Software Provision

Service Description

The software provision for use on University or personal computers.

Features

  • A managed desktop on University computers with a range of software available
  • Purchase of software licenses for wide use across the University
  • Remote access to a wide range of software via the Remote Application Service (RAS)
  • Access to an up to date Linux software repository

Users

All members of the University.

Service Hours

Consultation, advice and guidance: 09:00-17:00, Monday to Friday, excluding University closure periods.

RAS and Linux software mirror: 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The ISS “at risk” period is 07:00-09:00 every Tuesday. Further planned maintenance times will be publicised in advance if there will be a disruption to the service.

Level of Service

Some software is restricted to staff only and some is restricted to University owned computers only; details can be found at http://www.ncl.ac.uk/itservice/software.

Target availability of software services (RAS and Linux software mirror): 99.9% of service hours, excluding advertised planned maintenance downtime. This equates to a target of no more than ¾ hours of unplanned outages per month.

Support and Documentation

Campus Managed Desktop and Software Licensing: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/itservice/software.

RAS: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/itservice/software/ras.

Linux software mirror: http://ftpmirror.ncl.ac.uk.

Additional support is available via the ISS Service Desk on 5999 or it.servicedesk@ncl.ac.uk.

All incidents relating to this service will be handled according to the ISS Incident Management and Major Incident Management processes.

Request Process

Software installations:

  1. Requests for new software installations (for the desktop or RAS) can be made here http://www.ncl.ac.uk/itservice/software/softwareformassdeployment. This is only accessible by University staff.

Software Licenses:

  1. Requests for purchasing individual copies of software can be made here (for both staff and students) http://www.ncl.ac.uk/itservice/software/licences.

Access to software via RAS:

  1. Go to https://ras.ncl.ac.uk
  2. Log in.

Access to the Linux software mirror:

  1. Go to http://ftpmirror.ncl.ac.uk

Requests for any other aspect of the service should be made via the ISS Service Desk on 5999 or it.servicedesk@ncl.ac.uk.

All requests relating to this service will be handled according to the ISS Request Fulfilment process.

User Responsibility

It is the user’s responsibility to take care of their own device. Installing any software provided by ISS on their own device is the user’s responsibility.

It is the user’s responsibility to ensure that they are licensed and are using correctly any software that they have purchased or accessed through ISS.

Costs

Individual copies of some software are chargeable to the user. Prices can be found at http://www.ncl.ac.uk/itservice/software/licences.