[committee] Clubrooms in Cameron Hall

[Grahame Bowland]

2009/6/30 David Adam <zanchey at ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au>:
> My thoughts are below.
>
> Core requirements:
>  - network uplink: VLAN 13 trunked from the ITS core switches
>  - power
>  - a way to cool (at least part of) the room
>
> Desires, in rough order of perceived importance:
>  - enough space to store all our current active gear, including the snack
>   and coke machines
>  - a way to gain access during evenings and on weekends
>  - storage space for our inactive gear
>  - benches ($)
>  - a substantial number of power points ($)
>  - a phone line, or a way to get one in ($)
>  - secure storage area, or permission to build one ($) - arguments for a
>   machine room/locked racks may commence
>  - a fast (gigabit, more?) network uplink ($)
>  - in-room network cabling ($)
>  - an electronic lock for the clubroom, or permission to put one in
>   ourselves ($)
>  - a better key policy, or an electronic lock for the clubrooms floor
>
> Random possibilities:
>  - balcony access (e.g. for wireless antennas)
>  - thoughts on where to run events like LANs... Sue Boyd room (if
>   networked)? Undercroft?
>
> The items marked with ($) are those I think we could reasonably be
> expected to contribute at least some of the cost for. Maybe they're not
> all possible straight away; let's at least think about them!

I think we can also divide this up into 'in the room' and 'out of the
room' things. For example, the coke and snack machines can easily be
out in a corridor, close to the room but not necessarily immediately
adjacent. Computers need to be in the room and secure, network
equipment might be able to be in a comms room if we get the room wired
up properly (and patched back to somewhere.)

Phone line can probably be skipped, if we can get some sort of IP
telephone thing in. If it's a safety thing (tm) then I think we should
make that case explicitly to the guild.

Should we do this, I think it'd be worth investing some money to
shrink the hardware for servers down to (ideally) one small rack. I'm
not that familiar with things as they stand, is this achievable?
Off-site hosting (even elsewhere on campus) has never been that
successful, but it might be worth considering where in the guild we
could put stuff. There are comms rooms in the guild where we could
potentially hide some gear?

Dimensions of the room are pretty important; I suspect whatever we get
will be significantly smaller that what we have now, but it'd be great
if we can pick a room which is 'square-ish' so there's still some
common room rather than just a line of benches with computer
terminals.

Maybe we should tell the guild the sort of services the club can
provide it. These might be a bit of a stretch, but it's plausible
we're going to help with guild IT stuff; after all, many UCCans have
been heavily involved or even run the guild computer systems. What
else can we do to scratch the guild's back? The coke/snack machines
compete with them for getting money, so they're not a 'positive'...