Executive Director's Report February, 1999 =========================== March 14, 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 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Although our registrations were under budget by 70, or 23% during the month of February, the financial impact was lessened somewhat by the excellent average donation level at $23.62. New registrants donated a total of $ 2,704 during February (our shortest month) or 10% less than the projected $ $3,000. On a year-to-date basis, we have registered 435 new members (-28%), donating a total of $ $6,001 - Exactly $1 over our target! 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 -32% 133 64.9% $ 3,297 $ 3,000 -10% $24.79 $16.08 Feb 230 400 -23% 127 55.2% $ 2,704 $ 3,000 -10% $23.62 $13.04 Mar. 400 $ 3,000 Apr. 400 $ 3,000 May 400 $ 3,000 Jun. 400 $ 3,000 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'99 435 600 -28% 260 59.8% $ 6,001 $ 6,000 0% $23.08 $13.80 Avg'99 218 300 -28% 130 59.8% $ 3,001 $ 3,000 0% $23.08 $13.80 b) Donation Data - Renewals ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 826 members renewed their account in February, compared to our forecast of 1,279 (-35%). As with registrations, the financial impact was lessened by a higher than anticipated donation level of $29.85, resulting in a monthly total of $23,316 or 11% below budget. During February, 95% of renewing members donated. On a year-to-date basis, we are under budget by 6% and stand at $46,160, with 96% of renewing members donating. 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. 826 1,279 -35% 781 94.6% $ 23,316 $ 26,100 -11% $29.85 $28.23 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 1,732 2,299 -25% 1,661 96% $ 44,160 $ 46,900 -6% $26.59 $25.50 AVG'98 866 1,150 -25% 831 96% $ 22,080 $ 23,450 -6% $26.59 $25.50 c) Funding Drive ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Donations not connected 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) Feb. 1999 33 $ 1,057 (average: $32.03) ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ Total 1999 74 $ 2,325 d) Membership Activity: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Our current active membership stands at 17,023. This number is net of some 4,739 accounts that were archived during the month. Archiving is now full reinstated, so this number reflects the true position. The apparent increase in membership this month reflects only the difference from an overly pessimistic estimate in January, but it is noteworthy, that the January estimate was based on the actual rate of decline throughout the fall of 1998 and if this calculation was extended to February, the estimated number would be 16,000. The fact that our current total is higher, suggests that the rate of decline is diminishing from 1988 levels, notwithstanding the "Minimum Contribution Program.". |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| 205 300 906 1,020 0 0 Feb. 17,023* 4.7% |213 80| 213 300 826 1,279 1 4,739 e) Modem Usage Data ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Both the average number of sessions and the number of unique users declined in February. The statistics for the main modem pool reflect only text connections while the figures shown for the Extended access pool are manually extracted from sessions which are restricted to PPP only. A review of PPP usage however indicates almost no change with a peak of 158 PPP users, or 66,9% of our users and average throughout the month of 34.7%. No. Of Chng | No. Of Chng | Max # Max% Avg # Avg% Weekly in | Unique in | PPP PPP PPP PPP Sessions Mo | Users Mo | Users Users Usage Usage ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~ | ~~~~~~ ~~~~~ | ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ Jan. Main Pool 45,297 -2% | 6,009 -4% | 114 60.6% 61 32.4% Jan. Extended Access 7,656 46% | 1,178 26% | 44 91.7% 22 45.8% Jan. Total 52,953 3% | 7,187 0% | 158 66.9% 83 35.2% Feb. Main Pool 35,313 -22% | 5,391 -10% | 114 60.6% 61 32.4% Feb. Extended Access 7,068 -8% | 1,127 -4% | 44 91.7% 21 43.8% Feb. Total 42,381 -20% | 6,508 -9% | 158 66.9% 82 34.7% f) Modem Availability ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The modem monitoring software was run on three separate occasions for a total of 13, 792 tries as follows: 2,962 Fri. Feb. 12 [17:04] to Mon. Feb. 15 [10:15] 10,795 Mon. Feb. 15 [18:35] to Mon. Feb. 22 [16:00] 35 Wed. Mar. 3 [ 8:31] to Mon. Mar. 8 [11:34] ~~~~~~ 13,792 tries 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. Hr:Min 271-9768 520-1135 520-9013 520-7835 ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~ 00:00 195 92% 195 84% 195 27% 195 77% 01:00 195 90% 195 90% 195 52% 195 88% 02:00 11 90% 2 100% 0 0% 0 0% 07:00 195 97% 195 94% 195 49% 195 97% 08:00 195 97% 195 97% 195 46% 195 93% 09:00 195 98% 195 89% 195 38% 195 81% 10:00 184 100% 184 82% 184 28% 184 77% 11:00 172 98% 171 81% 171 42% 171 77% 12:00 165 97% 165 87% 165 32% 165 82% 13:00 165 98% 165 91% 165 26% 165 72% 14:00 165 97% 165 86% 165 30% 165 80% 15:00 165 96% 165 84% 165 35% 165 81% 16:00 151 94% 150 72% 150 17% 150 67% 17:00 152 86% 152 86% 151 21% 151 78% 18:00 179 98% 177 83% 177 16% 177 74% 19:00 195 98% 195 67% 195 20% 195 68% 20:00 195 92% 195 56% 195 17% 195 54% 21:00 195 90% 195 48% 195 13% 195 42% 22:00 195 92% 195 51% 195 14% 195 50% 23:00 195 90% 195 62% 195 15% 195 42% ~~~~~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ Average 173 95% 172 80% 172 27% 172 69% 2. Member Services and Future Initiatives ========================================== a) Projects ~~~~~~~~ (i) Industry Canada - Urban CAP Roll Out Strategy Report Work continues on our report. The final report is to be delivered on or before March 31, 1999. Team members are Jeff Bossert (au025), Jean Wilmot (aa145) and myself (bz787). (ii) Industry Canada - VolNet The Volunteer Centre of Ottawa Carleton (VCoC) has submitted a letter of intent on behalf of themselves, as lead and NCF as partner, to provide computers, Internet connectivity and training to some 250 volunteer sector agencies in our region. The project entails a two-month assessment phase, with a fee of $20,000, an implementation phase and an evaluation phase. The combined implementation and evaluation phases are expected to take some 10 months to complete for an additional fee of $236,185 for a project total of $256,185. Of this, some $122,00 will be paid to NCF, with the balance paid to VCoC. We have learned that Industry Canada has included our proposal among their finalists and expect a contract for the assessment phase to be awarded shortly. (iii) CapitalFind We have learned that development of community Internet content such as our CapitalFind project is an eligible application for HRDC's student summer employment program. HRDC will pay 100% of the wages and up to 13% of wages towards fringe benefits and employment overhead. We plan to submit an application for funding to pay the wages of 10 students for a 16 week period during the summer to complete the research (telephoning local businesses) and preparing web pages for CapitalFind. Based on completion of approximately 2 pages per week per student, we expect to create some 300 new sections in the index, essentially completing the initial seed. Carleton University has indicated a willingness to provide space for the students to work, complete with ethernet-connected computers, although this arrangement has yet to be finalized. Funding for HRDC student summer employment projects is allocated on a competitive basis, and our project will be compared against others, with funding awarded on a merit basis. b) Public Relations Update ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ads were run in both Monitor and Ottawa Computes. The ad copy this month promoted NCF membership and included an account registration form. c) Volunteer Coordination ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We have created a closed listserver for NCF Volunteers, using Majordomo software. The list, which is bor NCF volunteers only, is called "ncf-volunteer@freenet.carleton.ca". Initially we subscribed all 195 people who have been recorded as an NCF volunteer with the past several years. People who are uninterested in the list can easily unsubscribe themselves, and the list now has 159 names. The purpose of the list is to provide a means of keeping NCF volunteers in the loop for information about what's new, what's coming and what's cool; before the news is made public. Often people ask NCF volunteers some pretty tricky questions about FreeNet, thinking that they must know all the answers just because they are "involved." We hope that this list will make it easier for volunteers to give informed answers and to foster an even greater sense of belonging. d) 6th Birthday ~~~~~~~~~~~~ NCF's 6th Birthday part, organized by the Events Coordination Team was held February 2, 1999 at the RMOC. Turnout was excellent, with approximately 100 people showing up for the festivities. Our thanks go to CBO Radio's John Lacharity who once again did a wonderful job as our Master of Ceremonies. Special recognition was given to three of NCF's Key partners: Mitel Corporation, represented by René Dalle, (NCF Volunteer of the Month for February); Magma Communications, represented by Dave Cobey; And Plaintree Systems, who unfortunately were not represented. Several door prizes, consisting of software packages, were awarded. David Sutherland (aa001) greeted the guests with a warm Chairman's Message. Richard Bethell gave a very professional presentation on CapitalFind and the Capital Calendar, and Jeff Bossert (au025) talked about current projects and thanked our Key partners. Thanks go especially to a new NCF volunteer, Fiona Hammond (ed491), who acted as our official bartender. Because of her presence, we were able to handle the cash bar ourselves this year and save considerably on expenses (see below). More thanks go to Natalie Munro (aa966), who once again donated the plates and cutlery and doled out the great cake. Andre Ouellete (bf766) deserves the largest thank you of all, for his masterful organization of the hundreds of details and dozens of people that it takes to make an event like this a success. Congratulations Andre The event received news coverage from CJOH-TV on the late evening news, and repeated the following morning. Gordon Pearson reported on the event as well, in his monthly "FREEbytes" column in the February issue of Monitor Magazine. Expenses and revenues: Special Occasion Permit: $ 75.00 Wine & beer: 122.30 Cake, pop & ice 110.60 Misc. 32.61 ~~~~~~~ Total Expense $340.51 Bar proceeds (182.85) ~~~~~~~ Net Event Expense $157.66 e) Flyer Program ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The NCF's "one-pager" is essentially complete. We continue in our search for Industry partners who can help us with printing and perhaps distribution of this flyer. e) Donation from Hardware Canada Computing ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Hardware Canada Computing (HCC) - a leading manufacturer of Linux, UNIX, and Windows based systems donated a Horizon UltraSparc III UNIX Workstation to National Capital FreeNet (NCF). This donation is valued at over $8,500. HCC's product line includes the NetWinder family of Linux-based computers, Horizon SPARC/UNIX based systems, and Mask Personal Computers. HCC resells a complete line of UNIX/NT products from Hewlett Packard and Silicon Graphics and is one of the largest resellers of Sun Microelectronics in Canada. HCC was recently recognized as the 14th fastest growing IT company in the Financial Post/Deloitte & Touche Technology Fast-55. For more information, please visit the website at www.hcc.ca. The server, which has considerably more capacity and speed than any of our existing machines, will be used to consolidate several heavy demand services including mail, webserver and web-mail. The machine will be delivered on Monday March 15, 1999. g) Top Five Priorities - ED ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (1) System reliability - Resolve issues relating to terminal server load - seek additional terminal server capacity. - implement configuration of modem pools, to incorporate new NAS (2) Membership Building - develop and execute flyer program - email-4-students / email-4-everybody (3) Making NCF membership easy - remove impediments to membership, including a review of forms processing, telephone response, auto-install software, training and outreach. (4) Projects: - Urban CAP - VolNet - Summer student employment on CapitalFind (5) Y2K Issues - Develop team and proceed with process of evaluation and modification to make system Y2K compliant. 3. System Administration ======================== a) Reliability Concerns ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Users have reported unexpected disconnects and difficulties logging in. We believe that these problems result primarily because our over-taxed network annex servers (NAS) Our three existing Xylogics annex3 servers currently need to operate at near 100% CPU levels to handle increasing levels of traffic. We have acquired a Xylogics Annex 4000 server from Magma Communications Ltd. This NAS is a considerably more modern, 72 port unit, with capacity to handle up to 72 high-speed (28.8 Kbps) modems. To integrate the additional capacity of this new server, a phased implementation will be carried out. This approach also allows us to monitor and bug-fix each stage. - relocation of 10 Supra 33.6 modems from annex1 to annex4 - relocation of 10 28.8 modems from annex1 to annex4 - wiring change: express (7835) lines to annex4 - addition of new USR288 modems to annex4 - assignment of IP addresses to ports on annex4 - DNS updates to reflect IP addressing changes - mapping out all Annex ports for system documentation The following system-level changes also being performed in conjunction with the above: - relocation of annex syslogging to freenet1 - updates to system to prepare for annex4 - daily restart for security server - addition to Big Brother for monitoring of modem sharing software - addition to Big Brother for monitoring of ALL annex4 ports in use for duration of initial testing b) Extended Access - reliability concerns ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Testing continues at Mitel, with the assistance of Rene Dalle (af842), who has given us local support. 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, or a bad card in the server. In order to isolate the fault, and to confirm that the fault is indeed hardware related, a systematic process of busying out small groups of lines been initiated. At the same time, Mitel has provided us with telephone activity logs, which help us to assess which lines have an unusually high number of short sessions. We expect the problem can be resolved shortly. Testing may however, cause some daily minor reductions in service. c) Archiving ~~~~~~~~~ Archiving the accounts of members who fail to renew is now fully reinstated and current. During the month of February, the number of days an account would remain in "hibernate" mode with full access, but 10 minute sessions was gradually moved from 365 days past the account renewal date, to the present 120 days overdue. 4,739 accounts were archived during the month (the entire backlog since Yannick left) leaving us with 17,023 active members. Current status: +60 days overdue: The account enters "hibernate" status +120 days overdue: The account enters archived status. d) Bandwidth - Carleton's Pipe ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Carleton has taken delivery of their ATM switch and is now completing the configuration to connect it. Backbone service will continue to be provided by ONet (not OCRInet as previously reported). The necessity of acquiring an expensive piece of proprietary software delayed the project somewhat, but this obstacle has now been cleared. Testing and configuration has also not been without problems and presently, large packets (test mode) are not getting through. Carleton expects to resolve these problems shortly and will complete their connection to CaNetII within the next week or so, and will follow this by completing the connection to the Internet, which we share. For comparison, we are exploring alternative Internet connection solutions for NCF such as business ADSL, and continue to discuss our cost sharing arrangement with Carleton. e) New Equipment ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We have acquired the following equipment: - Xylogics Annex 4000: Terminal server, 72 ports From Magma Communications - See above for implementation. - Horizon UltraSPARC IIi Model 10 - 333 w/256MB RAM Donated by Hardware Canada Computing This "brand new" machine will be shipped to NCF Monday March 15 - Livingston Portmaster 2e: Terminal server donated by Mitel Currently 10 port, but upgradeable to 30 ports - Investigations are underway to ascertain best use. May be appropriate for our next Extended Access site. - 20 USR 28.8 Kbps modems swapped for 20 14.4 Kbps with Mitel To be installed in main high speed pool f) Top Five Priorities - Sysadmin ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (1) Resolve connection problems on NCF-Carleton servers (2) Resolve connection problems on NCF-Mitel servers (3) Plan installation and configuration of new server (4) Continue Webmail project (5) Resolve "1 mailbox" question - Consider IMAP mail client -- *** Christopher L. Cope, Executive Director *** National Capital Freenet / Libertel de la Capitale nationale tel. (613) 520-2600 ext. 8024 -or- fax (613) 520-3524