UW Web Servers Tailored for Specific Purposes

When C&C unveiled a suite of new UW Web servers last fall, the lack of fanfare belied the moment's underlying significance.

By offering five distinct Web servers, C&C has created a flexible Web publishing environment, where each server can be tailored over time to fit the individual needs of faculty, student, and staff Web publishers.

Moreover, people visiting sites on these servers benefit from their names:

faculty.washington.edu
students.washington.edu
staff.washington.edu
courses.washington.edu
depts.washington.edu

Because a server name becomes part of a site's URL address, visitors will generally know who maintains a site or what kind of information they can expect to find there.

Meeting Growing Needs

This Web page provides you with the information you need to publish on the new faculty, staff, students, courses, or departments UW Web servers.

The new UW Web servers replace Weber, the original Uniform Access Web server supported by C&C. Shared by faculty, students, and staff, Weber met the early needs for Web publishing by the UW community.

The new five-server design acknowledges that the growth of Web publishing at the UW, and its importance, demands an adaptable, simple-to-use setup so that:

Heavy traffic on student Web pages does not impact the response time for an instructor using Web pages in a lecture
New software and services can be offered to specific groups of Web publishers
An account on Homer (Dante for students) is the only one needed to access your Web directory

How UW NetIDs Fit In

Your UW NetID entitles you to set up a Web directory on Homer or Dante and to start publishing. Along with a server name, your UW NetID completes the address of your home page. Instructions for "Getting Started With Web Publishing at the UW" can be found at www.washington.edu/computing/web/publishing/start.html

One service already available on the new Web servers is the option to password-protect your Web site based on users' UW NetIDs. This capability allows you to limit access to current UW faculty, students, and staff, and is already in use by UWired and some departments.

New Services Planned

Based on your feedback, C&C is committed to making the following improvements:

Simplifying file transfers
Adding streaming audio and video support
Improving how you can control access to your Web pages, making it easier to respect copyright law and to protect intellectual property

These services, of course, depend on funding and available technologies, some of which are still evolving.

Servers and Addresses for the Next Millennium

With clearly defined categories of uses and an array of existing and planned capabilities, C&C's suite of Web servers provides the basic infrastructure needed by the UW community to publish information on the Web for the foreseeable future.

This longevity means the address for your home page on these servers will not need to change any time soon.

To Learn More

C&C has developed a comprehensive Web site called "Creating and Publishing Web Pages" at www.washington.edu/computing/web/publishing/ that provides information on how to get started, how to author Web pages, and how to move files to your Web directory. You will also find additional topics such as controlling access, adding different media, and tracking the use of your Web site.

University of Washington Computing & Communications
Windows on Computing, No. 23, Spring 1999
newsltr@cac.washington.edu