Benefits to IS Support
Since software configuration will be managed centrally, there should be
fewer problems that can be traced back to individual customizations that
end users have made to the operating system configuration. Re-installation
of the operating system and applications will require minimal human
interaction. Using a centralized file system means that software
configurations will be consistent resulting in much less time spent on
determining what is actually installed on a machine. And much less time
spent on convincing users to upgrade pieces of their system. The use of AFS
also means that there will be fewer questions about how to migrate files
from one file system to another.
The common name space will also benefit IS Support. Group membership, and
access control list membership will be consistent across Athena and
Pismere. This will mean that people that maintain or modify this
information for people now will be able to do this with one set of tools,
and only have to do it once to affect all users.