Dear list,
Disclaimer: I am an IT person working on an imaging facility and am
familiar with the demands and common problems of data management
experienced by most facilities.

We always save images directly to our file server, even from fast
spinning disk systems with EMCCD camera. Our image acquisition
software can write directly to the server at up to 45MB/s (windows
client / samba server) or up to 90MB/s (linux client / NFS server).
This is just as fast (if not faster) than a local disk.
We only had a problem with Zeiss LSM software that introduced some
changes in version 4 and later that brakes saving on the network. We
are staying with LSM v3.2 that has no such problem and hope that they
will fix that.

We have multiple gigabit interfaces on the server and a gigabit
network isolated from the rest of the campus. But to achieve decent
speeds, the most important part is a good file server, as network
communications have a lot more overhead than local disks, leading to
often disappointing performance. I am personally very happy with our
36TB Sun X4500 server with the ZFS technology: it is really fast, it
has a lot of features (storage pooling, snapshots...), and is not too
expensive. A lot of other storage solutions can do the job, just keep
in mind that low cost (or even some middle range) solutions might not
perform fast enough (there is actually a reason why people spend
sometimes 5X more per GB for storage solutions). We are using the
central backup services of our institution. We are also working with
the OMERO solutions to index the data on the server. As OMERO is
getting better each release I have no doubt it will be working for us
in the near future.

We are using a central login system to allow all microscopes
workstations (linux and windows) to use the user accounts for login
and access personal space on the server. This is done by a samba
domain controller attached to a LDAP directory (you can also use
active directory). This is pretty much a standard IT solution. Our
user accounts and passwords are synchronized with our PPMS
(http://ppms.info) booking system (no IT administration needed to
create or modify users). Regular domain user accounts can be setup as
administrator when a (bad) imaging software requires that.

In my opinion if your institution cannot provide a proper IT solution
for your facility, you will need to hire an IT expert inside your
facility. I agree with other posts in the fact that even if you are
not officially responsible for your user's data storage and archiving,
your imaging facility is or will be one of the major generators of
data in your institution, and not having the proper infrastructure to
receive and archive that data could generate some serious bottlenecks
for your activity.
Mat

--
Mathieu Marchand
--
Bio-Imaging Resource Center, The Rockefeller University
1230 York Avenue, box 209, New York, NY 10065
http://www.rockefeller.edu/bioimaging




On Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 3:55 AM, Daniel James White<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Does anyone have a good solution for
> having windows use a log in server (LDAP or similar)
> for users to log into microscope system windows machines,
> which also logs their usage (who - from when to when).
>
> Some microscope software is tricky to get running properly on a
> normal user account, as the manufacturers sometimes think its OK
> to always have the admin user running the software.
> That is clearly a very bad thing in a multi user environment.
>
> Anyone have any experience there they want to share?
>
> I am looking for something that works for windows XP and vista, and 32 and
> 64 bit.
> I have tried pGina on offline workstations, but didnt get very far die to 32
> bit only for one of the plugins i needed.
>
>
>
> cheers
>
>
> Dan
>
>
>
> Dr. Daniel James White BSc. (Hons.) PhD
> Senior Microscopist / Image Visualisation, Processing and Analysis
> Light Microscopy and Image Processing Facilities
> Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics
> Pfotenhauerstrasse 108
> 01307 DRESDEN
> Germany
>
> +49 (0)15114966933 (German Mobile)
> +49  (0)351 210 2627 (Work phone at MPI-CBG)
> +49  (0)351 210 1078 (Fax MPI-CBG LMF)
>
> http://www.bioimagexd.net       BioImageXD
> http://pacific.mpi-cbg.de Fiji  Fiji is just ImageJ - Batteries Included
> http://www.chalkie.org.uk
> [log in to unmask]
> ( [log in to unmask] )
>



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