September 1998
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Major Network Upgrades
Accelar Project
The St. Olaf computer network recently underwent a major upgrade to provide faster, more efficient network services through scalability and management. The upgrade combines an entirely new technology with our existing infrastructure and will serve our needs well into the future.
In 1991, the ACC installed fiber optic cable throughout the campus to interconnect our buildings. We also installed a router to provide shared ethernet technology as our physical infrastructure. Today, we still incorporate all of this but have added a tenfold increase in speed to some crucial areas of the fiber, and we brought in switched ethernet to further optimize our network traffic. The result is a faster, more manageable and configurable network capable of future expansion as network services and demand continue to grow. It also allows us to fine tune our network by increasing bandwidth where there is demand.
This is the first of three phases of annual projects to achieve our goals for the St. Olaf network. The upgrade today achieves the core of that goal and moves five of our subnets to the fast/switched ethernet segments. Next year, we hope to complete all remaining academic subnet upgrades, and the final year will take care of remaining subnets, including residence halls.
Details of the first phase that is now complete include the Accelar Switch, a central network component that provides 100Mb/s fiber and copper interfaces, a switching fabric, redundant power, and state-of-the-art management tools. A future upgrade will include a second Accelar with Gigabit interfaces and more servers and subnets running on dedicated high-speed switched interfaces. The subnets that were upgraded to 100Mb/s switched uplinks include; Administration, Math, Sciences/Physics, Biology/Chemistry, Holland Hall, and the central core ACC servers. The technology of switched ethernet provides greater freedom in control of services and clients. We can create virtual networks, provide high levels of security, and be pro-active with problems and malfunctions, usually before they become serious or disrupt services.
The final phases over the next few years will enable us to complete this work campus-wide, which will allow us to manage and control our network completely and efficiently. With the migratable path of ethernet switching, the network we built nearly 10 years ago will be around for many years to come.
Math, Music, and Skoglund Wiring Upgrades
This summer, the ACC and Telecommunications wired three more buildings to support ethernet data networks and provide expanded data jack locations. Skoglund and Music were in need of wiring upgrades and additional locations to connect into the network. Now, both buildings will support full ethernet capability with standards-based category cabling and have enough access points to more than double the number of networked nodes. In addition, the Math floors of the Old Music building were also re-wired and upgraded.
In Skoglund, we still have a Macintosh router to support a couple of LocalTalk printers, but computers are now upgraded to the faster ethernet network. All nodes and users in Music and Math are now on the ethernet, and LocalTalk has been eliminated in the buildings&emdash;a much desired component of the upgrade that not only increases flexibility and manageability, but also simplifies our network topology.
The ACC and Telecommunications wish to thank the people in these buildings for being patient and allowing us the time to complete the work.
--Mike Sjulstad, Network Engineer
T1 Upgrade
Late this summer we upgraded our connection to the Internet from a frame-relay T1 to a full-capacity T1 link; our Internet traffic is now beamed by microwave between St. Olaf and Minneapolis.
At our busiest times during the past academic year, we reached sustained traffic rates of approximately 450 thousands of bits per second (kbps) to and from the Internet. As a result of the upgrade, we should be able to achieve rates well in excess of three times that (approximately 1,500 kbps). Our thanks to Tom Nelson of WCAL for helping coordinate and implement this upgrade.
--Craig Rice, Networking Consultant