NETWORK

The campuses network facilities continue to grow at an increasing pace. The campus now uses over 3,000 desktop computers, of which over 2,000 are attached to the campus network. I.T.S. continues to add centralized resources and centralized applications which are accessible to all campus users. I.T.S. cabling crews continue to install new network connection points for new users and additional computers. Many of the major initiatives described below were targeted towards increasing reliability and throughput and minimizing any sort of network unavailability, with an eye towards maintaining 7x24

MS Mail upgrade
I.T.S. completed the multi-year migration of over a thousand Microsoft-mail users to the more advanced Microsoft Exchange platform. The Exchange system is not only accessible from off campus, but also provides a variety of collaboration, calendaring, and information management tools.

Campus Backbone Renovation
The college’s multiple campus network backbones have grown to encompass every building and supports thousands of connections. This year, I.T.S. reconfigured the entire network backbone to create a simpler, more reliable, and more efficient layout that uses network switches. This redesign enabled I.T.S. to remove nearly 50% of the active components which were required to link the buildings together. This investment has resulted in a dramatic reduction in network failures and has simplified troubleshooting and support.

Telecommunications Infrastructure Upgrade
The Electronic Campus initiative includes a massive restructuring of the Brooklyn College telecommunications infrastructure and will incorporate significantly improved voice, data and video capabilities. The new infrastructure, scheduled to be implemented in phases through 2002, will introduce a wealth of exciting and productive features to the learning environment at Brooklyn College. These features include the installation of a high speed redundant campus backbone network - 125 times faster than the existing backbone. This state-of-the-art high-speed network will be capable of transporting the digital full-motion video and digital audio critical to multimedia applications and videoconferencing.

To aid in productivity, an improved phone system featuring voice mail (already online), integrated voice response and an automated attendant service will be an important part of the telecommunications improvements. In addition, LAN connectivity is planned for every classroom, office and lab with adequate growth capability for the future. Through the improved LAN cabling, eight classrooms will be equipped for distance education programming to and from remote sites. By expanding distance education facilities, BC will become part of the global classroom, where education, scholarship and research are not limited by geography

Server Clustering
As the college community becomes more technology literate, it becomes more technology dependant becomes more dependant on access to critical systems such as web services, exchange e-mail, SQL databases etc.. During this past year, I.T.S. implemented clustering technology on most of these critical service machines. A cluster is an environment wherein pairs of servers provide a service – most failures of the primary server will cause the secondary server to take over seamlessly!

Server replacement cycle
I.T.S. continues to regularly upgrade the building-based file servers which service the users for printing and file storage. This past year new servers with upgraded memory and storage were installed throughout the campus.

Network Anti-virus Defense
To combat the escalating threat to college systems posed by computer viruses and especially by e-mail based viruses, I.T.S. has upgraded I.T.S. network anti-virus systems and has installed an Exchange e-mail virus sentinel which scans all incoming and outgoing mail for viruses. These systems enabled BC to survive all of the recent virus disasters with no ill effects – despite the substantial infiltration of virus-laden files on campus.

Intranet dial-in
Most of the college’s strategic systems are accessible via any standard Internet access account (SIMS, Library catalog, e-mail, caucus, etc..). However, many college faculty and staff have asked for the ability to dial directly into the college to access e-mail and view college web pages. I.T.S. created the BC Intranet facility to meet that demand and it now services a substantial number of college users.

E-mail Fax server
I.T.S. recently installed a new e-mail fax server system which will allow college users to send faxes via e-mail. A user can send e-mail, even with a WP attachment, to the server and have the message sent in fax format to outside recipients. Full implementation of this system is planned for fall 2000.