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The BEEF Report: An Implementation Plan for Berkeley.EDU addresses.

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U.EDU survey

BEEF Report [DRAFT 2]
Namespace Recommendations
Process Recommendations
Technical Recommendations
Expenses and Workload

Berkeley has an outstanding international reputation, so it is natural that campus users wish to have their identity strongly affiliated with the campus, especially when publishing their addresses or corresponding with colleagues outside the university.
Who uses @U.EDU addresses?
42 of the other 49 flagship state universities
4 of 5 of private research universities
5 of the other 8 UC campuses
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Most universities make "user@university.edu" mail addresses available to the campus population. In some cases, these addresses are the primary mail account for the users; in others, they forward to a departmental mail host, or a uclink-equivalent host.

Berkeley does not currently have such an addressing scheme. We believe that campus users would benefit from being able to use "user@Berkeley.EDU" addresses. In addition to being more strongly affiliated with the campus, top-level Berkeley.EDU addresses would be shorter and simpler than uclink or socrates addresses. In print or over the phone, simplicity and brevity are extremely desirable qualities.

The campus already has a large, central mail server, and there's little reason to create another one. A simple way to implement a Berkeley.EDU mail address service would be as a mail forwarder; users would still receive mail in their current e-mail account (be it uclink, socrates, or a departmental account), but they could configure a Berkeley.EDU address to forward to their current e-mail address, and then begin using and publishing their @Berkeley.EDU instead, if they choose to.

Such a service would not be intended to replace departmental mail servers--we expect many departments and colleges will want to continue using their own mail servers and publishing their departmental mail addresses. It would also not be a replacement for uclink's mail service--uclink will still be handling the bulk of the e-mail traffic, and people may choose to continue publishing their uclink addresses.

We urge that IST create and maintain an opt-in mail forwarding service for the Berkeley.EDU domain.

This service would be of great utility to campus users, and fits philosophically with the e-Berkeley initiative. The required investment is modest and the potential benefit is broad.

Our report is broken down into four primary sections:

  • Namespace Recommendations: There are many different ways to approach the selection of names. We recommend self-selection, coordinated with the socrates/uclink/CalNet namespace.

  • Process Recommendations: We recommend an opt-in service, with web page linked from the campus directory update page, where users can choose their @Berkeley.EDU name.

  • Technical Recommendations: We recommend that the service be implemented securely from the outset, and that low-cost rack-mount server options be considered.

  • Expenses and Workload: We believe this service should be fairly inexpensive to implement and operate. Here, we provide rough estimates of potential costs.
Maintained by Tom Holub
College of Letters & Science
tom_holub@LS.Berkeley.EDU, 642-9069
Last updated 02/19/02