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\title{The Student Information Processing Board}
\author{Edward Z. Yang, SIPB Chair (2009)}

\begin{document}
\maketitle

\section*{Value delivered by SIPB}

SIPB develops and maintains services that deliver tangible
monetary value to the MIT community.

\textbf{Debathena} is a collaboration between SIPB and IS\&T to create
the technology that powers cluster machines and hundreds of
desktops and laptops across MIT.  Debathena transitions
away from proprietary Red Hat Enterprise Linux to Debian, and
combines the advantages of the original project Athena with a
modern Linux distribution.

\textbf{Scripts} provides shared hosting services to the MIT community.
Scripts accounts are easy to setup from an Athena workstation, and our
servers offer a plethora of software and functionality, as well as a
popular autoinstaller service.  Equivalent commodity hosting of active
Scripts websites would cost \textbf{\$130,000} a year.\footnote{Number
of active websites (1090 out of 2855) $\times$ Dreamhost one-year plan
(\$119.40).}

\textbf{XVM} provides virtualization services to the MIT community.
Virtual machines give users customizability and flexibility without
the footprint of a physical machine.  Equivalent commodity hosting of
the machines currently running on XVM would cost
\textbf{\$58,000} a year;  next tier IS\&T hosting would cost
\textbf{\$277,000} a year.\footnote{Number of running VMs (c.~240) $\times$
Slicehost 256MB slice (\$240).}  XVM is energy-efficient too:
physical servers would guzzle an extra \textbf{\$184,000} a year worth
of kilowatt-hours.\footnote{750W server, with \$.12/kWH power cost.
Total XVM hardware is rated at 5kW.}

\textbf{In-person support}.  SIPB members staff an office outside
of the student center cluster and are happy to answer technical questions
of those passing by.  Members also troubleshoot problems on a variety of
mailing lists and support queues.

\section*{Educational opportunities at SIPB}

SIPB organizes and fosters an educational environment that is
not found anywhere else on MIT.  SIPB organizes classes on
computing subjects.  Of special note is ``Caffeinated 6.001'', a class for credit made
possible by partnership between former 6.001 students and course 6 staff.
Furthermore, SIPB projects give students access to production environments
that serve thousands of users every day, something not found in a purely
academic context.  Academic theses and businesses like Ksplice have grown from conversations
in the SIPB office.

\section*{Essential resources}

To continue its mission, SIPB needs four things:
\begin{itemize}
    \setlength{\itemsep}{0pt}
    \item A budget,
    \item Office space in the Student Center,
    \item Machine room space in the Student Center, and
    \item The ability to ask for supplemental funding for special projects.
\end{itemize}

\section*{Conclusion}

The Student Information Processing Board is a vital component of
computing at MIT, offering a wide array of services to the community
that complement IS\&T's services.

\end{document}