Communications Planning Group

UC Davis Campus Report

Submitted by Information and Educational Technology's Communications Resources (CR).

May, 2003

  • CENIC SWAN (Sacramento Wide Area Networking)
  • Department Firewalls
  • Digital Loop Carrier
  • Directory Portal Concept
  • Network 21 Replacement/Upgrade Project
  • Pinnacle Upgrade
  • Public Health Initiative Network (PHINet) Project
  • UCDNet Architecture Redesign
  • Wireless Networking

    • CENIC SWAN (Sacramento Wide Area Networking

    The SWAN project has successfully leveraged both campus and CENIC efforts in establishing a Sacramento Wide Area Network that encompasses the needs of both organizations. The Sacramento POP (point of presence) has been established, and our efforts are now focused on procuring fiber connectivity for research applications between Emeryville, the UC Davis campus, and the Medical Center. Fiber has been secured from a variety of providers (Charter, Level3, XO, and Surewest) so we can provide the diverse path links for CENIC and for dedicated campus use.

    While CENIC and National Light Rail's buying power has been essential in lowering the cost of lengthy campus-to-campus fiber runs, this advantage has not carried over to the electronics because of the Cisco agreement terms and conditions. Consequently, it has been necessary for the campus to solicit bids for wave division multiplexing gear that, while not carrier grade, is of sufficient quality to handle the demands of Medical Center Research with the campus and to play as one of the building blocks for Voice over IP toll bypass between the two locations. The fiber should be lit up and operational no later than May 31, 2003.

    Department Firewalls

    Many campus departments are deploying departmental firewalls as part of their security plan. Information and Educational Technology (IET) recognizes that not all departments have the staff or budget resources to design, deploy, and manage network firewalls. IET is in the early phase of a study to determine the feasibility of offering managed firewall services at UC Davis. The current phase is intended to establish the fundamental elements of a managed firewall service offering.

    IET is participating in the newly formed Technology Infrastructure Forum (TIF) Department Firewall Workgroup to develop guidelines for the logical and physical network architecture for department hardware firewalls. This team will also develop and publish suggested baseline department hardware firewall rule sets for the campus.

    Digital Loop Carrier

    Due to projected growth, the demand for voice and data services on the UC Davis campus will exceed the capacity of the current copper cable infrastructure in the near future. Communications Resources has initiated a campuswide planning effort to deploy Digital Loop Carrier (DLC) as a voice solution. Utilizing this alternative will leverage the embedded base of copper and fiber cabling and eliminate the need for the costly copper cable reinforcements required to serve the needs of the campus's extensive capital construction program.

    The system architecture plan includes placing a remote terminal in the building distribution frame (BDF) of the target building and homing that back on fiber to a corresponding terminal in the campus central office node. To preserve the aesthetics of the landscaping surrounding new construction, the BDF has been selected to house the electronic equipment for the remote terminals rather than placing them in an outdoor cabinet. In addition, this architecture eliminates the need to purchase hardened outdoor enclosures and place additional electrical feeds to serve the remote terminal. The plan also examines the economic feasibility of transferring existing buildings to the fiber driven DLC in order to recover existing copper cabling to satisfy the voice needs for infill construction. This will eliminate the need for infrastructure and cable reinforcement in heavily congested core campus areas.

    Directory Portal Concept

    The campus is examining the possibility of expanding the current academic focus of the MyUCDavis portal to include business services and functionality. In support of this concept, Communications Resources (CR) will perform a brief feasibility analysis of incorporating Telephone Directory Services within a business portal architecture. This portal could include services for viewing and maintaining directory profile information as well as telecommunications services (moves, adds, and changes). Having the benefit of a single interface ensures that the printed and online directory information will be accurate and synchronized.

    Network 21 Replacement/Upgrade Project

    As part of the long-term management plan for the campus network, IET is preparing to implement the Network 21 Replacement/Upgrade Project. The migration strategy behind this project involves replacing the aged 3Com ATM network in the core campus with a Gigabit Ethernet network. The replacement/upgrade will encompass approximately 20,000 workstations.

    The next generation of Foundry Network Equipment (the JetCore Product Line) will be installed rather than the originally bid Foundry Network Equipment (the IronCore Product Line) which had problems with multicast, untagged Ethernet unicast, and packet filtering. With JetCore as the replacement/upgrade equipment, the campus network will have more flexibility relative to future multicast requirements through the use of hardware forwarding. In addition, this newer generation equipment provides greater network management functionality with the sFlow features (RFC 3176), hardware-based packet filtering, and hardware-based Quality of Service.

    On May 1, 2003, the project cutover schedule was posted to the CR Web page at http://cr.ucdavis.edu/. The project completion date is September 30, 2003.

    Pinnacle Upgrade

    Communications Resources is in the process of upgrading its current telemanagement system from Pinnacle 3.5 to Pinnacle 4.1. The initial upgrade is anticipated to take place July 1, 2003. The enhancements derived from this upgrade will provide increased functionality, including:
    • More efficient processing of service requests,
    • Quicker turnaround times due to utilization of new scheduling features,
    • Increased accuracy of data,
    • More detailed subscriber information, and
    • More user-friendly client interface.
    Once implemented, additional projects will be undertaken to incorporate Web-based tools to further improve productivity, efficiency, and client interactions.

    Public Health Initiative Network (PHINet) Project

    A number of activities at UC Davis, such as the Telemedicine Program at UCD Health Systems, depend heavily on networking capabilities.. CENIC, through its Optical Networking Initiative (ONI) and the Digital California Project (DCP), has established a robust statewide network in which UC Davis and UCDHS are uniquely positioned to take advantage of a new and advanced network infrastructure.

    The Public Health Initiative Network Project (PHINet) has been established and charged with examining the correlation between the existing telemedicine network and the CENIC network infrastructure. Specifically, the PHINet team will develop a set of program and design criteria to examine the potential to reduce costs by eliminating duplicative infrastructure or carrier services. A project team consisting of individuals from UCD, UCDHS, and CENIC will perform the analysis and provide a set of design, service level, and financial recommendations that leverages the CENIC infrastructure for the benefit of Telemedicine and Public Health Initiative services. The project scope also includes the development of a proposed implementation plan for any recommendations that are approved. Implementation itself is considered a subsequent phase, requiring a separate project, and associated staffing.

    UCDNet Architecture Redesign

    As an offshoot of planning the implementation of the new Foundry JetCore equipment in the Network 21 Replacement/Upgrade Project, the UC Davis/Foundry team revised the campus network topology. With the new deployment, the campus will move from the radial mesh topology to a hierarchical topology that will provide more network efficiency and enhanced network management. The new design also allows for utilization of the management network as a fail over network in emergency situations.

    Wireless Networking

    In the past year, the campus adopted a wireless networking policy that provides a framework for both centrally and departmentally managed deployments. One of the key points is the recognition that wireless systems are extremely vulnerable to security breaches and it is necessary to protect the campus's confidential data from unauthorized access. To this end, the campus is examining newer authentication systems that may extend beyond the current wireless environment and integrate with the campus security policies and systems. Communications Resources is simultaneously exploring the newer wireless standards, 802.11g and 802.11a, for possible deployment within the campus's centrally managed systems.

    One of our greatest challenges today is in providing a unique combination of wireless infrastructure, and management and authentication software that provides comprehensive, secure, and manageable service for all types of wireless applications. The guiding principles have been to define directions and policies that encourage scalability, allowing a department's network administrator to operate a single small site (such as a single building), or to enable Information and Educational Technology to manage a global campuswide infrastructure comprising thousands of users across the entire campus.

    Wireless local area networks have been deployed in common areas around campus, such as the Memorial Union and Shields Library, and within individual departments. Students download and upload assignments, access campus libraries, collaborate on study projects, contact professors, conduct research, and connect to the Web from many locations on campus. In addition to improving student connectivity, both campus and departmental administration benefits from integrating wireless networking into existing wired systems. With the goal of improving access to campus LANs, the deployment of wireless systems offers great potential.