Executive Director's Report January 1999 =========================== February 13, 1999 By Christopher L. Cope (execdir@freenet.carleton.ca) Contents: 1. Administration & Funding 2. Member Services and Future Initiatives 3. System Administration 1. Administration & Funding =========================== a) Donation Data - New Registrations ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Registrations fell well short of Budget in January, at 205 new members or -49% of Budget. The financial impact was affected less dramatically at -18%, as a result of two factors. First, the percentage of new members donating was 64.9% vs. our Budget which predicted 42%. This positive affect was partially offset but an average donation that was slightly lower than predicted at $23.79, compared to the budgeted $24.00. No. No. % Of Avg. Regist New Budget Regist Memb $ Budget Regist Donat'n Memb. (No.) Var Donate Donate Amount ($) Var Donat'n All New ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ YTD'98 3,488 7,224 -52% 1,499 43.0% $35,668 $46,225 -23% $23.79 $10.23 Avg'98 291 602 -52% 125 43.0% $ 2,972 $ 3,852 -23% $23.79 $10.23 Jan. 205 400 -49% 133 64.9% $ 3,297 $ 4,000 -18% $24.79 $16.08 Feb 400 $ 4,000 Mar. 400 $ 4,000 Apr. 400 $ 4,000 May 400 $ 4,000 Jun. 400 $ 4,000 Jul. 400 $ 4,000 Aug. 400 $ 4,000 Sep. 400 $ 4,000 Oct. 400 $ 4,000 Nov. 400 $ 4,000 Dec. 400 $ 4,000 ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ YTD'99 205 400 -49% 133 64.9% $ 3,297 $ 4,000 -18% $24.79 $16.08 Avg'99 205 400 -49% 133 64.9% $ 3,297 $ 4,000 -18% $24.79 $16.08 b) Donation Data - Renewals ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ While we renewed slightly fewer members than budgeted (-11%) our financial prediction was bang on. 97.1% of the members renewing their account in January donated, while the budget assumes an 85% donation rate. At $23.69, the average donation, was slightly below the $24.00 predicted. No. % Of Avg. Renwl No. Budget Renwl Renwl $ Budget Renwl Donate Renwl (No.) Var Donate Donate Amount ($) Var Donatn All Ren ~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ YTD'98 9,697 10,012 -3% 6,465 66.7% $156,819 $228,388 -31% $24.26 $16.17 AVG'98 808 834 -3% 539 66.7% $ 13,068 $ 19,032 -31% $24.26 $16.17 Jan. 906 1,020 3% 880 97.1% $ 20,844 $ 20,800 0% $23.69 $23.01 Feb. 1,279 $ 26,100 Mar. 1,162 $ 23,700 Apr. 1,235 $ 25,200 May 1,176 $ 24,000 Jun. 873 $ 17,800 Jul. 510 $ 10,400 Aug. 358 $ 7,300 Sep. 270 $ 5,500 Oct. 309 $ 6,300 Nov. 314 $ 6,400 Dec. 387 $ 7,900 ~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ YTD'98 906 1,020 -11% 880 97% $ 20,844 $ 20,800 0% $23.69 $23.01 AVG'98 906 1,020 -11% 880 97% $ 20,844 $ 20,800 0% $23.69 $23.01 c) Funding Drive ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Donations not connected to either registration or renewal continue to come in: Period Donors Donation ~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ Total 1998 1,103 $34,033 (average: $30.85) Jan. 1999 41 $ 1,268 (average: $30.93 d) Membership Activity: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The system currently shows 19,888 members but this number includes many accounts in "hibernate" mode, or seriously overdue for renewal. Archiving has been restarted but is not yet archiving after 120 days. The membership number in the following table is estimated at 16,253, based on a cumulative decline of 1.5% per month. An accurate number of members will be available next month. |Member | Current |To line| Actual |Ratio |Number Forecast Number Forecast Number Number # of % inc. | |Of New No. of Members No. of Members Members Members -dec. |Lns :1 |Members New Memb Renewed Renewed Un-arch Archvd ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ |~~~~~~~|~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ Jan. 16,253* -1.5% |213 76| 205 400 906 1,020 0 0 *estimated e) Modem Usage Data ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The chart below illustrates the number of NCF sessions and unique users in January. The information for the main pool is taken from "go usage" which reports a moving total for a 7 day period. The information for the Extended access pool is an estimated weekly amount based on 33,178 sessions in the entire month. The total (before modem sharing software was implemented) shows a slight increase in usage since the previous month. No. Of Chng | No. Of Chng | Max # Avg # Max% Avg% Weekly in | Unique in | PPP PPP PPP PPP Sessions Mo | Users Mo | Users Users Usage Usage ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~ | ~~~~~~ ~~~~~ | ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ Main Pool 45,297 -1.7% | 6,009 -3.6% | 98 49 27.7% 10.1% Extended Access 7,656 46% | 1,178 26.1% | 44 22 91.7% 45.8% Total 52,953 3.2% | 7,187 0.3% | 142 71 Modem Availability: Jim Elder has produced software that that dials into each NCF modem pool and records the result. The table below shows the results during a 24 hour period on February 2nd before the new modem sharing software was implemented. Each row in the table below summarizes samples taken during the indicated hour for each modem. The first number in each column represents the number of samples in that hour. The second number in each column represents the percentage of those samples that resulted in a successful connection. The higher the percentage, the better the result. 100% indicates that the pool could be accessed 100% of the time. The software does not record results between 07:00 and 08:00, and no entries are recorded in this table for this period. Hr:Min 520-1135 520-9013 520-7835 271-9768 ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ 00:00 15 60% 15 20% 15 66% 15 100% 01:00 8 100% 8 12% 9 88% 8 100% 08:00 8 100% 8 12% 7 85% 10 100% 09:00 15 86% 15 6% 15 93% 15 100% 10:00 15 60% 15 6% 15 60% 15 93% 11:00 15 86% 15 0% 15 93% 15 100% 12:00 15 93% 15 0% 15 93% 15 100% 13:00 15 100% 15 0% 15 73% 15 93% 14:00 15 100% 15 0% 15 93% 15 100% 15:00 15 73% 15 0% 15 86% 15 100% 16:00 15 26% 15 0% 15 53% 15 100% 17:00 15 66% 15 6% 15 66% 15 86% 18:00 15 53% 15 0% 15 46% 15 93% 19:00 15 6% 15 0% 15 13% 15 93% 20:00 5 20% 5 0% 5 0% 4 100% 21:00 0 0% 0 0% 0 0% 0 0% 22:00 4 25% 4 0% 1 0% 4 75% 23:00 12 33% 12 0% 11 0% 12 100% Average: 60% 3% 56% 91% 2. Member Services and Future Initiatives ========================================== a) Government Grants ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (i) Industry Canada - Urban CAP Program Work has commenced on a contract with Industry Canada to produce an Urban CAP rollout strategy. The report will be completed by the end of March, 1999. Jeff Bossert (au025) has assumed the role of Project Manager, assisted by Jean Wilmot (aa145) and myself. (ii) Industry Canada - VolNet The VolNet program has now been formally announced. The deadline for submitting a Letter of Intent for the first round in the program is February 26, 1999. The Volunteer Centre of Ottawa - Carleton will submit a proposal in this round with NCF as partner. Our submission, if accepted will be implemented in three phases. The first phase is to prepare an assessment report detailing those volunteer agencies in the region needing the service. The second phase, or "implementation" calls for delivery of new computers, training and provisiuon of Internet accounts. We expect to enroll approximately 250 new volunteer organizations. The final phase calls for a detailed report of the program. Team members for NCF are: Lyn Shouldice (ah940), Peter Lage (da198), Pierre DeGuire (eb105), and Jeff Bossert (au025). b) Public Relations Update ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ads were run in both Monitor and Ottawa Computes. The ad copy combined an announcement (Colour in Monitor) about NCF's 5th Birthday and an account registration form. This month's issue of Monitor also included a testimonial, which highlighted the benefits of Monitor ads to NCF. The piece included the following quote (from me) "NCF is just a large group of people joining together to share costs and workload, doing something good for themselves and their community." c) Volunteer Coordination ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The minimum contribution scheme has had a beneficial effect on volunteering. The first batch of volunteers recruited under the program were welcomed in an orientation session on January 23, 1999. at The Olde Forge. Mike Mason (an956) coordinated the affair with assistance from Richard Bethell (cj434) who made a brief presentation to the new recruits and Sheila Alder (bw306). Following the orientation session, a "Pizza-n-Pop" luncheon was enjoyed by the new recruits and a hearty group of more seasoned volunteers who braved the freezing rain to gather and chat about FreeNet. d) Volunteer mailing list (Majordomo) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ NCF is just about ready to test Majordomo. The test group will be the NCF volunteers and once operational the list will be used to keep all volunteers in the loop about changes and new initiatives. Often, volunteers are asked questions about NCF because their friends know how involved they are. This list will serve as a convenient way for Team leaders, staff and any of the volunteers to share information. We will be subscribing all 194 existing volunteers (includes Board members) to the list, although any member will be able to unsubscribe themself. e) Flyer Program ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The NCF's "one-pager" is at the fine-tuning stage. I will distribute copies at the next Board meeting, but I have placed a JPEG image of the front and a text version of the content in http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/execdir/flyer and would welcome any additional input and suggestions. I am currently seeking Industry partners who can help us with printing and perhaps distribution of this flyer. j) Top Five Priorities - ED ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (1) Membership Building - develop and execute a flyer program - email-4-students / email-4-everybody (2) Making NCF membership easy - remove impediments to membership, including a review of forms processing, telephone response, auto-install software, training and outreach. (3) System reliability - Resolve issues relating to terminal server load - seek additional terminal server capacity. - implement "one modem pool" concept (4) Y2K Issues - Develop team and proceed with process of evaluation and modification to make system Y2K compliant. (5) Industry Canada Programs: - Urban CAP - VolNet 3. System Administration ======================== a) Extended Access - reliability concerns ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Our Cisco AS5100 terminal server has 48 built in modems. In Practice however we are unable to use more than 44 ports simultaneously. In addition, users may experience unexpected disconnects. We now believe that both of these problems are hardware related and are likely the fault of bad modems in the server. More testing is required to solve this problem permanently, but now that the probable cause has been discovered, we expect the problem can be resolved shortly. Testing may cause some daily minor reduction in service, but will enable us to root out the bad modems. b) Plaintree switch installed - network improved ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A Waveswitch 1018, donated by Plaintree Systems Inc. was installed on our network in January. All UNIX hosts are now on fully switched ethernet connections, with 8 ports free, providing considerable space for future growth. Installation of the new switch enabled us to deploy our existing Waveswitch 4+4 to improve how our terminal servers are networked. These Annex terminal servers are now on switched 10TX ports on the Waveswitch 4+4, with the four 100TX *shared* ports free on this switch. Both 10TX HUBS were taken out of service. This simplifies our network, improves collision rates, and provides capacity for future changes and additions. Jeff Bossert (au025) is to be congratulated for pursuing Plaintree and arranging for the donation of the switch. Thanks go to John Stewart (aa104) who helped Andre install the switch. And of course Plaintree Systems deserve our gratitude for this generous donation. c) Modem sharing software introduced ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As noted above, Jim Elder's (aa456) software has been installed and tested and is now live for PPP connections. The software can control FreePort usage as well, and implementation of this stage is expected by mid February. Jim has reported the details of his this important new tool in a separate report to the Board, but I would like to highlight two additional benefits associated with this new tool. For ages, we've wanted an efficient way to communicate with our PPP users, comparable with the login message provided to FreePort users. The new modem sharing software allows us to send email to a member when their session starts. This can include a "message of the month" or even notices about their renewal status. Jim's software has given us the ability to manage usage of our system in creative and reasonable ways. Thank you Jim. d) Archiving ~~~~~~~~~ Archiving the accounts of members who do not renew, despite lots of notice, is gradually being re-introduced. The eventual goal is to restore archival to a level where accounts 120 days overdue are archived (as before). Current status: +30 days overdue: The account enters hibernate status +260 days overdue: The account enters archived status* * Note, this date is moved downwards in increments of 10 each day, and by the time of my next report, should be at the target of 120 days. e) Y2K Strategy ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Barry Alder, (ak221) having recently completed a similar assignment for External Affairs has offered to take the lead in our Y2K Project. His complete summary of the tasks to be completed is detailed in post #3371 - ncf.sub.hardware-software, but in summary, the following steps will be completed: 1. Hardware/Firmware Analysis and review, corresponding with manufacturers and making any necessary changes. 2. Operating Systems Software Assessment and patching where required 3. System Testing Thorough testing after both hardware and Operating Systems are modified 4. Applications Assessment and remedial fixes 5. FreePort Two options are possible. The software can be altered and tested to be Y2K compliant, running in a SunOS (patched for Y2K compliance) environment or, consideration is being given to porting FreePort to Solaris, 6. New Software/Hardware Policies to be established regarding Y2K compliance of all new software. A Y2K task force will be formed, with Andre Dalle at the head, Barry Alder as principal consultant and various tasks farmed out to other qualified NCF volunteers. f) Annex NAS and high-speed modems ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Our aging Annex NAS (Network Access Server(s)) are struggling with increased traffic. Two factors combine to cause this increased load. The first factor is a technology issue. Our servers were built at a time when 14.4 Kbps modems were considered high speed, and 9600 Baud was the norm. The second and perhaps more significant factor is our increased PPP usage. PPP connections by nature, involve a steadier, more constant flow. Surfing, or downloading websites, downloading files via arbitrary FTP sites, telnet sessions, and the like, can all be performed simultaneously. This means modems that traditionally had only telnet traffic on them (simply keystrokes back and forth), are now saturated with near constant flow. The resulting effect is an overall greatly increased load on the Annex servers. Furthermore, empirical analysis has shown freenet-annex1 to be the most overloaded server, and freenet-annex2 to be the least. As all high-speed connections reside on freenet-annex1, all the 28.8Kbps and some 33.6 Kbps modems will be moved off freenet-annex1 to freenet-annex2. This change is expected to resolve current reliability issues. In the long term however, we require an additional server(s) or, one or more modern servers with greater capacity, to balance the load and thus provide for increasing traffic. We are presently communicating this need to several of our key partners and are optimistic that on or several will help us. g) Bandwidth - Carleton's Pipe ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Carleton has taken delivery of their new ATM switch, but the fibre to provide the connection to OCRInet is not yet installed. The switch is expected to be operational by the end of February however, and is expected to resolve the "sluggishness" experienced during peak periods resulting from their presently saturated connection to ONeT h) Changes to Modem pools ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In the interest of making better use of our lines, the following forwarding schemes will be investigated with Bell and implemented shortly: A new high-speed modem pool will be created: - 15 28.8 Kbps modems will be moved to express pool (520-7835) - 520-9013 will forward to 520-7835 on busy Thus creating a high speed pool with 25 lines The main pool will be configured as follows: - 520-1130 already forwards to 520-1135 on busy Consideration is also being given to creating a "global pool" by forwarding 520-9013 to 520-1130 on busy. The advantage of this would be to create a better chance of keeping all modems busy by cascading the requests down through the levels. The disadvantage however is that members who only wish to connect at high speed, will sometimes end up connected to a 14.4 Kbps modem on one of the mail pool lines. Without the forwarding from 520-9013 to 520-1130, their local dialer would retry until a connection was successful with the high-speed pool. i) Install & configure listserver software ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Majordomo listserver software has been installed on f1. This software allows for dynamic lists to be created which can be fully maintained by the list owner. The software also provides for moderated lists, which can be moderated by any number of privileged list subscribers. A majordomo system group was created, which has full read/write access to all the majordomo directories and files necessary to create and remove lists. In future, a majordomo maintainer could be authorized who's responsibility would be the installation and removal of mailing lists. For now, the "Owner-Majordomo" mail alias points to our System Administrator (xx178). A volunteer mailing list has been configured and tested successfully (ncf-volunteers@ncf.ca). We wish to edit several of the system-generated messages however and will delay implementation until this step has been completed. Michael Mason (xx956) will be list maintainer. All existing volunteers and Board members will be subscribed to "seed" the list, but in future, volunteers can subscribe and remove themselves to the list with approval of the list owner (Michael Mason). j) Webserver performance ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Netscape webserver was configured to perform DNS lookups on all connections. As can be imagined, the webserver receives a *lot* of connection requests. The webserver was configured this way to make hostnames available, instead of IP addresses in logfiles, and secondly, to allow for hostname filtering. In our setup, the former is not a necessity, and we are not making use of the latter facility. The downside to DNS lookups are: substantially increased load on the webserver, and potential denial of service if the DNS subsystem is not performing well. Therefore, it was decided to turn off DNS lookups. The result has been quicker, more stable webserver performance. As our Web traffic increases however we will need to explore alternative webserver software options to achieve FAST, rock-solid webserver performance, as well as keep up with the latest web technologies, including the capacity for secure transactions (SSL). k) Top Five Priorities - Sysadmin ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (1) Resolve connection problems on Mitel server (2) Assess Webserver options and produce cost/benefit report (3) balance load between annex 2, 3 and 3; implement modem line changes (4) continue testing and perfect IMAP mail daemon: to allow for possible IMAP-webmail candidates (5) Continue moving archiving targets toward 120 goal, and monitor system effect. -- *** Christopher L. Cope, Executive Director *** National Capital Freenet / Libertel de la Capitale nationale tel. (613) 520-2600 ext. 8024 -or- fax (613) 520-3524