Department of Biomathematics

Resources and Environment

The Department occupies 7,300 sq. ft. on the 13th floor of the Houston Main Building of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Common areas include a conference room, library, an optical scanner, Xerox room, computer laboratory and facsimile/modem facilities. Printers and other shared computing resources are described below.

The Department of Biomathematics has a wide variety of computers that support tasks ranging from computer-intensive statistical analyses and simulations to document processing and administrative duties. The computing facility consists of servers, workstations, personal computers, and network support equipment, all operated and maintained by departmental personnel.

There are two UNIX-based computing servers in the department. One is a Digital AlphaServer 2100 Model 5/250 with 3 Alpha CPUs, 512 MB or RAM, and 34 GB of disk storage. The AlphaServer was brought on line in 1995 to serve Biomathematics users and other scientists. The AlphaServer is also used by the department's Shared Resource for Computer Analysis of Macromolecular Sequence Data in support of DNA sequence analysis within M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. As of May 1997, more than 400 institutional users utilized the AlphaServer.

The other departmental computing server is a Solbourne Series 5/800 server with 3 SPARC CPUs, 80 MB of memory, and 10 GB of disk storage.

UNIX-based workstations in the department include:

Five DEC Alpha workstations
Two IBM RS/6000 workstations
Two Silicon Graphics workstations
Three Sun SPARC workstations

Other networked computers include:

Twenty-four Intel-based personal computers running Microsoft Windows, and equipped with Ethernet cards and network software for TCP/IP connectivity. This includes two PCs running WindowsNT Server.
Twenty-four Macintosh personal computers, all Ethernet-capable and running software for TCP/IP connectivity.

Departmental computer users have access to five laser printers, all connected directly to either Ethernet or LocalTalk. Three of the printers are AppleTalk-based and provide print services to Macintosh users. The other two printers utilize both TCP/IP and AppleTalk, providing all users with print services. Intel-based PC users may use either TCP/IP or AppleTalk printers.

Ethernet connectivity is provided by a 10BASE-T hub with connections to every computer user in the Department. A departmental LocalTalk network is connected to the Ethernet via a Shiva FastPath gateway. Other communications capabilities include a high-speed modem pool for serial connections to departmental UNIX machines via PPP, and high-speed AppleTalk Remote Access dial-in ports to connect Macintoshes at remote locations to the departmental network. Serial port access to the departmental UNIX machines is also available through the institutional dial-in lines.

The departmental computing facility is connected to the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center computer network, which is in turn connected to the Texas Higher Education network (THEnet) and the Internet. The Internet is used extensively for the gathering of information from remote sources, distribution of locally produced software, and communication with other academic researchers around the world.

The THEnet connection is used to access high performance, parallel computer systems operated by the University of Texas at Austin.

Table of Contents Extramural Support