Oxford College hub room relocation project cutover completed

[Ed. Note: The following article was written by Gary Lammons.]

Enterprise Services, Infrastructure and the PMO completed a significant cutover of the communications room at Oxford College last Friday. Oxford has been revamping its campus for years, and this effort was a significant milestone in updating the technology infrastructure, allowing the campus to grow well into the future.

Previously, the communications room was located in Branham Hall, providing support for all telecommunications services. The plan has been ongoing for several years to choose a new location, with least budget impact, to create a new communication room. In the end, Oxford College chose the Dining Hall for its close proximity to existing infrastructure.

New outside plant infrastructure was built out to serve the Dining Hall, while converting old locker rooms and storage into a new Hub Room. This construction took about 8 months. The team made use of the fiber infrastructure design that existed, allowing the fiber work to be completed in advance of the cutover, significantly reducing the downtime during the cutover. The copper wiring was a bit more complicated but still allowed for the majority of the work to be completed prior to the cutover.

Network Engineering, Architecture, Field Services, and AT&T and Charter consultants all worked on the project. Charles Rosignol with Emory University Planning Design and Construction, along with Brasfield & Gorrie, were responsible for the construction of the new facility and outside plant pathways. Frank Gunther, from Summit Systems, was the LITS contractor selected for the work.

As a result of this change, the entire campus will realize improved network reliability. Before, Oxford had no network redundancy and was prone to lengthier outages than the main campus. Now Oxford has a diverse network pathway and redundant connectivity to all the buildings on campus.

The following LITS employees worked on the project:

Project Managers
Mike Geraghty
Gary Lammons (lead)

Network Architects  
Norman Butler
Perry Eidson
David Topper

Network Engineers
Craig Cooper
Melvin Dozier
Joe Head
Bernard Sanders

Field Services – Communication Specialists and Managers
Tommy Barwick
Tracy Jones
Lamar Kelly
Vince Vaughn

Design Group
Roland Farrar
Keith Rooks

Academic Technology Specialist – Cable TV 
Mike Fowler

Facilities Management – Critical Infrastructure
John Fries
Greg Keys

Coordinator
Zed Brooks