BACKGROUND

The Indian Institute of Management Lucknow (IIML) is one of the six national level management institutes set up by the Government of India at Lucknow, India, in 1984. The Institute's mission is to help improve the management of the corporate and the non-corporate sectors and also the public systems in the country, through pursuit of excellence in management education, research, consultancy, and training. In order to fulfill its objectives, the Institute undertakes a diverse range of academic and professional activities.

IIML has a large Information Technology (IT) infrastructure and has an annual budget of about 10 million Indian Rupees (INR) (equivalent to about $200,000) allocated in recent years for the development of information technology resources. The details of the annual budget allocated for the computer services of IIML for the year 2001–2002 is given in Appendix A. Students, faculty, and staff of IIML use Internet resources quite extensively for teaching, research, consulting, and administrative activities. The IT infrastructure of the Institute is distributed across the sprawling 20-acre campus. There are about 400 client machines, about 10 high-end servers running various operating systems, applications, and services, catering to the needs of students, faculty, and staff of the Institute. There are about 600 users on the campus.

The Computer Center (CC) at the Institute is responsible for all IT services on the campus and maintains 24-hour computer labs housing about 200 machines for the students, and also hosts the servers and networking equipment. The Computer Center employs one Manager and six systems and programmer analysts who are involved in the maintenance of IT services of the Institute. Most of the Computer Center staff has been with IIML since the Institute started Computer Center operations in 1986. Even though some of the Center's staff do not have academic and professional qualifications in Computer Science or related disciplines, they have acquired expertise in software development and networking through on-the-job training.

The IIML Web site (http://www.iiml.ac.in) is viewed by prospective students, researchers, and scholars at various institutions and corporations around the world. The web site also provides information to about 80,000 potential candidates who apply every year for the MBA program offered by the Institute. Apart from the World Wide Web (WWW), email is another Internet application that is widely used by faculty, students, and staff of the Institute. Email communication by students and faculty spans geographical boundaries and is one of the mission-critical Internet services of the Institute. The Institute Intranet is connected to the Internet via two Internet-access links. There is a plan to network all the student hostel rooms and faculty residences in the coming academic year to provide campus-wide networking. This will further increase the population of client machines by 500. The Institute also has plans to offer distance education programs to corporate executives in the near future.