By J.E. Warren
Contributing Writer
NLC got a big boost from Sun Microsystems recently with $64,000 worth of equipment and a chance to offer classes in Unix. A uniquely flexible and developer-friendly operating system, Unix has been turning students' heads at North Lake College for years. However, the operating system is now set to become even more popular.
Unix was first developed during the late sixties and early seventies by Bell Labs. It's different from other operating systems such as Windows because of its open source nature.
This means anyone who knows how to read the computer code named "C" can see what makes the system tick. And that means much of the development of the Unix system is spurred on by a world-wide community of people as dedicated as Macintosh users.
By comparison, Windows is not open source, and Microsoft closely guards its inner workings.
By 1991, Unix was the most widely used multiple-user, general purpose operating system in the world. Many people considered that as the biggest victory yet of hackerdom over industry opposition.
Unix is now the subject of an international standardization effort. It's offered by many manufacturers and it's used by many companies. The only thing the world needs now are more people who know how to work with it.
In fall 1999, Sun Microsystems organized a series of focus groups around the world in Dallas, New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris and Munich. Apparently, there were some 70,000 Unix system administration positions needing to be filled in the U.S. alone. That didn't count new positions created by new purchases in 1999.
That's where North Lake College comes in, explains Dr. Tim Gottleber, computer information systems instructor at NLC and director of the College Resource and Instructor Support Program (CRISP).
Gottleber said that CRISP is a global learning community for new and current Unix professors. Sun Microsystems is sponsoring CRISP.
"Sun gave us a whole classroom of SunRays, their state of the art, stateless thin client machines," said Gottleber. "They also gave us an E450, which is a killer server for the SunRays, and to which we will be migrating Unix classes."
Students will be using the new machines in spring 2001, when some of the classes will be moved to the T building.
Gottleber added that more machines could easily be made available by Sun Microsystems if student demand were great enough.
"We're really happy to support Tim's program," said Jerry Neese, director of education at Sun Microsystems. "We anticipate supporting him for the next couple of years.
"We really want to show what network appliances can do in the future," said Neese, speaking of plans for Unix education.
"We chatted," said Gottleber of Neese, "and he said I was the person they had been looking for, that I had the knowledge of both Unix and education, and asked if I would be willing to work with them on this project."
John DeCamp was a student in Gottleber's one-on-one directed studies program for learning Unix while he set up the SunRay clients and server.
"I think it's an excellent learning program," remarked DeCamp. "I was able to get a lot of experience with the cutting edge of technology. The distributive networking environment allows for better security and will be a big convenience for students."
The distributive environment is a new concept that will quickly appeal to students.
"It means everything's done on one server, and with a 'smart card,' students may log in and begin working on any one of the stations instantaneously," explained DeCamp.
The smart cards look like a credit card and have a chip embedded into them containing the students' information.
As far as choosing to learn Unix over other operating systems like Windows, DeCamp says to new students, "Congratulations for choosing the right system."
In addition to all the good news, NLC is now offering a degree in Unix.
"Now, NLC not only has the best Unix System Administration certificate in the district/state," said Gottleber, "but we also now have a two-year Unix degree!"
Gottleber's understandably excited about things. With support from Sun Microsystems, CRISP and the new degree, NLC is now in an international spotlight.
"Sun Microsystems has called us [CRISP] the exemplary community in their internal discussions, and people like CISCO are looking to our community as a model," he said. "The world is looking at NLC as the model for a powerful, growing and well respected learning community.
"We are out there on the cutting edge, creating models that others are following."
