IT-Communications Resources (CR) and Medical Center staff are continuing, in coordination with the SWAN project, to develop a connectivity path that will involve interconnecting the Davis main campus with the Medical Center in Sacramento via dark fiber. Plans are to extend this connectivity to Cal State University Sacramento campus and thus to 4CNet. This path will save on carrier costs, improve performance and scalability between the main campus and the Medical Center, provide backup connectivity to CalRen 2 for the campus and the Medical Center and eventually provide a backup path into CalRen 2 across 4CNet.
An agreement with Charter Communications is in the final stage of negotiation. This agreement will afford UC Davis lifetime use of eight strands of dark fiber from the main campus to a location in downtown Sacramento, in exchange for 2.4 miles of right-of-way along an existing pole line across a rural portion of the main campus. This location in downtown Sacramento is three blocks from 770 L Street, which currently houses the fiber interchange point for QWest, Williams, GST, and several other carriers. Negotiations are near completion for space in the 770 L Street building. Medical Center staff is working with the City of Sacramento and the Sacramento Municipal Utilities District to yield a path from the 770 L Street location to the Medical Center and then on to the CSUS campus.
IT-CR has prepared a Request for Quotation (RFQ) to conduct a Network Threat, Vulnerability and Risk Assessment (TVRA) and expects to release to potential vendors in late April. The target date for completion of this assessment is June 15, 2000.
IT-CR is involved in 103 construction and renovation projects, 55 of which are major and active.
UC Davis received $1.5 million dollars in Instructional Technology Funds (ITF) for various campus networking projects. These include:
- Implementation of DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) campus wide: The overall purpose of DHCP is to reduce the work necessary to administer a large IP network, while providing a flexible environment for the increasing mobile computing population on campus, especially faculty. In addition, DHCP provides one aspect of network security, managing access to the physical network. DHCP is accepted as one of the standard connection protocols, and is available on all platforms without the installation of special software.
The DHCP rollout is near the end of the first phase. Phase one involves converting DHCP pilot clients from the legacy "join" services to the accepted DHCP product, Nortel Networks "NetID" and testing the service within the IT Division. Limited testing will continue through May 2000. The project is expected to conclude with a full campus rollout from September-November 2000.
- Network Ports in General Access Facilities: This project is intended to relieve some of the pressure on overcrowded general access computing labs and to provide greater student convenience for computing access.
Installation is one-third complete to provide approximately 250 network ports in public and general access areas. The selected access points are distributed through five buildings: Shields Library, the Health Sciences library, the Physical Sciences library, 102 Wellman Hall and the Memorial Union King Lounge. Rollout of the access points is scheduled for September 2000.
- Wireless Access in Public Places: This project is a pilot to determine the viability of wireless network access and to compare public wireless network access to hardwired public ports. The locations selected for the pilot are the Extended Hours Reading Room in Shields Library, the common area in the King Law School Library, and the Memorial Union Griffin Lounge. Two models will be explored. Semi-permanent student assignment of wireless NIC cards will be tried to assess usability in ownership mode, and use on a checkout basis will be tried to compare the attendant support issues.
The network connection to all three wireless locations is 11 MBPS shared. The base receiver/transmitter at the access point is 2.4 GHz spread spectrum with a range of 100-400 feet. The security for wireless access is equivalent to a wired Local Area Network. A bridge is set up in each test area and connects through a Network Access Module to the network. The speed of connectivity a client receives is dependent upon their physical distance from the base receiver/transmitter.
The PC cards are PCMCIA Type II and compatible with Windows 95/98/NT. The PC Card is a "radio" to the base Transmitter/Receiver Unit. The base unit has two hi-gain bi-directional antennas for extended coverage. The client radio card obtains its connection to the backbone network via the base unit. Each base unit is connected to the campus backbone network via a local link switch with an ATM uplink to the backbone. From the base unit the client joins a specific public or departmental wireless Virtual LAN. Cisco-Aironet is the vendor for the PC Cards and wireless base units.
The client laptops will need to be configured to DHCP, although the wireless PC Card MAC addresses is assigned a static IP address at the DHCP server for security. Time outs as users travel between cells are a problem, and will be tested throughout the pilot program.
Wireless access in the King Law School Library became accessible to students on April 3, 2000. During the first day of the pilot, 18 of the 25 Network Cards were issued to students. A Web-based participant survey has been developed for rollout on May 1, 2000. Network monitoring and usage statistics will be tracked throughout the program and are located on-line at http://noc.ucdavis.edu/wireless/.
The remaining two wireless pilot locations, the Extended Hours Reading Room in Shields Library and the Memorial Union Griffin Lounge, are undergoing equipment installation now. The rollout to students for these two locations is scheduled for September 2000.
UC Davis attended the CENIC Voice over IP (VoIP) workshop at the Jet Propulsion Lab on April 10th, 2000. Cisco Systems presented recent developments in their VoIP product line, which is being used for the CENIC VoIP pilot project. Discussion following the presentation revealed that Cisco's recent developments still don't address the bulk of the campuses' concerns regarding VoIP implementation; without progress on those issues the value of the pilot (to UC Campuses) is constrained.
Workshop facilitators polled the campuses for potential uses of VoIP on campus. Toll bypass between campuses was acknowledged as potentially having some marginal value, the value of which would be determined by evaluating traffic studies and the long distance marketplace. The largest perceived gain of VoIP relates to strategic capital investments: Most campuses look towards VoIP as an alternative to expanding centralized switching gear. Problems exist with a widespread deployment: Location information for 911 calls, feature transparency, campus network suitability, integration of billing records with existing systems and call signaling were the dominant concerns expressed.
The attendees acknowledged that the CENIC pilot project was conceived primarily to evaluate and learn the VoIP technology and limitations. The pilot was not intended to address these dominant concerns. The workshop attendees also recognized that those campuses served by Centrex are poorly positioned to address growth with VoIP.
The campus continues to provide free remote access to Faculty, Staff and Students via three separate modem pools. The campus decision about remote access is still in debate, with the vote on a student referendum for fee support delayed indefinitely.
The recent availability of free ISPs has resulted in an effort to examine their viability as possible replacement services. IT-CR published a Request for Proposal (RFP) for Free ISP Services in March 2000 and has received three submissions from vendors. These proposals are currently under evaluation by IT Management with campus consultation.
- Western Telecommunications Consulting (WTC): WTC has been engaged to examine the strategic direction the campus should take in the provisioning of telecommunications services in the most cost effective manner. WTC's preliminary recommendations, coupled with IT-CR's internal analysis, have resulted in the pursuit of new carrier contracts for local and long distance services. IT-CR expects to realize savings for local and long distance services as early as June 2000. The balance of WTC's report should be complete within four to six weeks.
- Automatic Call Distribution (ACD): IT-CR has collaborated with several campus departments to conduct a feasibility pilot of different ACD system configurations. ACD service will be offered pending campus rate approval.
The UCDNet2 project, the expansion of the Network 21 infrastructure into the outlying areas of campus, is continuing as planned. The environmental review and design is complete. Approval of the project plan and budget is expected to occur at the May 17th UC Regents meeting.
The completion date for cutover has been revised to June 2002.
Gigabit Ethernet will be the technology of choice for the backbone portion of the network expansion, setting the stage for a transition to Gigabit Ethernet from ATM for the remainder of the campus backbone in 2002. Economics and performance are the primary drivers in this choice, along with the expectation of enhanced reliability through simplicity in network management. The standard level of service under this project will be 100Mbs to the desktop.
Mikom conducted an audit of the 800 MHz Trunked Radio System with a focus on in-building communications and bi-directional amplification. The proposal recommending options for handling out-of-coverage areas has been submitted to Planning & Budget. A contract for developing standards for In-building Communication Coverage will be issued within the next 2-4 weeks.
The 800Mhz Advisory Committee is in the process of reviewing technical recommendations for additional trunked channels to reduce the contention on the radio system. The FCC is evaluating channel allocation for Yolo and Solano counties. UCD and UCDMC are working with University of California Office of the President (UCOP) to acquire additional radio channels.