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PCS Services and Fee Schedule

PCS is working according to a cost recovery model. Here are some details about how everything is shaped.
Table of Contents

    PCS Service Fee Schedule

    The PCS services and associated fees are described in the tables below. The services are divided into five general categories:

    Service Categories

    User Accounts

    Every member of the department is entitled to an account on the departmental server, with services including email, file storage and secure remote sessions.

    Basic Networked Host Services (a.k.a Support Commons)

    Basic services includes DHCP services or static IP allocation, DNS name registration for static IPs, security and network traffic monitoring (for detection of infected or infiltrated hosts) and problem notification; access to departmental printers.

    Host Contract Support

    Owners of computers may enter into contracts with PCS for elevated levels of support, including operating system installation and maintenance (OS upgrades, security updates, configuration changes) and dealing with vendors or external support organizations on hardware and software maintenance.

    Introduction

    The PCS service contract is intended to provide PCS clients with basic coverage of their research computers for standard hardware, accompanying operating system support and upgrades and patches thereof. This document cannot be definitive, as the variety of hardware and software issues that could require support in too vast for a concise document and the rate of hardware and software change is too rapid for coverage even by an encyclopedia of documents. The problem space is simply too big and too dynamic.

    This document attempts to provide not only a description of what we do, but, also, some insight into why do it. For example, re-installation of operating systems from scratch is offered only once per two years of contract support. This arises from the time-burden associated with the unintended side-effects of upgrades on the user experience and the potential for spending all PCS time doing re-installations. More details will be offered later.

    What is Explicitly Supported?

    A PCS support contract entitles the client computer to:

    • installation of a standard supported version of the locally supported operating systems
    • regular application of vendor-supplied or standard user-community-supplied application and operating system bug fixes and security patches
    • a complete operating system re-installation once every two years of the support contract period

    OTO Services and Projects

    PCS provides "one-time-only" support billed on an hourly basis for tasks such as might be covered under a *host support contract* and also does project work billed at a standard hourly rate (or at a price set by specific per-project negotiations).

    Printing

    PCS provides a small number of printers (currently one located in MP1003 and one in the Physics Library) for general printing needs, charged on a per-page basis.

    Fees

    This is a link to the current fee schedule of PCS: PCS Price list (access from physics network computers only)