CAEN

A Live Communication Server (LCS) for Instant Messaging (IM) is now available for CAEN account holders. LCS provides a quick, reliable, and secure method for students, faculty, and staff to communicate in realtime. CAEN and the Business School are part of a collaborative effort in order to bring this service to campus.

With LCS, it is possible to easily find and contact your colleagues both on- and off-campus. Project teams can work together even when labs are full, and eliminate delays in locating and communicating with lab partners. Unlike some popular, freely available IM services, all messages in LCS are encrypted to ensure privacy. Video and voice conferencing is also available.

Instant messaging provided by LCS offers some important features that are not found in other popular IM services such as those provided by AOL and Yahoo. With LCS, communications are encrypted for maximum security. Privacy controls are built-in and configurable. Although UMICH Windows Active Directory (UMROOT) passwords are used for authentication, an Engineering computing (CAEN) account is required to use this service. Just use your uniqname@umich.edu email address as your IM handle with your UMROOT password to authenticate. If you do not know your UMROOT password, or have never set it, please visit the following web page:
https://accounts.itcs.umich.edu/pwreset-bin/pwreset?command=ad

At this stage, CAEN is focusing the LCS deployment on supporting internal college communications in a secure and simple way. Licensing and royalty costs at this time prevent us from integrating LCS with the large public IM providers such as AOL.

The Messenger client can be used for connecting to LCS and sending IM messages. Messenger is available for both Windows ("Windows Messenger") and Mac OS X ("Microsoft Messenger for Mac"), and has been installed as part of the Windows environment in CAEN labs. If you are logged into a Windows system in a CAEN lab, you will not be required to enter any account information and/or log in when starting Windows Messenger. Be sure to install the correct version of Messenger.

The LCS server maintains "presence" information about each user (e.g. online, busy, away, etc.). Like the public IM clients, the Windows Messenger client will display this presence information assuming the owner has not restricted it. LCS easily integrates with other Microsoft applications that are available to CAEN account holders. Faculty and staff who use Exchange for calendaring can have their presence information set automatically according to their Exchange calendar. IM functionality is also integrated into the Microsoft Office products. Video and voice conferencing are also available, as is application sharing (or view to a remote desktop). However most of this functionality, with the exception of the Microsoft Office product integration, requires the use of the Microsoft Office Communicator client. All CAEN account holders are licensed to use the Microsoft Office Communicator client. The software is available at a nominal media-only charge at ITCS Software Licensing. CAEN will also make the CD images available online for Engineering Department Computer Support staff members (Comppeers).

Faculty and GSIs can request the creation of class-based IM lists at the CAEN Hotline. Once created, a student who is enrolled in a course and who authenticates to the LCS service with Messenger will see the list of others in the class and their "presence" information (if available). Thus, instructors may be able to conduct office hours remotely using this technology. CAEN is also looking into the feasibility of initiating Hotline calls online via LCS.

Questions about the new LCS services can be directed to the CAEN Hotline (caen@umich.edu; 734-764-CAEN). There is also an LCS FAQ.