Recipe to Lab Management Or The Cookie Cutter Approach to Building Labs

摘要

The ingredients in establishing and maintaining computer labs include determining the purpose and function of the lab; hardware and software needs; and infrastructure support. This paper outlines an approach to provide a recipe in establishing and maintaining labs. This approach attempts to lessen the guesswork and allows the lab manager to make more precise determinations when allocating resources. I have been managing computer labs for several years at Oklahoma State University and have developed a cookie cutter approach to implementing and managing computer lab facilities. This approach has simplified the process by defining the key ingredients needed whether it's implementing a new facility or just upgrading an existing one. The three basic ingredients necessary to deliver satisfying results are budget, labor, and materials. Short-term and long-term costs and expenses for execution and continual maintenance of the facility characterize budget. Expenses are equipment rollover, training of the support team, consumables, software updates, etc. Labor is defined both internally and externally. The internal labor support needs to be formed without duplicating the external labor support. For example, there is no need to have a server manager on the internal support team if the current infrastructure already has one in place. By utilizing the already existing server management, costs for a duplicate server manager can be reduced. Last, materials for the facility are outlined both internally and externally. Materials needed internally include hardware, software, furnishings, and supplies. The external materials include network and servers. Again the purpose here is to eliminate any redundant service. For example, the LAN systems team manages the lab servers for us. 1 don't need to hire a server manager.