What are TOSCA and OPERA?
These are programs sold by VectorFields, Inc. to do calculations of electromagnetic fields. Several people in the Accelerator and Technical divisions make use of this software. The lab licenses (at a cost of about $7,500 per year) right to use (and upgrades) for 20 simultaneous users. 15 of these licenses come in the form of dongles, which are physical devices which plug into the USB port on a PC to permit use of the software on that PC. VectorFields, Inc. supplies CDs with the TOSCA/OPERA software for installation and with the Users manual in electronic form. They permit unlimited installation of the software; the use is controlled by the dongles. We can expect our users to request changes in who has dongles roughly 5 times a year. The helpdesk will have a collection of these dongles along with the CDs. Handling a request for TOSCA or OPERA When a user requests to be able to use TOSCA/OPERA, take one of the blue USB dongles with the round white tags attached out of the collection on h
