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TO: Joel Daly, Cabletron, Inc.
FROM: Bob Jewett, SUNY Potsdam
DATE: 2/27/96
Joel,
The purpose of our campus residential network project that we have discussed
with you is to wire all student rooms in our 5 residential buildings with a
faceplate that has a Cat5 data jack and a Cat5 telephone jack for every bed
designed to be in a given room (the designed capacity of the buildings).
There will be some public areas and a few offices in the buildings included in
the project for a total count of over 3000 faceplates.
During the 1996-97 school year, it is our intention to activate 1000 of these
faceplates (data jacks) for data communication. This is based upon our best
estimate of how many students will bring computers with them to school next
year and will want direct network access. This year, over 700 students
brought computers on-campus. They currently access our campus network and the
Internet via Shiva dial-in servers.
One of our primary concerns with the "electronics" behind this project is to
protect the network performance we currently have on the *non*-residential
side of the campus (the academic/administrative side). When we activate the
1000 ports on the residential side, our desire is to notice *no difference in
performance* on the academic/administrative side--which currently has over
1000 network nodes and two (2) IP subnets.
Here are our responses to your questions:
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1. What are the distances between Buildings?
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All buildings are less than 3000 ft. from each other. Most academic
and administrative buildings are within short distances of each other.
Our 5 primary residential buildings are less than 2000 ft. from each
other and have 12 pairs of multi-mode fiber running to them (see below).
Our Phys Ed/Sports building (Maxcy Hall) is the only building at any
distance from the other buildings on campus and it is approximately 3000 ft.
from Kellas Hall (our primary data communications building--servers, etc.).
It is currently served by fiber and is connected to our existing campus
network.
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2. Is there existing cabling, and if so what is it and how many
strands?
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There are 24 multi-mode fibers (12 pair) going to every building on campus
and to each residence hall.
This fiber runs to a building BDF and is "patched" to the building SER/IDFs
(wiring closets) with 10Base2 (thinnet) to individual faceplates (primarily
"daisy-chained") from DEMPRs located in the SER/IDFs.
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3. Will there be a multi-floor environment in the buildings, what will the
vertical and horizontal cable runs look like, and are their any issues?
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Yes, most campus buildings are more than 1 story. 3 of the residential
buildings have 6-7 floors.
Horizontal runs planned for the residential buildings will be Cat5 UTP from
the IDF (wiring closets) to individual student rooms (faceplates). Vertical
runs will be 12 (6 pair) of multi-mode fiber from the BDF to each SER/IDF
(wiring closet).
CURRENT NETWORK CONFIGURATION
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4. Types of topologies (Ethernet, TR, FDDI, ATM)?
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Our existing network is a star topology Ethernet with multi-mode fiber from
2 Chipcom ONLine hubs to building IDFs (wiring closets) and 10Base2
(thinnet) to individual faceplates (primarily "daisy-chained").
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5. What types of existing LAN-based hubs?
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We have two (2) ChipCom ONLine 17-slot hubs, primarily with FB fiber ports.
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6. Existing switching products in house: what types?
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We have a ChipCom Ensemble 16-port switching 10BaseT hub--on loan for
evaluation purposes.
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7. What routers are in the network?
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We have one (1) Wellfleet router for TCP/IP and DECnet routing connecting
our campus LAN to our off-campus T1 for SUNYNet and Internet access.
We have one (1) Novell-based IPX router and two (2) AppleTalk seed routers.
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8. What protocols are supported on network? What protocols are routed?
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(RIP. OSPF. IGRP. DecNet. IPX. AppleTalk. etc.?)
We currently support and route IPX, TCP/IP, AppleTalk and DECnet. For
the residential network, we expect to support and route TCP/IP (primarily)
AppleTalk and IPX (no DECnet).
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9. What classes of IP addresses are in use? What are the IP addresses?
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We have a Class B license for IP addresses; addresses are 137.143.xxx.xxx
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10. Is there a University wide network IP mask, and are you using
variable length subnet masks?
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Yes. We use an IP subnet mask of 255.255.248.0
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11. What type of network management platform?
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We currently used the management software built into the management cards
of the ChipCom ONLine hubs. We communicate with these cards through RS232
connections to them using standard terminal-emulation software.
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12. What are the desktop platforms, workstations, and operating systems?
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We currently support DOS, Macintosh, Unix, VMS and Windows. Our desktop
computers on our existing LAN are primarily Macintosh (80%). We expect
our residential network to support DOS, Macintosh, Unix and Windows (no
VMS) and that the mixture of desktop computers to be 50-50 (Mac/Windows).
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13. What does the SNA network look like?
- use of SDLC
- the mainframes-model/type, o.s
- wide area lines-speeds, structure
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We do not support SNA on-campus. Users connect to SUNY's SNA network
using a special emulation program on our DEC computers and going through
our Wellfleet/T1 off-campus connection to SUNYNet (a state-wide
network connecting SUNY campuses) .
We have two (2) DEC Alpha 2100 servers on our existing network support
administrative databases.
We have one (1) T1 line for off-campus access to SUNYNet and the Internet
(via a separate NYSERNet gateway).
FUTURE PROFILE
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14. Are you a router-centric network? If yes, do you plan to remain
router-centric?
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No, we are not a router-centric network. Our network segments
are primarily "bridged" with some routing and some switching.
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15. What issues/objections do you have with your current environment?
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We are very satisfied with our existing network performance. However
it is very difficult to pinpoint and isolate data communication problems
when they occur (largely due to the daisy-chaining of faceplates).
One our primary concerns with the proposed residential network project is
to ensure easy, robust manageability of the residential network; to extend
that manageability to our existing network, if possible; and, to preserve
our performance satisfaction with the exiting network even with the
addition of the residential network (1000+ nodes).
We want the residential network to be integrated with our existing network
for manageability and cross-network access. We are *looking into* the
feasibility of providing separate off-campus access to the Internet for
the residential network so that the two networks won't have to contend with
each other for access.
The residential network must be expandable and scalable so that we can
eventually support the 3000+ faceplates being wired in the residence halls.
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16. What are your major applications?
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The residential network will need to provide access to card-reading
equipment in the residential buildings (washing machines, vending machines,
and perhaps, laser printing). We do not want this access to impair data
communications for other services. The card-reading equipment must have
good response time between the reader on the residential network and its
server on the existing academic/administrative network.
The primary applications on the residential network will be TCP/IP-based
services (email, Web browsing, FTP, TELNET, NetNews) and printing (via
AppleTalk, IPX and TCP/IP). Access to servers on the existing
academic/administrative network will occur, as well as some file-sharing.
We currently provide 24 dial-in ports to our existing network. We have
plans to exand that to 40 ports (28.8/14.4 dial-in modems).
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17. What are your future applications?
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On our existing network, we expect much more activity with client-server
applications (e.g., our student database--Banner).
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18. What new technologies are you looking for (imaging, Multimedia, etc.)
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We also expect more multi-media applications to be used through the
existing network and the residential network and that both will
likely have to support desktop video-conferencing applications as well.
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19. What are your plans for addressing ATM?
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We have no immediate plans for ATM, though we want our residential network
designed so that it can scale to that technology when needed. The same
would be true of our existing network, though we understand that it will
need to be re-wired to support ATM.
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20. What are your plans for addressing Virtual Networks?
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No immediate plans.
Entered: 2/27/96
Contact: R. Jewett (Email: jewettrj@potsdam.edu)