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Current procedure for acquiring/installing software on Athena alexp 6/16/09

1. request comes in (in rough order of volume):

via 3partysw@mit.edu mailing list
via phone call to me
via Email to me
via Help Desk or Athena consulting forwarded request
via IS&T management or staff

Requester may be anyone at MIT (faculty/staff/student); It's often staff acting
on behalf of faculty.

2. basic information is requested:

Will it run on Athena platforms (Sun/Solaris, RedHat Enterprise Linux
i32 in past, Ubuntu i32/amd64 Linux in the future)?

Are current Athena hardware resources (CPU/memory/disk, any additional
hardware requirements) adequate to run it?

Is there vendor software protection (license server/timeout
key/dongle/node locked)? If yes, is software time-limited or not?
Does the vendor offer concurrent-use licensing?

[NOTE: under usual circumstances, software that is node-locked or
dongle-protected is not allowed on Athena]

Are there license fees? If yes: how much, who will pay them? Is the
license annual or perpetual? What is the full pricing structure?
(i.e. flat-fee for unlimited use, tiered pricing based on number
of licenses, one-time fee per software version or annual maintenance as
a fraction of initial license fee for updates, fixed annual fee etc.).
A decision is made in consultation with the parties paying the license
fee (there may be more than one) as to how many licenses to purchase
(if there isn't a single, flat fee for unlimited use). A quote is
usually obtained from the vendor at this time, if payment to a
vendor is required (payment may be required internally through the
IS&T VSLS group as in step b) below).

For commercial software: are users allowed to contact vendor tech
support directly or not? Are we limited to designated technical
support contacts? How is documentation provided? Are we allowed
to duplicate it? Is software downloadeable or delivered by media
only?

[NOTE: nowadays, most documentation is supplied in electronic form
(html, pdf)]

Are there restrictions on usage? (by location, by type of user,
installation on personally owned machines allowed etc.)

Is a signed license required? If yes, a copy is requested from the
software provider.

3. triage steps to move forward:

Based on information obtained initially, the rest of the process may
be greatly accelerated, and proceed directly to installation and
delivery (step 4 below):

a) if the software is already running on Athena, if the request
is only to increase the number of licenses (for commercial software
where the fee is based on number of licenses), and if a source of
funding is available. In this case the quote is sent directly to
Purchasing, and the vendor subsequently supplies whatever is needed
technically to increase the number of licenses- at that point the
process is complete.

b) if the software is already site or volume-licensed to MIT, and if
additional funding is not required, or if it is, if funding sources
are available. This frequently involves an "internal resale" from
the VSLS Software group in IS&T. Financial paperwork, if any, is
usually conducted with the VSLS group; vendors or the VSLS group
supply the software and any required enabling license keys or codes.
Proceed to step 4 below.

c) if the software is free (as in "no cost", or as in "Open Source").
But note that in the first case, it may still be necessary to
proceed to a license review. If no license review is needed,
software is typically downloaded directly from a download site for
installation. Proceed to step 4 below.

[NOTE: on Athena 10, a further simplification is possible in cases
where the software is available as a standard Ubuntu package- in
that case, all that is necessary is for a single line to be added
to an Athena 10 configuration file that will cause the application
to be installed as a component of a set of extra packages installed
on Athena 10 machines; on public cluster machines, users can even
temporarily install extra packages on their own]

If none of a) - c) above apply, or if c) requires license review,
the process continues:

The quote and/or license is forwarded to the IS&T Software Acquisition
Coordinator for initial review; he generally determines if license
terms are acceptable as is (signed license or not), and forwards the
paperwork to Purchasing; if license terms are not acceptable "as is",
a recommendation is made to forward the license to the General
Counsel's office for negotiation with the vendor; if agreement cannot
be obtained, the acquisition process terminates.

[NOTE: the General Counsel's office is the ultimate arbiter for
license terms. In some case, terms that would be unacceptable in a
signed license may be deemed acceptable in an unsigned one
("clickwrap license") for a variety of reasons]

4. An evaluation/test install is performed.

This is usually done in parallel with license negotiation, if such is
necessary. If the software is not already available through one of the
prior steps, the vendor is asked to supply evaluation software (and
a temporary license server, if necessary). Installation on Athena
until now has exclusively been done in AFS file systems, though with
the advent of Athena 10 this will no longer continue to always be
necessary.

The software is installed and tested, in some cases in collaboration
with requestors and/or a testing group. The latter is particularly
important with complex technical software, as IS&T staff may not have
sufficient technical subject area knowledge to conduct thorough
testing. Problems are corrected or worked around as is feasible.
In rare situations, uncorrectable technical problems can terminate
the acquisition process at this stage. If further licensing or
purchasing work is not required, proceed to step 6.

5. Any pending license negotiation and purchase paperwork is completed.

6. The software is deemed "operational".

It may be reinstalled for production use or the test installation may
already be adequate for that purpose. Production license servers are
set up as necessary. The software may be "wrapped" to collect usage
statistics. In a small number of cases, the wrapping is used to monitor
concurrent use in order to support concurrent-use licensing for
software that does not contain a mechanism for imposing the concurrent
use limit. Specific requesters are informed, The software is
announced to general users and MIT support groups through What Runs
Where and via targeted mailing lists (software-announce, cfyi). The
announcement includes pointers to documentation, including
MIT-specific information as appropriate.