Exclusive - A behind the scenes look

How we did it: Build 100+ systems in three days

Every August, the Computing Facilities team builds more than 100 new computers with a difficult deadline - everything has to be ready before the incoming class show up. After all, what good would a world-class computing environment be without a PC to access it?

This year, the computers numbered 119, the systems were dual-boot (Windows XP and Fedora Core 3 Linux), and our time frame was 3 days.

Did we do this with magic? With Elves? (We wish.) No: We did this with careful planning and execution. Over the last 2-3 years, our team has developed and refined a process for building these machines. This year, we set up twenty systems at a time, each downloading pre-built system images over the network.

Then, our crack team of experts boots the systems into Windows and Linux to complete the installation and verify that everything works correctly. Here, we see Don Dayak and Amy Pukl, PC Engineers, in the middle of the build process.

Finally, once an office is ready, we deliver the system, connect everything up, and it's ready to go!

We are proud of our team and the apparent ease with which they execute this process each year. We invite the new grad students (especially) to take the time to thank a member of the Computing Facilities team. Give us your feedback: tell us what you like about your computer, the Help Center, and our services; and tell us what we could do better. It will be much appreciated!

Here is the 2005 Grad PC Configuration

• Dell Optiplex GX620 SMT
• 64-bit dual-core Pentium 4, 3.2GHz
• 2GB of memory
• 160GB hard drive
• DVD-burner
• Optical mouse with scroll
• 19" flat panel display

More details
Special SCS price: $1,558.