{"id":13389,"date":"2018-05-04T11:04:07","date_gmt":"2018-05-04T15:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/lits\/?p=13389"},"modified":"2018-05-04T11:29:23","modified_gmt":"2018-05-04T15:29:23","slug":"oxford-network-redesign-a-victory-for-cross-campus-collaboration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/lits\/2018\/05\/04\/oxford-network-redesign-a-victory-for-cross-campus-collaboration\/","title":{"rendered":"Oxford network redesign a victory for cross-campus collaboration"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
It’s hard to believe that stately Oxford College is home to the fastest network in the enterprise.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As is often the case with great advancements, a disaster compels change.<\/p>\n

Right before the 2017 Oxford College Commencement, the fiber that connected the Oxford computer network with the Atlanta network was accidentally cut. At a crucial time of the academic year, the Oxford network went dark.<\/p>\n

Network access was quickly restored yet the larger question remained: How could we improve this situation?<\/p>\n

At this point, the Oxford College Information Technology (OCIT) leaders sat down with Wayne Ortman<\/strong>‘s Run-Build teams to re-architect the network with an eye toward both reliability and disaster recoverability. Karla Fields<\/strong> served as the Oxford liaison.<\/p>\n

As a result, in 2018, the Oxford College network was redesigned with cutting-edge\u00a0technology\u00a0that\u00a0provides larger bandwidth and an enhanced\u00a0network\u00a0experience.\u00a0Oxford was the first academic location at Emory to receive this upgrade. The only\u00a0other deployment of this technology within Emory enterprise\u00a0is the new Emory Hospital tower.<\/p>\n

“I’d like to give a lot of credit to Wayne and his team,” said Mahbuba Ferdousi<\/strong>, CIO of OCIT. “They were phenomenal.”<\/p>\n

Redundant Failover\u00a0of\u00a0Primary Network Path to Atlanta<\/b><\/p>\n

The first step of the project was to contract with AT&T to install a physical redundant\u00a0backup fiber installation.\u00a0The redundant fiber is\u00a0continuously\u00a0active\u00a0at a\u00a0bandwidth of 2 Mb and becomes active within an hour of a cut to the primary line, at which time the bandwidth increases to 1 Gb. The teams completed a successful failover\u00a0test\u00a0to the backup fiber\u00a0line on April 22.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Some of the equipment installed during the network project.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Refresh of\u00a0Campus\u00a0Network\u00a0Master\u00a0Switches<\/b><\/p>\n

Simply building a second redundant line wasn’t enough to get Oxford ready for its future data needs. The team increased the primary\u00a0bandwidth\u00a0from Oxford\u00a0to Atlanta\u00a0from 1 Gb to 4 Gb. Additionally, the\u00a0new network switches give buildings in Oxford the ability to connect to the Oxford router at 20 Gb.<\/p>\n

The new design also allows\u00a0local network traffic to remain within Oxford in the event of the main fiber cut. Previously all local traffic at Oxford was required to\u00a0connect to the Atlanta network and\u00a0return\u00a0to Oxford. With the new master switches, Oxford local traffic will remain within Oxford.\u00a0This applies only to phones and internal servers.<\/p>\n

Additionally, a generator was added to keep the master switches running\u00a0during a power outage.<\/p>\n

WiFi Improvements scheduled for this summer<\/b><\/p>\n

Plans are in place for the Oxford\u00a0Quad\u00a0to be\u00a0improved\u00a0by adding\u00a0two\u00a0network access points. A network port and power outlet\u00a0will also be installed to\u00a0improve campus\u00a0events\u00a0like Commencement live-streaming.<\/p>\n

LITS Network\u00a0Services, in collaboration with OCIT, will also develop\u00a0a S.W.A.T.\u00a0team\u00a0that will respond to student WiFi concerns by:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Performing a physical audit of the wireless network<\/span><\/li>\n
  • Systematically\u00a0troubleshooting events\u00a0until\u00a0root causes are identified and resolved<\/span><\/li>\n
  • Collecting direct\u00a0student\u00a0feedback\u00a0to\u00a0ensure\u00a0changes made\u00a0provide meaningful\u00a0improvements<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    “I am proud of the outstanding efforts of the teams,” said Wayne Ortman<\/strong>, director of Network Services. “We look forward to future partnerships with Oxford and plan to showcase their network during the planning of future efforts.”<\/p>\n

    The employees who worked on this project include Nate Akyempong<\/strong> (Field Services), John Anderson<\/strong> (build engineer), Troy Crumbley<\/strong> (run engineer), Arnold Dawson<\/strong> (Field Services), Delmer Gonzalez<\/strong> (Field Services),\u00a0Dorian Hyndman<\/strong> (build manager), Frankie King<\/strong> (Field Services), Tavares Matthews <\/strong>(Field Services), Raul Pritchard<\/strong> (Field Services), Jaime Romanque<\/strong> (Field Services), Bernard Sanders<\/strong> (build engineer), Kelly Smith<\/strong> (Field Services), Quincy Thomas Jr.<\/strong> (Field Services), Musa Varachhia<\/strong> (build engineer), Vince Vaughn<\/strong> (run engineer), and Damon Williams<\/strong>\u00a0(Field Services).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    As is often the case with great advancements, a disaster compels change. Right before the 2017 Oxford College Commencement, the fiber that connected the Oxford computer network with the Atlanta network was accidentally cut. At a crucial time of the academic year, the Oxford network went dark. Network access was quickly restored yet the larger […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":511,"featured_media":13411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[422,432,490,281],"class_list":["post-13389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-project-updates","tag-network-engineering-run-team","tag-network-services","tag-ocit","tag-oxford-campus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/lits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/lits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/lits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/lits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/511"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/lits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13389"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/lits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13417,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/lits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13389\/revisions\/13417"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/lits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/lits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/lits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/lits\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}