dwaldron August 20th, 2008
Wooster’s newest residence hall, beautiful Gault Manor, is set to open its doors to its first residents. IT’s Digital Infrastructure group played a significant role in preparing the building for its momentous opening. The building’s construction required that 300 telephone cable pairs (part of the campus telephone system) be rerouted. It was also necessary to rerout 36 stands of fiber optic cable (part of CoW’s data network) and a coaxial cable trunk (part of CoW’s cable TV distribution network). The Digital Infrastructure group oversaw this work. The group also oversaw the installation of the building’s internal cabling for data, voice and video communication, and for connecting the building to these three College networks. ScotZone, the College’s authenticated, encrypted wireless network is accessible throughout the building. The Digital Infrastructure group also oversaw the installation of the media equipment in the building’s shared media room. This equipment includes a ceiling mounted projector, a DVD/VCR combo unit, speakers, appropriate control units and a courtesy port to allow the connection of a laptop to the audio/visual system.
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| Gault Manor |
dwaldron August 18th, 2008
Over the summer, IT increased the bandwidth of the College’s internet connection. Available bandwidth for general commodity internet traffic is now 150 Mbps. An additional 845 Mbps is available for intra-Ohio commodity internet traffic. Internet2 bandwidth is 5 Mbps. Changes instituted by OARnet, our service provider, allowed us to increase throughput with only modest increases in cost.
We in IT are very happy to be able to provide these service enhancements.
dwaldron January 9th, 2008
Last summer, IT implemented a network access control (NAC) system in all student residential spaces. The NAC is designed to prevent computers that are infected with viruses or worms and computers that are vulnerable to such infections from connecting to the campus network. This will prevent the spread of infection and help to ensure that the campus network and other IT resources operate effectively.
When students arrived on campus at the beginning of the fall semester and plugged a computer into a network jack, the NAC required that the student authenticate and register the computer. Following registration, a software agent was installed on the student’s computer. This agent scanned the computer for infection and vulnerabilities. If infections or vulnerabilities were detected, the student was directed to the appropriate IT resource for assistance. During that initial semester of the NAC’s operation, infected or vulnerable computers were not prevented from accessing the campus network. This was done to promote a smooth implementation of the NAC. From now on, student computers found to be infected or vulnerable to infection will be prevented from accessing the campus network. Students with infected or vulnerable computers will be directed to the appropriate resource for assistance.
Additional information about the NAC can be found in the following locations. Questions about the NAC should be addressed to the student help desk at xHELP (x4357).
dwaldron January 9th, 2008
The College recently signed an agreement with NTI Group to utilitize their ConnectED emergency notification service. This service will allow each student, faculty member and staff member to register multiple email addresses and telephone numbers (including cell phone numbers) to receive emergency notifications. College administrators will then use the service to quickly direct emergency messages via email, text message and telephone to those who have registered. In signing the agreement, the College becomes the fifth member of the Ohio Five consortium to engage the ConnectED service.
Implementation will get underway early in the spring semester. The first step will be to solicit the relevant telephone numbers and email addresses from members of the Wooster community. The implementation will be overseen by the Emergency Response Steering Committee headed by Dean of Students Kurt Holmes. One of the challenges we face in the implementation is organizing our use of the service in ways that accommodate the College’s telephone and email systems effectively.
dwaldron November 19th, 2007
IT has committed to extending wireless network access to Armington, Holden and Stevenson Halls over the upcoming summer. These three residence halls have been chosen because their existing infrastruture will most readily support the wireless service. Additional halls may be added to this list, but IT is unable to make additional commitments at this time. IT plans to schedule installation in additional residence halls once the budgeting process for next fiscal year is complete. Prior to extending access to these three residence halls, IT will upgrade the central wireless network infrastructure.
Among residence halls, wireless service is currently only available in Luce. The wireless service is also available in all academic buildings, Lowry Center, Galpin Hall, and the Douglas Quad.
Additional information will be posted to the blog as it becomes available.
dwaldron September 15th, 2007
Over the course of Thursday and Friday, September 13th and 14th, the College experienced intermittent network difficulties. These difficulties impacted access to resources on the campus network as well as resources on the internet. These problems were tracked to a small number of personal computers infected with some type of virus. The virus was, in each case, generating a tremendous amount of network traffic. This traffic significantly degraded network performance. These computers were removed from the network at approximately 5:00 Friday afternoon. Following the removal network performance returned to normal. IT hopes to examine the infected machines to ascertain the nature of the infection. We regret any inconvenience the network difficulties may have caused.
dwaldron August 8th, 2007
As announced back in November, IT will implement a network access control (NAC) solution in all student residential spaces effective with the beginning of the 07-08 academic year. The NAC is designed to prevent computers that are infected with viruses or worms and computers that are vulnerable to infection from connecting to the campus network. This will prevent the spread of infection and help to ensure that the campus network and other IT resources operate effectively.
When students arrive on campus and plug a computer into a network jack, the NAC will require that the student authenticate and register the computer. Following registration, a software agent will be installed on the student’s computer. This software agent will scan the student’s computer for infection and vulnerabilities. If infections or vulnerabilities are detected, the student will be directed to the appropriate resource for assistance. During the first two weeks of the fall semester, student computers found to have infections or vulnerabilities will still be allowed to connect to the campus network. Thereafter, network access will be denied to such computers until the infections or vulnerabilities are addressed. Students bringing multiple computers to campus will have to register each machine individually.
Gaming devices and IP telephones are permitted on the network, but require setup by IT. To initiate this setup, send an email with the device type and the device’s MAC address to it-nac@wooster.edu. Setup should be complete within two business days. Hubs, routers, switches and wireless access points will not function on the network. Questions can be addressed to the student help desk at xHELP (x4357).
dwaldron March 13th, 2007
Over the last few weeks IT has been attempting to isolate the source of the slow printing to several of our public and departmental printers. We have recently moved the public printers behind a firewall to protect the printers from network traffic not intended for them. These steps have made a significant change in the speed at which those devices operate. User Services will be contacting individual departments to discuss the steps necessary to continue to move the devices to a protected network.
Vince DiScipio
Director Networks, Telecommunications and Systems
dwaldron January 12th, 2007
Over the holidays, IT increased the bandwidth of the College’s internet connection. Prior to the increase, available bandwidth was 24 megabits per second (Mbps), 12 Mbps, and 6 Mbps for commodity internet traffic, intra-Ohio commodity internet traffic, and internet2 traffic, respectively. Available bandwidth for general commodity internet traffic is now 36 Mbps, and available bandwidth for intra-Ohio traffic is 18 Mbps. Internet2 bandwidth is unchanged. Changes instituted by OARnet, our service provider, allowed us to make these increases without increased cost.
The College also made structural changes to our internet connection. We now have “last mile” connectivity to the Third Frontier Network. This direct fiber optic connection to OARnet amply provides for future increases and allows the College greater flexibility in managing bandwidth acquisition. These structural changes have the added benefit of lowering the cost to the College of providing internet access.
We in IT are very happy to be able to provide these service enhancements.
dwaldron November 29th, 2006
In the summer of 2007, IT will implement a network access control (NAC) solution in all student residential spaces. The NAC is designed to prevent computers that are infected with viruses or worms, and computers that are vulnerable to infection, from connecting to the campus network. This will prevent the spread of infection and help to ensure that the campus network and other IT resources operate effectively.
When students arrive on campus for next academic year and plug a computer into a network jack, the NAC will require that they authenticate. Following authentication the computer will be scanned for infection and vulnerabilities. If infections or vulnerabilities are detected, the computer will be denied network access and the student will be provided with information as to the nature of the problem, the steps required to remedy the problem, and where to obtain assistance.
To test the NAC and to gain experience with it, IT will implement this new service within our own offices prior to deployment in the residential spaces. This will help to ensure a smooth implementation for students. The NAC will replace the computer registration process that went into effect at the beginning of this academic year.
Additional information about the NAC and its implementation will be published on the IT blog as it becomes available.