As I am sure that most know by now, IWU Information Technology is contending with capital budget requests to fund the replacement/upgrade of IWU’s network infrastructure. We are currently meeting with vendors who intend on proposing their solutions for this upgrade. The RFP not only deals with upgrading our LAN equipment to handle faster backbone and switching speeds out to the desktop, but has also made allotments for the vendors to bid on extending campus wireless, network access control solutions and network monitoring systems.

IWU Backbone and Switching Speeds

Currently IWU’s network operates on a 1Gig backbone with dedicated 100M out to the desktop. The backbone speed is the rate the data travels from the switch that is in your building’s data closet back to the core router in CNS. The dedicated 100M speed is the data transfer rate from the computer on your desk back to the switch that is in your building’s data closet. The proposed network gear will have the capacity to handle the next generation of network backbone speeds of 10Gig while giving the end user 1Gig data transfer speeds out to their desktop.

Look Mom, No Wires…

This Request For Proposal (RFP) also has the vendors bidding on a new wireless plan for the university. This plan is to encompass all buildings on campus with the potential to start adding wireless in outdoor common areas in the future. What we are hearing from many vendors is that the new wireless gear can handle commonly used ratified wireless speeds of 54Meg with the ability to upgrade to the faster, soon to be ratified, wireless speeds of 250-300Meg. I will not bore you with all the “techie” statistics, but I will tell you that these wireless speeds will be noticeably faster. These new controller based wireless solutions will allow users that are using the wireless network to roam around in their building without ever losing their wireless connection. And, if in the future the wireless is extended across the entire campus, you will be able to move about from building to building without ever dropping your wireless connection.

Get The NAC

We have all had to deal with, from time to time, a nasty worm or virus that has affected our computer. We have all had to deal with worms and virus on other peoples’ computers slowing the network down for us. In this day and age we have come to expect that in order for us to use the internet safely, some type of protection is needed. Then why is it that there are so many computers out there that are not sufficiently protected? I imagine that there are many reasons that will qualify as an answer to that question, but, it really makes no difference in resolving the problem. One of the fastest growing technologies that is being adopted, not only by universities world wide, but by the business world as well is; Network Access Control (NAC).

NAC is an appliance that sits on the network that makes sure that all users who access the university’s network resources have shown themselves to be “qualified”. The implementations for this technology are varied. This appliance can tie into the university’s campus authentication so we can ensure that those users that are on our network are legitimate IWU community users. This includes students, faculty, staff, alumni, retirees, vendors, guests etc… and all can have different levels of usage on our network. Not only does this appliance authenticate the user, but it also ensures that the user’s computer is sufficiently protected in order to join the network by checking to make sure that the computer is running an accepted revision of anti-virus software.

Think about this for a second. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could start taking a pro-active stance in keeping our network space free of those things that steal our resources (i.e. unauthorized users, virus, worms) while giving that same resource back to those that need it?

What about those computers that do not pass the NAC inspection? Well, that is the beauty of this appliance. If your computer is found not to be running the correct revision of anti-virus (or whatever the case may have been) the appliance can then direct you to a web page that allows you to down load and install the correct revision. Thereby allowing your computer to access the network.

Network Monitoring

The RFP also allots for a much needed network monitoring system. To have the ability to see into the network traffic is key for keeping network uptime service agreements. It is very difficult to head off a problem that can be devastating to a network if you have no insight that this problem was coming. Currently IWU Network Services Group (NSG) is using a few rudimentary tools to try to stay on top of network and server issues. It is becoming much more prevalent that NSG needs a way of staying on top of network issues as the LAN and WLAN usage is growing.

Some of the proposals for this are giving us the ability to set alarms for network usage and other “questionable” network behaviors. Some of these systems can tie in information from all the network equipment including the firewall and NAC. We would be able to see when the internet connection is having issues and ways to remediate these issues. We would also have that same ability to correct these same resource problems on IWU’s internal networks as well.

Time Line

After the vendors have submitted their RFP’s there will be a time of review to select those vendor teams that will best fit IWU’s plan for the network future.  If the network upgrade project is to be funded, then this project would be extended out over a 4 year 4 phase implementation.  I do think that this is really a better way to go since there are some growing issues that IWU would have to deal with.  Implementing a NAC solution and growing our wireless network should be something that we take seriously enough to implement with a lot of forethought.  I say this because there are going to be administrative issues that come with using these technologies.  We want to not only be sure that all the pieces fit together correctly giving IWU the best experience it can have with these new services, but also that we are able to maintain and grow these services seamlessly into the future.  To do this we have to consider personnel requirements and our ability to keep those personnel trained on this new gear.  We can not afford to keep growing IWU’s network infrastructure by adding service upon service without contemplating the amount of trained support personnel it takes to keep those technologies living up a service level agreement.

Bottom Line

The network that has served IWU so well in the past is getting tired. It is now about 7 years old and some of the critical core equipment is being retired by the vendors that produced it. We, IWU, have outgrown and are demanding more from the network then what it can deliver in it’s current state. It is time for IWU to put in place a network that will protect the user community, protect the investment that we have made in our network infrastructure and do all of this to further enable the university’s ability to achieve it’s strategic goals through the use of technology.