METU Computer Center (METU CC) provides a comprehensive range of facilities and services to meet the computational and communicative needs of the academic and administrative units of the university. METU CC, ahead of all others, has been successful in keeping its hardware and software park up-to-date since 1960. We believe that the table below providing the historical development of computer technology of METU CC will reveal interesting information.
| 1964 | 1965 | 1966 | 1969 | 1972 | 1977 | 1979 | 1981 | 1982 |
| 1984 | 1985 | 1987 | 1990 | 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 |
| 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 |
| 2006 | 2007 |
1964 METU Computer Center was founded.
1965 An IBM 1620 with 40 MB memory, 1 paper tape reader, 1 punch machine and 1 line printer were rented.
1966 1 optical sign reader (1230) and 1 disk driver (1311) were additionally rented.
1969 IBM 1620 was removed. A new system, IBM 370/40 with 2 disks (2311), 2 magnetic tapes(2401), 1 punch machine (2540), 1 line printer (1403) and a system console were rented.
1972 2311 model disks were exchanged with 2314 model disks.
1974 IBM 370/40 was replaced with an IBM 370/145 with 384 KB memory, 2 disks (3330, 2*100 MB), 1 punch machine(2540), 1 tape reader (3505), 2 line printers (1403) and 1 system console (321) that were hired.
1977 2 disks (3330) with 400 MB of capacity were added to IBM 370/145.
1979 1 optical reader (3881) and 1 magnetic tape (3410) were rented.
1981 IBM 370/145 is replaced with Burroughs B6930 with 3MB memory, 1600 MB disk, 2 line printers, 10 terminals, 6 printers and 2 punch readers.
1982 4 terminals and a disk of 400 MB were added.
1984 A new system with 12 MB memory, 1 card reader, 2 line printers, 2 magnetic tapes, 3 disks of 400 MB and 6 printers were hired since B6930 failed to fulfill the needs of the university.
1985 20 ET1100 terminals were added.
1987 METU CC improved its service facilities with UPS, generator, etc. and started serving the university 7 days a week and 24 hours a day.
1988 METU CC was connected to EARN-BITNET with Unisys A9F.
1990 IBM 3090/180S started servicing with VM/XA operating system. The system had 1 vector processor, 128 MB memory, 22.5 GB disk (3380), 135 colorless (3191) and 15 color (3192) terminals, 2x4245 (20001 pm) line printers, 2 magnetic tapes (6250 bpi) and 2 cartridge drivers (32000 bpi).
METU CC and the university campus were connected to EARN-BITNET with IBM 3090/180S.
3 terminal rooms started serving in Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering and Physics departments.
Token ring (16 MB/s) was established on campus and connected to mainframe computers from 16 locations.
1992 UNISYS U6065 was installed with 3 processors, 16MB memory and 1.3 GB disk.
HP/9000 817S was installed with 16MB memory, and HP-UX operating system.
RISC/6000 System 32 was installed with 16 MB memory, 1GB disk and AIX operating system.
The first Internet connection from METU to the Netherlands by X-25 was established.
1993 16MB memory and 3.9GB disk were added to UNISYS U6065 and HP817S for the purpose of capacity improvement.
Turkish Internet Connection (TR-NET) was established between METU, Ankara and NSF Washington DC. A line of 64 kbps was established between METU and NSF. This connection served the whole country.
2 PC rooms in the first and second dormitories opened to help use Novell network operating system.
UNISYS B6930 system was removed.
Sun Server was installed with a 32MB memory and 4GB disk.
UNISYS A9F was closed to the access of academic staff and users.
METU-NET was expanded to 22 access points.
1994 IBM 3270 terminal rooms at Mechanical Engineering Department, Civil Engineering Department and Physics Department were converted to PC rooms. 83 PCs located in these rooms served by Novell Netware server and were connected to METU-NET via multi-protocol routers. Tatung 1041 server 32MB memory was bought with 1GB disk. IBM SP2, the first Supercomputer in Türkiye which entered the top 500 list all around the world was used in METU, (http://www.top500.org/site/1145 376th place).
IBM 3090/180S +VF aged after five years' work and was replaced by three IBM 590S File Servers and one IBM SP2 (with 8 nodes) Compute Server, all running under AIX (IBM UNIX operating System).
The Compute Server SP2 (Scalable POWER2parallel Systems) is composed of 8 nodes with POWER2 processors. Serial, batch, parallel and interactive workloads can be concurrently processed on SP2 (nautilus). It is capable of processing compute-intensive jobs. There are three POWERserver 590s that are planned to provide file services as well as the processing power that can easily support the usual workload at the university. POWERserver 590 also has POWER 2 processors. Two of the POWERserver 590s(rorqual and narwhal) are connected directly to 80 gigabytes of RAID disk. Three POWERserver 590s and four nodes of SP2 are connected to FDDI network.
Systems were connected to the METU backbone (METU-NET) through the token ring cards that are on two of the POWERserver 590s. There are two token-ring cards on each machine to increase the availability of the system's connection to the METU backbone AIX operating system that runs on the systems.
1995 IBM Scalable POWERparallel System (SP2) was installed and offered to service. This system consists of 8 nodes, each having 64 MB memory and 1 GB disk. This system serves users who need high performance computing and dense processor usage.
1996 HP 800/E25 and IBM RISC 6000 POWERserver J30 and G90 model systems were bought and made available for usage, in order to increase the processor power of installed systems. Additionally, Robot Tape Library systems were installed to make backing up more reliable and safe.
1997 256 MB memory is added to IBM RISC 6000 POWERserver J40, the number of processors in IBM RISC 6000 POWERserver G40 is increased from 2 to 4 and, 256 MB memory is added to it, 128 MB memory is added to IBM RISC 6000 POWERserver 590, and 64 MB memory is added to each of the 8 nodes of IBM RISC 6000parallel SP2 and 4.5 GB disk is added to it. At the end of 1997, 4 new Unix-based systems were purchased.
In order to convert the METU local network to ATM, Switches between Economic and Administrative Sciences, CC, Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Engineering began to be used for test purposes. Besides, to improve ATM network, 25 ATM Switches, 16 ATM Interface, 1 ATM Video Decoder, 1 ATM Video Encoder, and Traffic Analysis and Network Administration software are purchased.
4 new PC rooms in Industrial Engineering, 3rd Dormitory, 5th Dormitory and 9th Dormitory buildings are opened. A new PC room in Private Osman Yazici Dormitory began to give service, also. The capacity of the PC room in 2nd Dormitory building is improved by adding a new floor to that room.
METU CWIS web pages were revised in April. METU 1997-1999 General Catalog is converted to HTML format and placed in METU CWIS.
1998 SP2 System's operating system was upgraded from AIX 3.2.5 version to AIX 4.2.1. version.
The installation of 4 Sun UltraEnterprise 450 systems, which were purchased in 1997, was completed. Of these systems, tasman and myra were offered to service.
As the test studies of ATM Network were finished, it has been started to be used. By the end of 1998, connection of 24 administrative and academic units all over METU to this network was completed. HP Openview and Foreview Network Management Software that were purchased in 1997 were started being used.
Within the context of BADE project that provides the preparatory school students with basic computer skills and package programs usage education, 4 Multimedia laboratories including 124 PCs and 1 server were opened. These labs are located in the Department of Civil Engineering, Preparatory School (2 labs) and 2nd Dormitory.
1999 The memory of IBM RISC/6000 POWERserver 590 system (narwhal) has been upgraded to 512 MB, and AIX 4.2.1. version is upgraded to 4.3.2. version. SUN UltraEnterprise 450 system (troya) has began to serve as an interface server for the software developed within the body of the METU CC for the Registrar's Office Information System (OİBS) . SUN Ultra 10 system (nms) is now serving for the purposes of controlling and managing ATM network. The installation process of IBM S7A RS/6000 system , on which the applications of personnel and student database are operating , has now been completed. The installation process of IBM 43P RS/6000 system (aspendos) has been completed and it is now serving as VTLS Library Application server. The installation of IBM F50 RS/6000 system (perge) has now been completed and it is being used as server for backing up purposes.
The efforts to improve the e-mail services provided by our university has now matured, and as a consequence of these newly adopted improvements by METU CC on central Unix servers which serve 24 hours and 365 days, the e-mail addresses which belong to the students, the academic and administrative personnel, have been changed with a continuous effort to usernamemetu.edu.tr since the process was launched in April.
Due to the insufficiency of the ULAKNET connections which connect the academic institutions and since TTNET connections are now made available, the investments have been made to connect METU to this network structure. In this respect, the 34 Mbyte/sc connection between the Balgat switch and METU, has been activated after the necessary configurations are completed. The capacity of ULAKNET connection has been multiplied by 4 Mbyte/sc via adding a 2 Mbyte/sc connection. Providing an additional TTNET connection with a capacity of 8 Mbyte/sc , these recent efforts have accumulated to a total internet connection capacity of 12 Mbyte/sc. To answer the intense demands of the the users and to offer a problem-free service, investments are being made to build ISDN/PRI MODEM connections of digital technology with a capacity of 60 lines.
3 new laboratories serving for multimedia purposes have been built within the project called BADE to facilitate the learning of basic package programs by the prep school students and freshmen. As a consequence, the total number of the PC rooms is now 16 and the total number of the PCs in these rooms have reached 423.
Within the framework of the agreement which is entered into with Yildiz University and Hacettepe University in 1997, the projects of automation have been carried out , new programs for the specific needs of university have been written and they are now being used. Later in time, after some alterations and regulations on these projects, a package has been developed to build Registrar's Office Information System(OİBS) project. During spring semester grading period, this system has been started to be used in our university.
The Circulation Module (Lending books) of the VTLS System is now available to all library users. Therefore, the library's card system is now being gradually abandoned.
11 educational seminars particularly concerned with the users were held and a total of 1242 people had participated in them. The booklets "Temel Bilgisayar Kullanimi", "Introduction to SPSS" have run out of the available supplies, therefore they are updated and republished with the latest information. There are endeavors engaged in under the topic of Quality Improvement Project and the hot-line service offered to our users is chosen as the pilot project.
The restructuring and the renewal of the design of METU and CC Web Pages, which are accessible within METU-CWIS, are initiated. The electronic List Server (listproc) which is running on central servers, is also built as a new web page with its address as metu.edu.tr/list_server , for it would facilitate the accessibility to information on the List Server. The service of METU Newsgroups are still carried out on the related server which is bearing 7579 newsgroups.
Within the scope of the endeavors to cope with the Y2K problem, the inventories of all of the software,hardware and embedded chips have been made and the compatibility of all of the systems in the inventory with the Y2K have been tested. "Unexpected Inconvenience Plan" has been prepared to prevent the handicaps which may arise in between December 31st and January 2nd and to keep our users away from the effects of Y2K problem.
2000 8 seminars under the topics such as Windows, UNIX, MS Office, Photoshop, Internet, Temel Bilgisayar Tanitimi, Lisansli Yazilim Tanitimi, Ansys Yazilim Tanitimi were held. A total of 1.091 people (Academic and Administrative personnel, Students, PC Operators, Teachers of the schools which are within the scope of Contribution to 8-year Education Project, participants from TRT (Turkish Radio Television) and Ministry of Education) have participated in the seminars.
The "webmail" service, which enables users to access the electronic e-mail service on the central servers through a web browser (Netscape, Internet Explorer, etc.) from either inside or outside METU, was provided at http://webmail.metu.edu.tr at the end of a preliminary tests and long pilot application period.
The planning phase of the METU wireless networking project was launched in 1999. The required devices were purchased consequently and the first pilot application process was carried out throughout April of 2000. Campus backbone network access of Sports Hall, METU-MET, Psychological Counseling and Guidance Center, were provided over wireless network within the scope of METU wireless networking project.
As soon as all the units that were connected to Token-ring were completely transferred to ATM backbone, the token-ring backbone was closed at the beginning of the year 2000. This increased the number of units/departments that are connected to ATM backbone to 90. Moreover, a total of 16 units were indirectly connected to the ATM backbone network via applying ethernet technology.
METU web pages, which were started to be used in 1994 as pilot application, were revised content wise and as respects to its design in 1997. Lastly, on November 6th, 2000, the site was reintroduced to users as of two sites, one in Turkish (www.odtu.edu.tr) and the other in English (www.metu.edu.tr). During the 2000-2001 Fall Semester Registrations, a "Registration Booklet" was prepared and the booklet was made available online. This process constitutes a novelty in regard to the former registration periods. Another new implementation i.e. providing important news and information about registrations over METU Wap site (wap.metu.edu.tr) was launched at the same time.
Computer Center's Library Services Automation Project was launched by on June 15th, 2000. In December 2000, the project was completed and the program was implemented as pilot application in METU CC.
In parallel with the decision given by the University Senate, and along with the Personnel Office Project leadership of Industrial Engineering Department, Oracle Human Resources package was purchased in July 2000 and of CC carried out the undertakings in scope of the support it provides.
As a part of Registrar's Office Project, within the scope of security concerns of CC, the pilot application of "Session Management" method that checks page passages and SSL (Secure Socket Layer) security controls that transfer the data in encrypted format over a network were launched.
Within the scope of CV Project, which aims to transfer the academic personnel information to the computer medium for providing faster and timelier access to this information, the new database structure was implemented and all the programs were rewritten.
2001 In the year 2000, 8 seminars under the topics such as Windows, UNIX, MS Office, Photoshop, Internet, Temel Bilgisayar Tanitimi, Lisansli Yazilim Tanitimi, Ansys Yazilim Tanitimi were held. A total of 780 people (Academic and Administrative personnel, Students, PC Operators, Teachers of the schools of Ministry of Education which are within the scope of Contribution to 8-year Education Project) have participated in the seminars.
CISN (Computing Information Services Newsletter), which was published on paper in 1997 for the last time, was started to be published again in 2001 to make public the services of CC and to announce the up-to-date news on information technology to METU community.
Within the scope of the improvements of CC on the central Unix servers, the service capacity of ftp service has been enhanced to 130 GB, and the home directory disc quotas of the users were increased (3 MB quota reserved for the students was made 10 MB, and 10 GB quota reserved for the personnel was made 25 MB).
The TTNET connection with 8 Mbps, which was provided over 34 Mbps ATM link on SDH in 2000, has been increased to 16 Mbps and the total capacity of off-campus access was increased to 20 Mbps.
Within the scope of Student Affairs Information System Project, "Graduate Program Application and Evaluation Information System" has been developed and for the first time the graduate program applications and evaluations were carried out over web.
2002 In 2002, the capacity of 16 Mbps TTNET connection is increased to 22 Mbps in June and the capacity of ULAKNET connection is increased to 34 Mbps in December. Consequently, the total capacity of off-campus access has become 56 Mbps.
Those activities of 2002 contrasting with that of previous years was the holding of Linux operating system seminars and OpenOffice seminars to enlighten our users about alternative operating systems and open-source software applications. Virus/Security seminars have also been provided to educate our users about virus and security concerns. In June 2002, the book titled "Temel Bilgisayar Kullanimi" (Basics of How to Use a Computer) is updated and a new book, namely "Linux Operating System", is published for the first time in September 2002.
METU CC, in cooperation with TÜBITAK-BILTEN and EBI INC. and under the coordination of University Presidency, has initiated "Smart Card Automation
Project" to address efficiently and appropriately the automation needs of the University. It is decided that the pilot application be implemented at Computer Center in December 2002 and the undertakings were started accordingly.
As part of the security undertakings; to ensure that our users are more aware and informed about viruses and the threats against network safety, a security web site (security.metu.edu.tr) and an antivirus web site (antivirus.metu.edu.tr) has been created; and a "blackhole" router is established to track untrusted network traffic.
As a result of the integration of "Graduate Information System" and "Student Information System", the masters/doctoral thesis courses, thesis studies, seminars and term projects are registered automatically onto the students.
2003 Till the end of 2003 the campus backbone connections have been renewed, internet access has been provided for the units in the Workshops Area. By the completion of a 1Mbps capacity lease line Institute of Marine Sciences, Erdemli has been enabled to access the METU Campus directly.
RADIUS (Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service) server has been put into service to provide secure and efficient functioning of the wireless network system.
Off-campus access capacity has been increased to 100 Mbps by the full dublex Ethernet connection provided from the Ulaknet (The National Academic Network Unit), a connection of 5 Mbps capacity symmetric satellite access line has been provided. The application of a Web Cache Proxy has been started, by duplicating certain web sites out of campus on local servers, in order to increase Internet access.
Changes have been made on routers, and programs have been developed in order to automatically inhibit the network connections of computers infected by viruses, so as to prevent such computers from affecting other computers connected to the campus wide backbone, and those computers whose access have been prohibited are now listed and announced at the http://affected.metu.edu.tr address.
Within the scope of Smart Card Automation Project the access control for the CC building plus the systems room, and The Tea House e-cash pilot application have been implemented in 2003. Work on the customization and the printing process of student ID (identification) cards has been completed and the preparations on the customization and the printing of personnel ID cards have been started.
In 2003, a total of 5000 copies of "Computing Services Hand Book (v 1.0) for METU Students", which has been published to introduce the students to the services provided by the CC, were printed and 4500 copies were distributed, 3500 of which during registration.
In the extent of the week organized as the "Internet Week", the 10th anniversary of the Internet was celebrated on April 15-18 at the METU CC, where the first internet access in Türkiye was realized, and events were organized (http://www.internetarsivi.metu.edu.tr/) in accordance with the scope.
2004 By 2004 January, single mode fiber optic cabling work was completed. The side switching instrumentation procured at the end of 2003 were gradually set up at departments and units thus the transforming the whole university to the gigabit backbone was accomplished. Related to this task, the network substructure, which the server systems function through, was moved to the gigabit network and acts of upgrading the server systems to newer versions was completed. In the extent of work done about unwanted virus and spam traffic in the e-mail system the filtering structure and characteristic have been changed, and central spam identification detection have been put into use.
Within the scope of the METU-CAM project, the live information received from the six cameras placed at the Engineering Dept., the CC, Faculty of Education and the Library buildings was put into use at the http://metucam.metu.edu.tr address. For access from the addresses http://ncc.metu.edu.tr and http://ncc.odtu.edu.tr to METU Northern Cyprus Campus both Turkish and English web page interfaces have been developed. METU Forum service at the address forum.metu.edu.tr has been provided.
In compliance with the Smart Card Automation Project, within the E-Cash Pilot Application Scheme of the CC the uploading of credit using Netmatik and expenditure of that credit at the cashiers have been started. Furthermore, The Cafeteria E-Cash system consisting of cashiers and turnstiles was commenced as of May 28 2004, as a pilot application. The cashiers at the Cafeteria have been provided with POS machines and the new Turkish Lira changes have been made.
Thanks to the donations of the Altinoglu family a new seminar room at the CC has been opened and was activated to supply training, in tribute of one of our alumni Feza Altinoglu.
With the contributions of the previous CC staff in 2004 the "CISN 10th Year Special" has been prepared and published in April.
2005 In 2005 cabling of the departments and units which lacked Fiber Optic Cable connections was completed. In the same year, in order to enhance METU off-campus connection, the already existing 134 Mbps ULAKNet and 155 Mbps TR-Net peering lines were annexed by an additional TT-Net line to provide a standby line for off-campus communication. A 16 Mbps capacity connection was provided between METU Northern Cyprus Campus and METU Ankara Campus. Investments for the wireless area network which would take under coverage a vast majority of the campus were completed.
The service provider, on which applications such as the Staff Roster, the Campus Wide Phone Book, Announcements etc. run, has been transferred on to new hardware. METU Alumni e-mail Forwarding Service has been started in order to continue to provide e-mail service for our alumni. In addition to the webmail application, which provides e-mail service on the web, a new webmail application (webmail2) with further specifications has been launched, serving on two different service providers. The Central E-mail Authorization Service has been devised to facilitate mail activities for our users who get provision from internet service providers other than METU by using their mail.metu.edu.tr address.
METU-TV which has been designed on a web interface has taken a new lease on life, providing on demand video shows recorded earlier or live broadcasts. At the Smart Class which is located in the Physics Department and which can facilitate seminars, juries etc. to be conducted in an interactive medium, a total of onehudredandeighty hours of classes and seminars were held in the year 2005.
The CC seminar pages seminar.cc.metu.edu.tr have been put into use in order to announce trainings provided by the CC, to get training demands and to evaluate these, to perform the campus wide registration, and to get feedback on training durations:seminar.cc.metu.edu.tr
2006 At the Erdemli Institute of Marine Sciences the wireless area network, the capacity of which has been increased from 1 Mbps to 2 Mbps, device installation was completed and was put into service in the year 2006. The eighty-three node, three-hundred kernel grid infrastructure (TR-03-METU), initiated by ULAKBİM to provide the contribution of Turkiye to the "grid" structuring which is rapidly becoming worldwide and which aims at meeting the high calculation power needs of the researchers by making it possible to share the resources of calculation and data storage of computers via the internet and which includes seven universities within the scope of TR_GRID substructure project, was installed at the CC system room. Of the 548 PCs in the PC rooms 88 have been renewed, a new back up system has been introduced thus; the daily back up capacity of the disk space has been increased from 100 GB to 400 GB. By transferring to "Grey Listing" usage a decrease of 72% in daily spam number was made possible, two new servers were put into service for the task of filtering viruses, the substructure of the electronic list services software was renewed and the switch from the "ListProc" application to the "mailman" was made.
Within the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of METU, the main web page of the university has been renewed to display a picture and a text for each year starting from nineteen-fifty-six, and the year 1964 was presented by a text and an accompanying picture about the foundation of the Computer Centre. To the launching of the Smart Card application in 2006 (The Cafeteria, A4 and A7 Campus gates, and some buildings Comp. and IT Tech., Elec. Eng., Ind. Eng., Phys., Econ. Adm. Sc., Chem., Civ. Eng., Mech. Eng., Math, Arch., C.C., MM entrances, Dorm.3 PC Room, CC Sys. Rm. entrance) The Social Lounge, Faculty Club, The Sport Centre, Pool entrance fee revenue collection that require payment ( overdue payment of book in the library, CC Printer fees) were added as a new project to enhance Smart Card practice. In order to follow up on the web the projects done via the Circulating Capital Dept. PAYS (Project Flow Management System) has been started to be piloted, a pilot application to enable the students to see their grades and fee information through SMS has been launched, a new application has been made effective in order to safely access, from out of campus, electronic resources that the library is a member of. Forty eight seminars have been given, some live, to about three hundred people (student and personnel), The recordings at the Smart Class in the Department of Physics were displayed on the web page.
2007 In the year 2007 the wireless are network, the investment of which was done in 2006, for the housings and the guesthouse region was made effective, the coverage area of the already existing wireless network in the Library was widened, the "eduroam (Educational Roaming)" infrastructure that enable authorized network access among the educational establishments in European and Asia-Pacific (APAN) countries was set up (making METU the first university in Turkiye to be connected to eduroam via ULAKNET ), in the PC rooms, the storage capacities of some PCs with low capacities were raised to 1 GB, DVD writer services were provided for all the rooms, two new servers and more disk space were made available for e-mail services.
The main web page of METU was renewed to meet the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) standards, within the task of the renovation of the web pages of the administrative units, The Rectorate, The General Secretariat, The Library and Documentation Directorate, Circulating Capital Department, web pages were put into service as the first group. As a part of the project of increasing the use of Smart Card applications, the Social Lounge, Faculty Club, The Sport Centre, Pool entrance fee revenue collection that require payment (overdue payment of book in the library, CC Printer fees) were included to the Smart Card traffic, card entrance system was introduced at the PC Rooms in Dorm 3 and Dorm 1 as well. Project Flow Management System that enables the follow up of the projects done via the Circulating Capital Dept on the web, The Scholarship Application and Ratification System, The English Proficiency and The Placement exam evaluation System, C&CC Activity Reservation System, have all been put into practice. The interface of the Announcements-Activities has been renewed, a new system that facilitates the web archiving of the decisions of the UMB and the Senate and all the news that appear in the media regarding METU has been made effective. The Mobile Student Affairs Information System (MOIBS) which was piloted in the year 2006 was widened by adding new functions to encompass all GSM operators and automatic grade notification service was put into service. About three hundred fifty people (both staff and students) were given forty-six seminars, some of which were live, The Smart Class was active for hundred an three hours of seminars, two hundred and twenty-two hours of lectures, four hundred sixteen hours of out of campus video conferences; a total of seven hundred and forty-one hours. The HCI (Human Computer Interaction) Lab was in operation for four hundred and seventy-three hours, ninety-six hours of which was for demand from out of campus.