| SUBJECT: Active Management of the Communications Cabinet
The Workstation Support Group, with help from Jack Wickwire, has brought to
our attention the need to actively manage the Communications Cabinet. The
ITeam discussed this at our last meeting and I was elected to come up with
a proposal that the T&N Publications Group could live with. The
Workstation Support Group has reviewed and approved this proposal. Their
comments were added.
The Workstation Support Group at first thought that one person should be
selected to manage the entire Communications Cabinet. I believe that is
too big a job for one person to do alone. I suggest that each supervisor
call for a volunteer from each group to manage that group's drawer in the
Communications Cabinet. Ideally there should be only one person per
drawer. If a group owns more than one drawer, that group would need a
volunteer for each drawer they own.
What needs to be done?
o The drawer manager would ensure that all files in the drawer are
currently in use. If no one is using a file, the drawer manager would
ask the owner of that file to delete it.
*** All the writers will do the work. The drawer managers will coordinate
the effort.
o The drawer manager could enforce a naming convention for the files in
the drawer so that it would be easy to recognize the owner. Otherwise,
the drawer manager can perform a DIRECTORY/OWNER DCL command to see who
owns the file. The drawer manager can also get the UIC number from
the property sheet of the file and have Karl find out who owns that file.
*** Put dates when created, dates when they should be reviewed or deleted,
initials of owner, etc. Set up good housekeeping procedures. Create
special template drawers for documents that are designed to be kept for a
long time.
o The drawer manager must manage the number of attribute files that build
up in the drawer (the files that begin with "$"). Every time a user
moves a file, Interleaf creates an attribute file owned by that user.
If the owner of the file tries to delete the file, Interleaf pops it
back up on the desktop because an attribute file is owned by someone
else. Ideally, the only people that would move files in the drawer
would be the file owner and the drawer manager.
*** Can the workstation group create a utility that has the proper
privileges to automatically delete all the attribute files from the
complete communications cabinet?
Karl Hakkarainen should perform a directory listing of the
IWS4069$DISK:[IWS3LIB.COMMUNICATION...] area, before it's cleaned up, in case
something is accidentally deleted. Otherwise it will be very difficult, if
not impossible, to accurately restore files.
The Drawer Managers will not require special access privileges. They
should go to the owners of the files they want deleted from the drawer and
have the owners delete them. That way fewer accidents will occur. The
drawer manager can perform a DIRECTORY/OWNER DCL command to see who owns
the files they want to delete.
Once all the drawer managers are designated, I will call a meeting to
discuss what they need to do.
*** The task force should discuss the many methods of accomplishing and
maintaining the comms cabinet. Once there is a maintenance process in
place, this process should be documented. That way, this drawer management
position can be rotated through the groups.
Please let me know what your thoughts are on this proposal. If you need to
discuss this as a group, please let me know when Kathleen's next extended
staff meeting is; and I will present this proposal at that meeting.
Thank you,
Janice
The supervisors agreed to send names of volunteers to me by April 8, 1991.
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| Minutes of Communications Cabinet Task Force
June 6, 1991
Attendees: Bruce Gillham
Bob Govoni
Karl Hakkarainen
Rikk Hallowell
Steve Jong
Paul Keating
Joe Oliver
Janice Sahagian
Discussion of Drawer Management Tasks
-------------------------------------
Janice presented what she, Karl, and Paul thought were the tasks
of the drawer managers. The handout she passed around is added as a
reply to these minutes. It has been edited reflecting decisions made
by the task force.
It was recommended that Janice send a message to the whole group
stating when the cleanup will start and giving the names of all the
Task Force members. This is an ACTION ITEM for Janice. She will send
the message out when Paul finishes the preliminary setup and Karl makes
the backup.
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| SUBJECT: Active Management of the Communications Cabinet
Goal: Keep the Interleaf Communications Cabinet down to a manageable size
and to improve performance.
Comms Cab Management Tasks:
o Identify files for deletion. The drawer manager would ensure that all
files in the drawer are currently in use. If no one is using a file,
the drawer manager would delete it. The drawer manager would delete
these files to a junk drawer located on the manager's desktop and keep it
for a certain amount of time, such as one week.
o Identify files for archive. Paul has installed an archive disk (not
active yet) where files can be archived rather than deleted. Files can
also be archived to tape.
o The drawer manager could enforce a naming convention for the files in
the drawer, such as dates when files should be reviewed or deleted.
Create special template drawers for documents that are designed to be
kept for a long time.
o The drawer manager must manage the number of attribute files that build
up in the drawer (the files that begin with "$"). Every time a user
moves a file, Interleaf creates an attribute file owned by that user.
Through the use of ACLs, when the owner of the file tries to delete the
file, Interleaf will also delete all the attribute files for that file
(I hope -- this has not been tested yet). However, the drawer managers,
through the use of ACLs, can delete all the attribute files.
o The drawer manager can also check for $B Crash files and $C Checkpoint
files that can build up in the drawer.
The top level of the Comms Cab will be set to group=read. Only privileged
people can add and delete anything on the top level.
Paul will delete all backup files one week behind the weekly backup.
Paul will set up ACLs on most files in the Comms Cab. These ACLs will set
protection for the whole group to group=RWED. Also, Paul can have these
ACLs propagate to any new files that are created. (We need to test if a
user can close down group=WED on a file within the Comms Cab if they choose
to do that.)
Karl Hakkarainen should perform a directory listing of the
IWS4069$DISK:[IWS3LIB.COMMUNICATION...] area, before it's cleaned up, in case
something is accidentally deleted. Otherwise it will be very difficult, if
not impossible, to accurately restore files.
The task force should discuss the many methods of accomplishing and
maintaining the Comms Cabinet. Once there is a maintenance process in
place, this process must be documented. That way, this drawer management
position can be rotated through the groups.
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|
Minutes of Communications Cabinet Task Force
October 18, 1991
Attendees: Cynthia Day
Bruce Gillham
Rick Owens
Lorrain Sharon
Janice Sahagian
Jack Wickwire
Discussion of Drawer Management Tasks
-------------------------------------
The group discussed the urgency of getting the Communications
cabinet cleaned up. Discussion centered around the tasks to be
done; for example, deleting $A backup files, $B crash files, land $C
checkpoint files. Jack Wickwire mentioned that the most space can
be eliminated by deleting the $A backup files. All these files are
the ones that are deleted when IWSCLEANUP is run on desktops.
However, Paul Keating said that IWSCLEANUP could not be run on the
Communications cabinet.
The group decided that it would be good if Janice sent a memo to the
group asking them for their assistance. Janice will do that on
Friday, October 18.
Janice went over the list of files in the top level of the
Communications cabinet. She will clean that up on Friday.
The group decided that a realistic goal to have the cleanup
completed for this quarter would be by October 31st. That gives us
two weeks. That should be plenty of time. The sooner we get it
done, the sooner our Interleaf performance will improve.
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