Responsibility

Ultimately the ITC of a research group is responsible for all servers that isginf manages for the group. The responsibility for a server can be delegated to any other person present at ETH though. If this person leaves ETH the responsibility falls back to the ITC.

The ITC or server responsible is required to coordinate maintenance requests by isginf or ITS in a timely fashion.

Server Types

Depending on the type and purpose of the server the responsibilities of isginf, the ITC and server responsible vary.

Server for Applications or Services

Some application or service have a dedicated interface for management which allows a good separation of duty between isginf and the owner. In this case the responsibilities are as follows:

What	isginf	ITC	Owner
OS installation, updates & maintenance	X
Application or service installation & updates	X
Application or service management			X
Coordination of updates & maintenance		(X)	X
Coordination of usage		X

Examples of this type of servers are:

• Database server where the owner manages access to and data in the database using SQL.
• TWiki server where the owner is TWiki administrator and does everything over the web interface.

Custom Servers

For servers where the owner needs to have more control over the applications or services the responsibilities are as follows:

What	isginf	ITC	Owner
OS installation, updates & maintenance	X
Application or service installation & updates			X
Application or service management			X
Coordination of updates & maintenance			X
Coordination of usage		X

Examples of this type of servers are:

• Web server running a custom web stack. The site admiistrator and owner are usually the same person.
• Server running services or software for a research project. The lead researcher is typically the owner.