Under the new system, students can print from personal laptops or cluster or library computers to a single “All Clusters” queue and can release the printing job at any OIT cluster on campus. But some students said they are unable to connect to the new queue and have to resort to printing only from cluster computers.
“My computer keeps throwing me off the ‘All Clusters’ network, so when I try to print to ‘All Clusters,’ I just get an error,” Jennifer Lopata ’12 explained.
Kate Fischl ’11 has had similar problems. “I have a MacBook Pro with a 10.4 operating system — just like any senior who bought a Mac when we were freshmen and has never updated it — so I couldn’t install the ‘All Clusters’ printing mechanisms.”
Students also said that printing jobs now take much longer to appear at the release stations.
“I now try to print things very far in advance so that they have a lot of time to appear on a cluster computer,” Fischl said. “This requires a lot more planning and isn’t ideal.”
Still, Kristian Parapanov ’14 said, “Sometimes the servers are a little slow, but it prints out eventually.”
Fischl acknowledged that she did not believe OIT could have foreseen the delays but added that “it currently is pretty inconvenient.”
In an e-mail to Wilson School undergraduates, Cathy Cuff, information technology director of the Wilson School, said that all printing jobs printed in rooms 40, 42 and 46 of Robertson Hall will bypass the release stations and print automatically until the technical issues are resolved.
OIT senior manager Leila Shahbender said in an e-mail that OIT has been informed of the problems with the ‘All Clusters’ queue and was working to resolve the situation.
“OIT technical staff and Pharos and Microsoft engineers are working on diagnosing this, and we anticipate having more information about how this may be resolved and how students can best print to cluster printers by the end of the week,” Shahbender said. She noted that students have approached the OIT help desk and their residential computing consultants for help.
Shahbender added that OIT has taken steps to address the problems, including restarting the main Pharos print server last Thursday while trying to diagnose the problem and adding system resources to the server.
Despite the current technical difficulties, Lopata said she believes the system could eventually prove beneficial.
“In theory, printing to every cluster is more convenient,” she said. “If OIT can figure out a way to effectively handle all the print jobs so printing becomes more efficient, I think it would be a real plus.”
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