Introduction

This document exists to provide the end user a way to discover resources provided on the Isilon College of Engineering storage cluster.

Access

Access to the Isilon is granted based on your role (i.e. Staff, Faculty, Grads, Undergrads). Depending on your role and your circumstance, you may have access to additional shares that are not listed in this document.

Access is granted through the Windows CIFS UNC path:

\\coe-fs.engr.tamu.edu\<share_name>

where <share_name> is replaced by the actual name of the share that you are attempting to access (without the ‘<’ and ‘>’).

Terminology and Usage

This document refers to the term UNC, which stands for Universal Naming Convention, which specifies a CIFS/SMB (i.e. Windows share) path. It starts with two slashes ‘\\’, followed by an address, (i.e. ‘coe-fs.engr.tamu.edu’) followed by a share (i.e. ‘Research’). 

When this document refers to a share, we mean a share on the Isilon that is directly accessible at the UNC address \\coe-fs.engr.tamu.edu\<share_name>. For example, the ‘Research’ share would be accessed using the following UNC path:

`\\coe-fs.engr.tamu.edu\Research```

Windows

On a windows machine, a UNC path would be entered into a Windows Explorer address bar.

Mac

On a Mac, a UNC path would be entered by going to Finder and selecting Go -> Connect to Server from the menu at the top of the screen. On a Mac, the UNC path takes a different form. For example, the Windows UNC path

\\coe-fs.engr.tamu.edu\Research

would instead be entered as

smb://coe-fs.engr.tamu.edu/Research

Linux

The linux form is usually similar to the Mac form, but this depends on the Linux distribution and distribution version that you are using. You should perform a google search on how to connect to a CIFS/SMB share for your particular Linux distribution for more information.

Services

Home Directories

All students taking courses in the College of Engineering are granted a home directory. This is also the case for all Faculty and Staff in the College of Engineering. 

You can access your home directory by browsing to the following UNC path (see the above section entitled ‘Terminology and Usage’ for more information:

\\coe-fs.engr.tamu.edu\<role>

You should replace <role> with your particular role as follows:

• undergraduate students should use ugrads

• graduate students should use ‘Grads’

• staff members should use ‘Staff’

• faculty members should use ‘Faculty’

Quotas

In order to ensure that the Isilon storage cluster does not run out of space, quotas are enforced for each role. The quotas for each role are as follows:

• Undergrads - 10GB

• Grads - 50GB

• Staff - 30GB

• Faculty - 250GB

Course Areas

Course Areas are directories that are created for each College of Engineering course for instructors, TAs, and students. Instructors and TAs are able to write to directories in the Course Areas, while students are only able to read. Course Areas provide a means for instructors and TAs to hand out course information and materials to students.

You can access the Course Areas by browsing to the following UNC path (see the above section entitled ‘Terminology and Usage’ for more information:

\\coe-fs.engr.tamu.edu\StudentShares

Organization

Course Areas are organized as Follows:

[Subject]

Classes

[Subject]-[Course Number]

Class

Instructor

Teaching_Assistant

[Subject] refers to the course subject (i.e. AERO, PETE, etc).

Class

The Class directory is where students go to access course materials that the instructors and TAs wish to share.

Instructors and TAs are able to write to this directory, students are able to read it.

Instructor

The Instructor directory is a private area for instructors to prepare course materials.

Instructors are able to write to this directory, no one else can read or write to it.

Teaching_Assistant

The Teaching_Assistant directory is a private area for TAs and instructors to jointly prepare course materials.

TAs and Instructors are able to write to this directory, no one else can read from it.

Research Areas

Research Areas are directories granted to each researcher in each department of the College of Engineering and are used for research collaboration and storage. If you are a faculty researcher, you already have access to a research directory, but you will need to contact your Engineering IT representative to have your students added.

You can access the Research Areas by browsing to the following UNC path (see the above section entitled ‘Terminology and Usage’ for more information:

\\coe-fs.engr.tamu.edu\Research

Roles

There are three roles that are relevant to Research Area access:

• Professor

• Editor

• Student

Professor

The professor role is able to read, write, and delete content in all directories of the Research Areas. This access is granted automatically, so nothing needs to be done.

Editor

The editor role a special role that can be designated by the professor to perform cleanup and archiving of content. The editor has the ability to read, write, and delete content in the Shared and Archive directories. In order to make a person an editor, professors should use the Isilon Management Portal and choose the Edit Research Group Members menu option from the User Portal.

Student

The Student role is for any normal member of the research group that does not have special access. This role grants them a private directory that is only accessible by the student and the professor, as well as access to the Shared directory. In order to grant access to students, professors should use the Isilon Management Portal and choose the Edit Research Group Members menu option from the User Portal.

Organization

Research Areas have the following structure:

[Department]

[Professor]

Archive

Shared

Students

[Student 1]

…

[Student n]

Archive

The Archive directory is a place to put old shared materials and old student directories once they are no longer needed, but aren’t yet ready for deletion. This directory’s contents can be modified by the professor role and the editor role.

Shared

The Shared directory is a directory that provides a collaborative space for all members of a research group. This directory’s contents can be modified by the professor, editor, and student roles.

Students

The Students directory contains one directory per student that has been added to the research group’s Active Directory group by Engineering IT. In order to grant access to students, professors should use the Isilon Management Portal and choose the Edit Research Group Members menu option from the User Portal. You will need to know the students’ NetIDs in order to add them. Each student directory’s contents can be modified by the professor role and the student role of the student who owns the directory.

Viewing Space Usage

Professors can view the number of files/directories and the amount of space consumed within their research directory. This can be accomplished through the Isilon Management Portal by choosing the View Quotas menu option from the User Portal.

Troubleshooting

If you are unable to access any of the offered resources and believe that you should have the rights to do so, contact your Engineering IT representative for assistance.