SRCF Benefits for sponsors

The Cambridge University Student-Run Computing Facility is a volunteer-run student society that provides useful and flexible computing and networking services for members of the University. For 21 years, it has attracted the interest of students interested in computing and technology and enabled them to freely experiment in a Linux sandbox.

The SRCF is one of the university’s largest societies. We have ~2500 active members from across the University that are proactively involved in using our services. Collectively, they maintain ~800 group accounts. Our full membership is ~10,400 members, which includes our alumni and past users. The SRCF runs free services such as web hosting, shell servers, mailing lists, video conferencing and more. A team of volunteer system administrators maintains these services.

Why should you be interested in sponsoring the SRCF?

Significant opportunities for graduate recruitment

• The society attracts a wide variety of users. Some may be interested in computing and technology while others may be a webmaster for another society. Across all these users, however, the SRCF has helped them develop skills in UNIX-like systems, networking and potentially programming or web development. What the users choose to do and learn on SRCF machines is up to them, though it’s certain they will acquire a valuable skillset for the modern world.
• The SRCF has a successful history of providing graduate recruitment. Its users and trained system administrators have highly sought-after skills in today’s industry.
• The SRCF runs production-grade systems: we use the Xen hypervisor for virtualization and professional tools, such as Xen Orchestra, Netbox, and NIS for management. We have written bespoke tools and scripts to manage, scale, and sustainably deployment using technologies widely found in today’s market (e.g. Ansible). System administrators combine the strong technical foundation required to run reliable, multi-featured infrastructure for thousands of user (including the Apache HTTP server, Munin and Nagios), with the soft skills required to provide user support across varied levels of skill and knowledge.

Supporting the provision of invaluable computing services for students

• Today’s society runs on technology. We stand on the shoulders of many giants, such as those originally involved in the Xen Project, and we are a key educational resource for both users and our system administrators. By supporting the SRCF, sponsors can continue to guarantee that students get first-hand experience of the core tools and architectural principles of today’s digital world.

Outreach

• The SRCF with its wide audience, and as one of the largest university societies, receives a considerable amount of web traffic. You may be interested in making your brand, product or company known this way.