of Information Technologies, Electrotechnical University “LETI”, Saint-Petersburg, Russian Federation

Alexey Niskovsky

Networking Technologies Office, Electrotechnical University “LETI”, Saint-Petersburg, Russian Federation

Keywords: e-library network environment, application management, policy management, user access management,

network architecture.

Abstract: The practical experience of forming the e-library network environment of St. Petersburg Electrotechnical

University “LETI” library is discussed. The major related problems are considered: managing library

applications, managing user data, development and replication of software program configuration of library

staff and users workstations, managing Internet access for library staff and users. The principal technologies

used to solve these problems are described in brief.

1 INTRODUCTION

The ETU “LETI” corporate network – ETUnet – is

rather complicated computing network distributed

around the university campus. It is heterogeneous

because a lot of different hardware, software, and

protocols are used inside.

There are about 60 servers presented in the

ETUnet at the moment, about 20 of them designated

for centralized access and usage. These 20 servers

are working under the Novell NetWare platform. All

these allow the network of such level to support

high-level productivity, secure access, data safety,

scalability, etc. The number of the client’s

workstations is about 1000.

The ETUnet backbone was build on fibre optic

cable with 2300 meters length. The FDDI is used for

data transmission across the backbone.

The ETUnet is connected to the Russian

University Network (RUNNet) and Internet via fibre

optic channel with 10 Mbits per second throughput.

The university library divisions and offices are

distributed around the campus. They are placed in

different buildings and the distance between them is

wide. All these pre-define the set of technologies,

hardware, and software that was used for university

e-library network environment creation.

In the ETUnet the Novell Directory Services is

used. All network resources and services including

allowed for library are integrated into NDS. The

network management, user administration, and

service access can be done from one control point

via NDS.

2 THE GOALS OF THE

E-LIBRARY NETWORKING

ENVIRONMENT CREATION

”The networking environment” means a total

combination of software and hardware resources,

which gives a user all the complex of means for the

most effective using of the computing network

resources, and an administrator of the computing

network gets the complex of means for users

administration and control. In this case, speaking

about the networking environment of the ETU

“LETI” library, we mean resources which are given

to different users of the library for usage by the

university corporative computing network

administrator.

The goals of the e-library networking

environment creation are mostly in harmony with

285

Isaev Y. and Niskovsky A. (2004).

Ð ¸T-LIBRARY TECHNICAL SOLUTION: AN EXAMPLE OF ETU ”LETI”.

In Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems, pages 285-288

 SciTePress

those goals that cause the wide using of the

information technologies in our life:

The integrated information environment creation

to ensure joint and effective work of the staff.

Provision of the “refusal steady” guided access

of the library staff to supplements and databases

used in the library work.

Provision of firm keeping of the library

databases (keeping from the unauthorized access,

technical breakdowns etc.).

Possibility of the access to Internet resources

keeping necessary information safety of the library

and the corporative net.

Forming and preparation of the workstations for

the library staff (PC’s software configuration, local

and network resources access definition, resource

access management by network administrator for

each librarians).

Integration of the library into the university

information and education space include:

- Making up students and teachers access to the

library electronic catalogue via web technologies

and special configured workstations.

- Administration and accounting of the library

network resources via NDS.

3 ARCHTECTURE OF THE

UNIVERSITY E-LIBRARY

Automation of the internal technological processes

in the university library accomplished by IRBIS

system. This system was built on for file-server

operations. The IRBIS system includes three

components:

Functional modules for librarians and readers;

Web-IRBIS module;

Z39.50 module.

The three servers are used in purpose of the e-

library network environment construction. The

server Bibl_3, which operates under the Novell

NetWare version 6.0 controls, gives the main

providing the library activity services. The

subsidiary services are hosted on the Bibl_1 server,

which operates under the Novell NetWare version

5.0 (Fig. 1).

The Bibl_3 server is used for the storing and

accessing the electronic catalogue, full text

documents, and IRBIS functional modules.

The Bibl_2 server provides the web access to the

electronic catalogue and full text documents (placed

on Bibl_3) by Web-IRBIS module usage. The

Z39.50 module also hosted and running on this

server for the inter-libraries information exchange.

For the Bibl_2 server transparent access to the

Bibl_3 server file system was made.

4 USED TECHNICAL SOLUTIONS

For the successful e-Library network environment

creation the following technical tasks must be

solved:

Creating of the program configurations (images)

for every kind of workstations that are used in the

university library (library staff workstations, visitor

workstations). Choosing and realizing the program

for replication of these created program

configurations.

Creating the model of personalization of the

library staff works (creating and holding personal

options, holding personal information (for

documents, e-mails, etc.), conducting the actions for

the users and workstations policies management).

Choosing and realizing the application

management system for the university library. The

application access and deliveries policies creation

for librarians and library visitors (students, lectors,

researchers, etc.).

Creating the policies for the RUNNet and

Internet access for librarians and library visitors.

Choosing and implementing the Internet access

control system.

All technical solutions and used technologies are

based on integration of ZENworks software package

(produced by Novell, Inc) with directory services

NDS of ETUnet.

4.1 The workstation software

configuration management

Among the library workstations there are two types

of them – for the librarians and for readers of the

library. In the librarians computers Microsoft

Windows 2000 Professional is used, in the readers

computers – Microsoft Windows NT 4.0

Workstation.

While creating the software images of

workstations to less the expenses for recreating the

work ability of the workstation in case of wrong

actions of the user or of some “wrong” programs,

the model of minimization of the influence of user

on work of the workstation system was chosen.

During the log in procedure of the user in corporate

university network on a local PC, from which the

registration is made, network service ZENworks

Workstation Management applies all the options

(policies stored into NDS) to the user workstation,

which are important for the effective work of the

user. After the user logging off all the options

connected with this user are removed from the

workstation. The user cannot create anything on a

hard disk of the computer (except the temporary

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ETUNET

Internet

Bibl_1

NetWare 5.0

Bibl_2

Windows 2000 Server

Librarian Librarian Librarian

Reader

Router

Firewall

WebIRBIS

Z39.50

Acquisition

Catalogizer

Loan

Reader

Administrator

Home Directory

DNS

DHCP

Bibl_3

NetWare 6.0

Application Management

Image Server

Remote User

ETUNET Users

Full Text Documents

Figure 1: The structure of the ETU “LETI” eLibrary.

folders and files), have an access to the floppy disk

on a computer (except the cases when it is important

to work according to their work duties), and install

new programs, changing the system configuration.

All the information, that the user can operate or

change is placed on a hard disk system of the server.

An access to it is controlled by the security system

of Novell NetWare.

The using of this model of creating program

configurations of workstations helps to make the

reliability of them much more higher and as a result,

to make the “pressure” on a technical support

services less

The replication of the program configurations of

the workstations is realized with the help of Novell

ZENworks Imaging. It helps to create multicast of

the “images” of these stations. This replication uses

an automatic choosing of the “image” according to

the typical workstation, under the influence of its

configuration. It helps to get the “image” of the

workstation though the network. More ever, due to

the high developed functions of conducting and to

the close integration with Novell NetWare and

directory services NDS, ZENworks Imaging helps to

carry out all the important actions directly from the

workplace of an network administrator or technical

support service staff, and it doesn’t matter where the

workstation is really situated.

4.2 Application management

There are some main software applications that are

important for the work of the library staff and its

visitors. These are the groups of programs Netscape

Communicator, IRBIS modules, Microsoft Office,

Adobe Acrobat Reader, etc. During the creating of

the program’s configurations of the workstation it

became evident, that the installation of all these

software to every workstation can be unreasonable.

And the reasonable base of such a solution can be

invisible, because it could make the size of

workstation “image” very large and make the “life”

of the technical support services staff very hard.

That’s why on the base of the service Novell

ZENworks Application Management new effective

application management system was created and

integrated into ETUnet. It could solve many

problems of creating a safe access to the useful

software applications and keeping these applications

in one central point on the main library server.

Starting all these library applications is realized

form the server Bibl_3. For the most accurate work

of the programs single time copying of the important

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application files from the server to the workstation

can be demanded, as well as the changing some of

the keys in the workstation system registry.

Checking up the importance of doing such

operations and their realizing is made by the

application management services automatically after

the starting the work of this software application.

Stored on the server application files are accessible

for a user only for reading. It defends the files from

corrupting by the user’s wrong actions and protects

them from the computer viruses.

Application management helps to conduct the

user access to some software applications. On

practice it means that the program “IRBIS

Acquisitions” is able to be opened only by the

librarian from the library acquisition office. All the

rest of the users will not see the icon for “IRBIS

Acquisitions” on the workstation desktops.

Also, there is a possibility to define availability

of the software applications according to the

software and hardware configurations of the user’s

workstation. By other words, the software

application designed for Microsoft Windows 95/98

only cannot be accessible from the workstation with

Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional.

4.3 Internet access management

The library staff and visitors access to the RUNNet

and Internet is coordinated by the group of network

services DHCP and Novell BorderManager.

The DHCP service, the one of the basic network

services in the ETUnet, responses the accordance of

every workstation sending DHCP-request and send

back the IP address according to its MAC address.

Two diapasons of IP addresses are used for the

library workstations in the university library. One of

them is used for library staff workstations, the

second one – for the library users workstations. The

cause is that the library staff and the users have

different accesses to the ETUnet, RUNNet, and

Internet.

While the library staff has not limited access to

the Internet, library users have access only to the

pre-defined site addresses of other libraries in St.

Petersburg, Russia, and Europe.

The direct regulation of the Internet access is

made by Novell BorderManager software, which is

installed on the one of the main servers in the

ETUnet.

The BorderManager rules are the same as used

in the most firewall and are defined who the

concrete user or workstation with IP address inside

the ETUnet can use the Internet resources.

5 CONCLUSION

Created e-library network environment help to

organize ah efficient management and network

administration of the university library network,

informational, and digital resources. The software

applications, system policies, etc. can be effectively

managed also. All of these is the base for creating of

a modern digital library in the university in nearest

future.

REFERENCES

Puzankov D.V., Isaev Yu.N., Niskovsky A.V. The

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“Telematiks’98”, Conference Proceedings. St.

Petersburg, 1998

Isaev Yu.N., Niskovsky A.V. The united space of

information and education in the St. Petersburg

Electrotechnical University “LETI”. IX International

conference and exhibition “Informational

Technologies in Education”. Conference Proceedings.

Volume III. MIPhI Press. Moscow, 1999

Niskovsky A.V., Oblomsky G.S. University Library

network environment. Tenth Avviversary International

Conference “Crimea 2003”. Libraries and

Associations in the Transient World: New

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