Project to improve the research infrastructure at the São Carlos School of Engineering (EESC-USP)

Abstract

The Sao Carlos School of Engineering (EESC-USP) currently has 9 Departments: Hydraulic and Sanitation Engineering, Structural Engineering (Civil), Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Transport Engineering, Production Engineering, Materials Engineering, Aeronautical Engineering and the Geotechnics department; with 5 Centers: CETEPE - Center for Educational Technology for Engineering, CRHEA - Center for Water Resources and Applied Ecology, CEAS - Center for Applied Health Engineering, EESCIn - EESC Advanced Center to Support Innovation and a Library and Robotics Center. The EESC offers 10 undergraduate courses and has 11 Graduate Programs, 4 of which are considered excellent (concept 6 or 7) in the last CAPES Assessment. Its infrastructure is made up of laboratories, classrooms, amphitheaters, centers and nuclei, library, IT and administrative sectors that total approximately 71 thousand square meters of built area, distributed among 73 buildings located in 3 distinct areas, with two areas in the city of São Carlos and an area in the city of Itirapina. The EESC facilities house more than 90 research laboratories, occupying more than 20 thousand square meters of built area, and serve more than 1,000 graduate students, in addition to undergraduate students carrying out scientific initiation research, and to almost 180 professors. Within the natural limitations of budget resources, EESC has supported the proper functioning of the various research laboratories, mainly through maintenance and adaptation of the physical areas of the laboratories; maintenance, updating and modernization of IT services (wired and wireless networks, data processing center, appropriate areas for allocation of servers and data storage, among others); and maintenance and adaptation of the laboratories' common use areas (rooms and auditoriums for meetings, seminars, lectures, defenses of final papers, with videoconferencing resources). However, given the breadth of the activities of the School's researchers, budget resources often prove to be insufficient to ensure a continuous increase in the quality and productivity of research at the desired levels.In recent years, EESC has been investing heavily in improving the quality and safety of information technology services used by all researchers at the EESC, either with the Unit's own budget resources, or with resources from the Information Technology Superintendence (STI-USP) from the University of São Paulo, or with resources from development agencies, such as FAPESP's Technical Reserve for Institutional Research Infrastructure (RTI). Among some examples of investments in information technology that have received funds from FAPESP in recent years, the following could be mentioned: acquisition, installation and expansion of the HP BladeSystem C7000 Server; expansion and improvement of the Wi-Fi signal coverage of the USPnet wireless network in the various buildings of the EESC; modernization of active equipment of local networks (switches, router and firewall) of the EESC and its devices that complement the local network (nobreaks, access points, IP monitoring cameras, access control, VoIP telephony, etc.), acclimatization of the Data Center of the EESC, among others. Thus, in order to maintain the proper functioning of this IT infrastructure, this plan presents demands related to technical support for the maintenance of the HP BladeSystem C7000 Server and the acquisition of new antennas. Furthermore, it is necessary to adapt the Lightning Protection Systems, thus preventing damage to the equipment caused by lightning strikes.The other demand presented in this plan is the maintenance of research laboratory equipment, a central objective in the application of RTI. These are equipment whose maintenance is not covered by another research project, in common use by several researchers and which are of great importance for laboratories. (AU)