Network

U of L wireless network – hurdles and behind-the-scenes efforts

Last year the University committed $20,000 to upgrade the wireless in some of the older residence buildings which dramatically improved coverage for students there, plus another $80,000 to improve the coverage in classroom spaces, says Jeff Oliver, Network Team Lead in IT Services. “Over the next few months, we will be conducting tests across the campus to determine where other gaps exist.”

Wireless surveys have already been completed in University Hall and Markin Hall which has helped us to identify some issues already. IT Services staff need to physically pace off every space with equipment that measures the wireless signals which then provides visual heat maps of how well wireless signals are reaching offices and workstations. “These heat maps help us figure out where new access points will help, and where they won’t,” adds Oliver.

E8 HeatmapWi-Fi coverage in E8 of University Hall: the darker colors represent good Wi-Fi coverage and are generally closest to the access points. The lighter areas show poorer Wi-Fi signals. The green line indicates where a staff member walked the area and the dots on the line represent ‘pings’ to the access points.

Wi-Fi signals do not penetrate solid materials well, particularly steel and concrete, or fluids. A person standing between a device and an access point can interfere and simply absorb the signals. The more obstacles, the weaker the signals.

Imagine being in a room with 10 radios that are all tuned to different radio stations…

“Noise, also known as an abundance of radio signals, is also a big problem with wireless. The more noise, the worse the connection. Imagine being in a room with 10 radios that are all tuned to different radio stations – can you listen to them all, or pick out just one? Can you pick out an individual conversation in a room where 100 people are all talking at the same time? In the wireless spectrum the same concepts apply. The more conversations going on at the same time, the more noise overall.”

The number of wireless devices brought on campus is increasing every academic year. With each additional faculty, staff or student come one to three or four additional devices, all requesting network access–many at the same time. This means that every access point must support more and more individual devices, and the access points need to be closer together as each one can only service a limited number of clients.

…there are about 25,000 wireless devices on campus of which more than 10,000 can be active and connecting to the wireless network over the course of a day.

Oliver adds there are about 25,000 wireless devices on campus of which more than 10,000 can be active and connecting to the wireless network over the course of a day. “Our maximum concurrent connections this semester so far has been 7,000, and that number can fluctuate wildly depending on the day.” Early in the semester we were alerted to the fact that some of the network infrastructure supporting the Student@UofL and Guest@UofL networks was running at capacity, which prompted us to replace some equipment with newer technology.

So how much network traffic does this number of devices equate to?

Guest student before new router

The graph above illustrates the amount of Wi-Fi traffic on the network during one week in September: it peaked out at 300MB per second. Once the new router was installed, the higher demand was easily managed as shown in the graph below and no longer has “flat spots.”

Guest student after new router

Network staff have been working to add additional access points in 80 classrooms over the past year, and expect to be finished by December. The largest classroom, PE250, will have six access points. The rest will have roughly double what they originally had, which will greatly increase the number of concurrent connections available in classroom spaces. “We are targeting approximately 40 users per access point.”

It isn’t just a matter of attaching an access point on the ceilings, additional wiring must be installed as well as network infrastructure such as switches and routers to support the increase in the wireless footprint. Much of the work must be done when the rooms are not in use.

The demand is not only on campus. Last spring, outdoor access points were added at the stadium to provide coverage in the bleacher and track areas. “The University’s wireless network is in a perpetual state of upgrade.”

The team is constantly planning and preparing for future changes in technologies. Next year about 250 aging access points are scheduled for replacement to keep up with the changing technology used in mobile devices today.

The next time you use wireless on campus, whether it works immediately or there’s a delay connecting, keep in mind the hurdles and ‘behind-the-scenes’ efforts and costs to provide the service. Oliver reminds people to report any issues to the Solutions Centre (help@uleth.ca) so that steps can be taken to correct them.

Updated Network upgrade schedule

Latest upgrade dates as of November 27, 2015  below.

The upgrade work being done on the University’s network has taken some expected twists and turns, and some not so expected.

As a result, the scheduled dates for each of the buildings and areas have been adjusted.

Below are the current (and somewhat still tentative) dates for the upcoming work:

  • University Hall – Substantially Complete
  • Centre for the Arts – Substantially Complete
  • LINC – Substantially Complete
  • Water Building – Substantially Complete
  • CCBN – Nov 30 – Dec 4
  • Anderson Hall – Dec 7 – Dec 11
  • Turcotte Hall – Dec 14 – Dec 18
  • Students’ Union Building (one room) – Christmas Break
  • Markin Hall – Jan 11- Jan 15
  • PE – Jan 18 – Jan 22
  • Students’ Union Building – Jan 25 – Feb 5

Watch for further updates as the work continues.

Read the full story about the Network upgrade here.

 

Future-proofing our network

Not unlike a vehicle needing new tires, suspension, or even a new motor, the University’s network needs constant maintenance and upgrading if it is to take it longer distances while operating efficiently.

Parts of the network are 20 years old, installed when the University of Lethbridge connected to its first campus-wide data network, says Terry Kirkvold, Infrastructure and Maintenance Support Manager.

Typical network closet prior to upgrade

Typical network closet prior to upgrade

“As many of the current network switches and routers are nearing end of life, what we’re doing, in essence, is future-proofing our network. With this

upgrade, at a minimum, we’re able to maintain and increase the quality, and also improve our service. Users will probably not see a difference in their day-to-day operations, but if they were to look under the hood, they would see a very modern, clean and efficient engine.”

Over the Family Day weekend in February, new core network switches were installed and are currently in operation, as well as new Wi-Fi access points in many classrooms and learning spaces. Next will be the installation of a new Domain Name Server (DNS) and DHCP (IP address allocations).

As outlined in the August 2014 blog article, the upgrade provides a number of improvements:

  • Faster response times for core services such as email and internet
  • Increased wireless capacity which will provide better coverage in classrooms and other student spaces
  • Ability to grow and change with the University’s needs
  • Enhanced security which provides a more secure infrastructure

“We will flip buildings to the new network in a staggered manner, one at a time, over the summer,” says Kirkvold. “These moves will be during the day as a rule and IT resources will be available to troubleshoot any problems that may occur.”

The current closets  are a complicated maze of organic growth that accommodated previous upgrades over the years.

Teams of Infrastructure staff will be required to visit each of the more than 70 network closets to completely reconfigure the network devices, cabling and fiber connections. The current closets  are a complicated maze of organic growth that accommodated previous upgrades over the years.

“With 5,500 connections and more than 27 kilometers of patch cables that have to be moved, each closet, depending on its size, could take two to four hours a day to re-configure and turn up the new infrastructure. For example, the CCBN has three closets and our staff could spend a full day or more in just that one building.”

The move will consist of first moving the wireless access points to the new network followed by the wired computers, phones and other devices attached to the network, and cleaning up all of the cables which could take up to two or three hours to complete.

Go here to see the tentative schedule of the planned work.

For more information, please contact Terry Kirkvold at kirkvold@uleth.ca, or 403-329-2720.

Aiming for one of the best-served networks in Alberta

 

Summer months at the U of L provide the best opportunity for Information Technology Services (ITS) to delve into projects that improve efficiency.

A major network upgrade has been launched by the Infrastructure Maintenance and Support team and is expected to be completed over a three-year span. “We’re upgrading the University’s core network from 1 gigabytes (GB) per second, to 10 GBs per second – which means network speed between buildings will be 10 times faster,” says Manager Terry Kirkvold.Network upgrade

Researchers may receive the biggest value from the upgrade because, as the project unfolds, desktop network speeds will be 1 GB per second, he adds.

Piggybacking on the network upgrade, IT Services is enhancing classroom wireless by adding access points. “It’s not news that we’ve experienced a dramatic increase in wireless traffic on campus over the last three years, and it’s not just smart phones and laptops that need capacity. We have a lot of equipment now that requires wireless including vending machines and classrooms, for example. The faster network enables us to provide a greater capacity for this.”

One of the biggest users of network bandwidth is video streaming, such as YouTube and Netflix. These services are becoming a critical tool for teaching and learning, says Kirkvold. The upgrade will boost bandwidth capacity and provide greater access to web resources.

As the project matures, the campus can expect more communication around improvements. “By the time we’ve completed the entire upgrade, the U of L will have one of the best-served networks in Alberta.”

Other benefits of the upgrade:

  • Faster response times for core services such as email and internet
  • Increased capacity in wireless network, providing better coverage in classrooms and student spaces
  • Enhanced technology, network upgraded to provide sustainable growth opportunities (next 5-10 years) as the needs of the University of Lethbridge change and grow
  • Enhanced security: new network design provides a more secure infrastructure in which to model data security practices

Questions can be directed to the Solutions Centre at help@uleth.ca or (403) 329-2490.

Wi-Fi – oxygen for students

 

During the next four weeks, IT Services’ communications technology staff will be busy working on a major $20,000 wireless upgrade to Kainai and Piikani residence buildings which will effectively double the current capacity, says Terry Kirkvold, Manager of Infrastructure Maintenance and Support.

“Each building will have 14 new access points – four per floor. These buildings will be on par with the coverage provided at the newer residence buildings,” says Kirkvold. “Students will see a dramatic increase in the coverage. This wireless upgrade demonstrates our Destination 2020 commitment to continuously improve the student experience at the University of Lethbridge.Maslow's Wifi

Upgrades to the Tsuu T’ina and Siksika townhouses are scheduled in the coming months and all buildings are expected to have increased Wi-Fi coverage by the end of the academic year.

“We’re anxious to provide what they need and I think they’ll be very happy with the improvement,” Kirkvold adds. “As one student eloquently put it: ‘Wi-Fi is our oxygen.’”

For more information, please contact the Solutions Centre at (403) 329-2490 or help@uleth.ca

Managing the U of L’s Buildings through technology

 

The University operates many complex systems on campus which are responsible for managing life safety, internal environments, room scheduling and many others. When any major system needs an upgrade, it can create a cascade effect on other services, and is no small undertaking. Last year, the Building Management System, or BMS, was scheduled for an overhaul.

At any given time, Facilities monitors roughly 35,000 measurements throughout the campus ranging from thermostats, baffles and ventilation equipment, numerous lights and fans, to the University’s boiler plant and its associated pressure and temperature equipment. In addition, approximately 85 rooms on campus are accessed through card swipes by students, faculty and staff. All are controlled by the BMS.BMS HVAC image

Information Technology Services (ITS) was brought in to assist with the software upgrade, and to provide consultation around possible improvements. Wim Chalmet, ITS Application Support Analyst, says the HVAC, or heating, ventilation and air conditioning, was tackled first.

“A big concern Utilities had was a lack of redundancy. Since utility operators are able to manage and monitor the environment on campus from their computers, if a server went down, the software providing status updates on the systems would quit reporting,” says Chalmet. “Operators would be blind to how everything was functioning and consequently would have to physically patrol to monitor the most critical points. During cold snaps in the winter pipes can freeze within hours so staff would have to be on call at all times day and night.”

In addition to consultation, ITS upgraded all affected desktop machines and was able to repurpose two additional servers for the BMS. “This provides failover protection so that if one server goes down, another takes over and continues to provide status updates to operators.”

The Card Access system for the campus was another component of the BMS upgrade. “We have a number of classrooms that can be accessed by card swipe,” says Chalmet. “If a student registers in a course that is scheduled into one of those rooms, they get card access automatically.”

Chalmet adds that in order for this to occur, a custom designed interface is needed which permits the BMS system to automatically talk to our databases, such as Banner in this instance. “ITS has done an analysis of the entire structure to determine exactly how this interface currently works and recommended significant improvements to integrate the tool with the new software of the BMS environment.” Completion of the project is expected before September.

 

IT Services busy during Christmas break

IT Services completed a number of system upgrades during the Christmas – New Year period, taking advantage of precious time when there are fewer students, faculty and staff on campus.  These upgrades included:

  • Service Monitoring System Upgrade (Microsoft Manager System Center 2012)
    Operations Manager provides infrastructure monitoring that is flexible and cost-effective, helps ensure predictable performance and availability of vital applications, and offers comprehensive monitoring for the data center and cloud, both private and public. It enables IT Services to set thresholds and monitor baselines.
  • Network Services Upgrades (QIP, Firewalls)
    These are essentially maintenance upgrades. The firewall upgrade is effectively a new engine with more horse power to meet the growing needs of the U of L, and capable of handling more Internet traffic from more users. QIP is the system that handles the IP addressing of devices connected to the U of L network.  It provides better functionality, resulting in a more robust system, and to handle the growing needs of the U of L users.
  • Telephone Services Upgrades (Unified Communications)
    Staff applied patches to provide stability to our telecommunications, an offshoot of which reconfigured the phone system to a new server. A virtual machine now provides a higher level of disaster recovery and redundancy to one of our Life Safety Systems.
  • Servers & Storage Upgrades (Load Balancer, Storage)
    Load balancers that handle Exchange mail and Moodle Services, and large disk upgrades both provide added stability to campus IT services.  Communications Technology is constantly doing work behind the scenes that is preventive while supporting and enhancing all of the University’s systems.

Cybera adds bandwidth capacity

Thanks to Cybera, the University now has a redundant load-sharing internet path providing up to 600MBs of internet bandwidth as of October. This doubles the University’s previous bandwidth and provides critical backup for the main Telus service.

Wireless enhancements

Wireless accesses on campus are now at more than 53,000 per day, as compared with 38,500 at the same time last year. Work done during the summer by the Infrastructure team has dramatically improved the capacity of the University’s wireless network access.

Eduroam

The University of Lethbridge is now connected to Eduroam! This service provides secure, worldwide roaming access to students, researchers and staff from participating institutions to obtain Internet connectivity, when visiting other participating institutions, by simply opening their laptop.