Overview

Overview of the Information and Media Center

Toyohashi University of Technology’s Information and Media Center (IMC) was established in April 2005, by integrating the Information Processing Center and the Multimedia Center.
The purpose of the IMC is to manage and operate the campus network system and the academic computing environment to promote research and education. It also serves as a shared facility that provides internet and computer services to students and faculty/staff members.

The on-campus communication network was originally built for ATMs in 1996. In 2002, a high-speed information network GbE (Gigabit Ethernet) was introduced to the campus, and now we have built a backbone ring network with a speed of up to 10 Gbps (with terminal connection speeds of up to 1 Gbps).
Connections to off-campus network services have also been enhanced from 15 Mbps in 2002, to 100 Mbps in 2003, and up to 1 Gbps via SINET 4 in 2011.
In July 2008, we launched a hosting service for web servers, mail servers, and DNS servers in order to improve security and reduce the management burden on the IMC, departments and laboratories.

In September 2010, we created a thin client environment that enables network booting, by introducing a total of about 350 terminals with a Windows/Linux dual booting system in two computing rooms (Terminal Rooms 1 and 2), a multimedia classroom and an independent study room within the center, as well as to facilities outside the center, such as D-202 and D4-702 and 703.
We also have established an integrated authentication system with LDAP and ActiveDirectory, allowing individual students and faculty/staff members to use a single user ID and password to access the IMC system, wireless LAN, thin clients of the administration bureau, the academic affairs system, the library system, etc.

As part of the e-learning Higher Education Coordination Project, in April 2004 we started to provide remote teaching to technical colleges and universities with credit transfer agreements. We also develop web learning materials and manage the learning management system Moodle.
In February 2007, we established a lecture recording studio in the IMC, which is used to create e-learning lecture videos.
We also manage and operate a video transmission system that enables the sending and receiving of high-quality lecture/seminar videos between classrooms through the university’s LAN.

To support research activity, the IMC borrows computational resources from Kyoto University’s supercomputer system for large-scale simulations, and for small-scale simulations, we provide a computing server (CPU: Opteron 8439E, Memory: 128 GB) and research workstations equipped with highly specialized software and analysis applications, including a scientific computing library and parallel computation tools.
The IMC’s equipment and software are freely available for research purposes.
We also hold lectures and workshops concerning our software and systems.

The History of the IMC