A contract was awarded to Power Design to provide UPS to all ADF, BDF, and IDF locations. Installation of UPS should be complete by the end of May, after which each ADF shall have 4 hours of backup power, each BDF shall have 2 hours, and each IDF shall have 20 minutes.
Installation of the Network 21 equipment in the ADF's and BDF's will occur in June and July. Following this, IDF installations and user cutovers to the new ATM network will begin and are scheduled to be complete in December.
Network 21 provides connectivity to nearly 200 buildings in the core of the Davis campus. There are approximately 300 buildings located outside the campus core that require some level of network connectivity. Advertisements have been released for a consultant to begin a feasibility analysis for expanding the network infrastructure to outlying campus areas and for upgrading the aging baseband and broadband video distribution system. This project has been dubbed UCDNet2. It is anticipated that the analysis will begin in June and run for approximately 4-5 months. The financial information from this report will be weighed against academic priorities within these unconnected facilities to determine the scope of the project. This project is tentatively scheduled for completion in 2001, pending campus financial approval and final project scope. This work does not address the problem with the existing horizontal infrastructure within Network 21 buildings, which are largely pre-category 5. A committee will be appointed within the next month to determine the most cost-effective means and the process for incrementally upgrading the cable plant as the need arises.
The Lightstream 1010 and Cisco 1924 have arrived and are currently being burned in. We are still waiting for the delivery of the Cisco 2522, which is being programmed by ISI and the OC-12 module to our core switch. The date for activation of the Pacific Bell circuit and the associated work has not been finalized yet but is expected shortly. Discussions begin next week on how connectivity to the University Medical Center in Sacramento (UCDHS) will be provided.
The ResNet project to provide 10BaseT connectivity to the residence halls has been completed. There are nearly 3,700 active connections and cursory analysis reveals that nearly 25% of the campus Internet traffic is being generated from the residence halls. Further analysis is required, but it is likely that a means of throttling their available bandwidth will be required in order to contain Internet costs.
The system is going through final testing, but signals for a 29 channel lineup have been provided to the students since April 16. Discussions with the city of Davis and TCI (the local franchise) with regard to UCD being exempt from Franchise Fees have been favorably concluded. Therefore, fiber was used to cross a public right-of-way rather than relying upon a more costly microwave based solution.
The system was accepted and went into full operation on March 27, 1998. It is currently supporting over 700 portable and mobile radios - nearly double what was originally anticipated. The unexpected level of system participation and utilization by the campus has prompted consideration of the need to expand the system from its current seven channels to eight. While the system is being monitored to detect congestion, plans are underway to apply for an augmentation of the required frequencies. Seven steel reinforced buildings and basements require additional bi-directional amplifiers for signal penetration. Funding of nearly $250,000 is being sought to address this problem. Additionally, specifications are being developed for analysis on new construction projects so that new buildings can be equipped with amplification when necessary.A Joint Policy Committee has been established to deal with procedure and policy issues related to the management and administration of this system. Representatives from both UCD and UCDHS meet on a bi-monthly basis for this purpose.
Parallel tests of the COMPCO telemanagement system were unsuccessful and it was determined that the system could not scale to meet campus requirements. After a market reevaluation, Pinnacle Axis System has been selected as a replacement system. Negotiations with Pinnacle are near completion and project implementation should begin within the next 2-3 weeks. Phase 1 implementation involving customizations, service order and facilities module cutovers is scheduled for completion by April 1999. Switch interface and web interface implementation is scheduled for completion by August 1999. A determination of the ability of Pinnacle to scale will be complete by December 1998. A contingency plan to modify the existing Year 2000 non-compliant software has been developed and can be implemented beginning in January 1999 should any issues with the Pinnacle software arise.
HP Openview, a network operations management and alarm tool, has been successfully deployed on the network providing "trap" alarms and constant monitoring of the backbone. The system is integrating two additional vendor products, 3Com Transcend and Bay Network Manager to provide monitoring and alarms in support of the ATM switched network. All network core routers, switches and edge switches will be monitored through individual vendor management tools that will uplink health and system status messages to HP Openview to provide continuous network monitoring and fault isolation. Additionally, the power protection systems located in the ADFs and BDFs will uplink power system status and environmental data to the HP Openview system to provide proactive monitoring of line power, battery life, temperature and humidity within the key networking areas. The system is fully operational and will be integrated to all Network 21 equipment at the conclusion of the Network 21 Project in Dec 1998.
A customer centric call resolution center utilizing the REMEDY trouble reporting and tracking system combines the power of HP Openview, CISCO, BAY, and 3COM network management tools, along with voice, radio and video monitoring and fault reporting tools into one centralized location for CR. All voice, data, video, and radio repairs are now coordinated through a centralized help desk with a single point of contact for customer problem resolution. Initial problem triage and resolution starts with the help desk Computer Resource Specialists. It then follows a service tier approach to resolution. The problem ticket will be initiated and resolved at the lowest layer in the tier structure or escalated within a specified service level to the next higher tier. Problem updates and customer resolution will be maintained at the centralized help desk, providing customers with a one-call-fits-all solution to reporting and resolving their specific problem.
Roof repairs are to be undertaken prior to fall. Evaluation revealed the need to replace the roof and discussions are underway to determine timing for the replacement. AC enhancements have been made to the new Network Operations Center to provide adequate cooling for the new network equipment area. Several package units were used to prevent the potential of a network outage due to the failure of a single large unit. Specifications for a generator are being developed at Architects and Engineers and current battery capacity is being increased.
The OC-12 SONET ring to connect the Pacific Standard building has been completed. Telecommunications and network engineering work is underway on numerous campus projects. These projects include: the Center for Comparative Medicine, Center for the Arts, Contained Research Facility, East Hall, Environmental Design Building, Environmental Services Building, Equine Analytical Lab, Human Nutrition Research Facility, Memorial Union, Primero Inclusion Area III, Waste Water Treatment Plant, Recital Hall and Technical Classroom Building, Walker Hall replacement, Webster-Emerson Resnet Extension, Western Center for Agriculture Equipment, Plant and Environmental Sciences Replacement Facility, Center for Companion Animal Health and Center for Comparative Genetics, La Rue Housing Project, Health Sciences District Infrastructure and Life Sciences Secondary Effects Project. The magnitude of construction, the location of facilities beyond the availability of existing infrastructure, and the exceeding of system and cabling capacity is prompting the need to develop a campus communications infrastructure plan. Preliminary information will be gathered over the upcoming year in preparation for the development of a plan during the following year.
A team of Information Technology and other UCD department members has been assembled to evaluate the feasibility of offering wireless voice and data services on-campus. The project team will evaluate the results of the AT&T wireless pilot, examine other options for wireless data communication provisioning, conduct additional pilots, complete a cost/benefit analysis, and recommend wireless service provisioning approaches.Work continues on the evaluation of costs, based on further data provided by AT&T, and additional pilot testing. The initial PocketNet pilot had a low success rate, due to coverage problems and the lack of a good application (primarily conceived as a pilot for the dispatching function). One problem with further piloting is the lack of equipment, in particular, for data communications and known coverage problems. Further pilots will have coverage limits specified. Nokia 9000 was included for comparison to PocketNet for a two week testing period.
Wireless technologies are being evaluated in three pilot projects which includes narrow-band microwave, cellular wireless, packet data wireless and specialized integrated voice/data/pager wireless devices and services (e.g., PocketNet). A pilot to provide wireless notebook computer connectivity for up to 30 pilot participants for a two month period in the campus Silo and at an apartment complex site in Davis is also scheduled to begin later this month.
The campus will upgrade the existing modem pool from 469 modems to 949 modems by Fall Quarter as a stop gap measure. $563,000 has been allocated to purchase 384 56K modems that utilize Kerberos authentication and to cover operational and carrier costs for the next two years. A campus consultative process and analysis will be reinitiated to determine the future of campus provided modem service. This process is estimated to take one year at which time the Provost's Office will make the final decision and allow one additional year to implement the decision. Service levels during that time remain questionable since the original 469 modems remain at 14.4k and are subject to failure. Non exclusive agreements with MCI and CalWeb remain in place for those who want to use an ISP.
A distributed authentication services project to replace IP address-based authentication is well underway to resolve issues with campus connectivity through third-party Internet service providers.Generalized solutions have been developed, pilot-tested, and are now available for most commonly-used web servers (Netscape, NCSA, Apache), and for news server authentication (through web browser). Mac Web server support alternatives are still being tested and evaluated (Netatalk Project is underway). NT/Perl may be problematic, so that is an important test. Specialized applications are now under development, including authenticated file download access for licensed software distribution and restricted web sites with departmentally-maintained access control. Work continues on the kiosk environment. A script has been developed to pull loginID's from class lists, which opens up additional authorization possibilities. The interest level regarding this application is high. (on-going detailed technical updates at: http://dcas.ucdavis.edu/access/distauth).
The "Wide Area Network Davis" project intended to get apartment complexes connected through highspeed connections to campus is underway. An initial pilot carried out with Greystone Apartments shows that this approach can be successful. Their computer lab and 75 apartment residents are utilizing Greystone's T-1 connection (UCD subsidized an ISDN connection as part of the Caltrans research contract). Two presentations have been made to the local property managers' professional association about this idea with the Greystone Manager's help.Four complexes (Sharps and Flats in south Davis, Le Tournesal and The Trees in west Davis, and Sycamore Lane in central Davis) have been identified as additional pilot sites, and ISDN services have now been installed at each site. The plan is to meet business needs (which improves the marketability of this service to apartment complex owners) by networking complex offices and to meet the residents' and campus' needs, at the same time, by creating small adjacent labs (one Macintosh, one PC, and one laser printer in the labs) which are also connected to the Internet. Now that the Internet connections have been established, work is progressing with partners (public and private) to implement a pilot wireless project at one site. This project allows apartment complex owners to test the market before planning expensive wired retrofitting.
The rate proposal for voice, data, and video rates has been completed and approved by the Office of Planning and Budget. Rate changes are expected to go into effect July 1, 1998. Copies of the proposal are available upon request.
The 530 area code cutover is planned for May 8, 1998 and full implementation on May 16, 1998.
The current MAXUM Voice Mail platform was classified as Manufacturer Discontinued by Octel. Preparations are being made to upgrade to the Overture 350 platform to avoid the risk of potential outage and to address capacity issues.
The existing NEAX2400 PBX switching system was replaced in April with an MSL-100 remote switch to reduce operating costs associated with maintaining separate critical spare circuit pack inventories, circuit provisioning, and warranty support. Other issues resolved, as a result of this migration, were the cost avoidance of converting the switch to a new area code, and the elimination of the Public Switch Automatic Location Identification hardware and software required to make the NEAX2400 compliant with future FCC/CPUC regulations regarding 911 services and Year 2000 compliance. This site is now fully integrated with the campus SL-100.
Replacement of the MSL-100 package line frames is approximately 60% complete. This work was done to provide capability to support the remote node at Research Park and to free up floor space for use in developing a system platform capable of supporting future strategic development goals. This work also included replacing the defective frames that sustained water damage from a roof leak during the past year's winter storms.
Through the State agreement with MCI for payphone business, advertisements have been approved for 18 campus payphone locations. Commissions are based on the size and the quantity of the ad panels and are currently being calculated.