The University of Arkansas Network

David Bruce Network Engineering Team

U of A IP Space

  The U of A has been allocated the 16 bit network 130.184 which consists of 65,536 IP addresses

  On average, there are roughly 9000 concurrent IPs active on the campus network at any one time

  In accordance with University policy, University IT Services is tasked with maintaining the campus IP space

  IP ranges are directly associated with campus VLANs   Campus VLANS are generally grouped based on

building location

The Campus Network

  The core is made of up of 2 20Gb connected Nortel 8600 routers

  5 edge routers, also Nortel 8600s, provide building feeds

  Each edge router has a 10Gb MLT connection to each core router providing a 20Gb connection for each switch and redundancy for the edge routers

  Building networks are generally 100Mb or 1Gb feeds, with 3 10Gb hotspots at this time

  Building LAN networks generally consist of Nortel L2 switches

AREON Connection

 We currently have a 1Gb connection to AREON  AREON has a 10Gb connection into OneNet  Our commodity internet is roughly 150Mb, but it

can burst higher  Our Internet 2 connectivity is essentially

restricted by physical connection speed and OneNet’s 10Gb connection to I2

  Internet 2 provides commercial peering making several sites which used to be commodity available via I2

Internet Utilization Chart

Network Management

The Network Engineering Team is responsible for the core campus network and most building LANs. We are also now responsible for the wide area connection for the campus. There are two exceptions to our control of the campus network:

  Walton College of Business currently supports their own network. We provide them with IP space and a link to the core

  The Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food, and Life Sciences has a staff member who helps to support building LANs. We still maintain and control of their network, but their staff member has access to switches in their buildings and can do basic trouble shooting and maintenance

Fiber Optic Network

We are responsible for maintaining the fiber optic network on campus

  Fiber generally stars out from fiber hubs located at router locations

  Most fiber on campus is multi-mode but long runs and new installs include single-mode   Multi-mode fiber has a larger core diameter and can

accommodate multiple transverse modes on the same path, but distances are generally reduced due to increased dispersion

  Single-mode fiber has a small core that accommodates a single ray of light. Single-mode allows for longer distances

  Connections require different optical equipment depending on the fiber being used

Campus Wireless

 UA-WLAN is the open, unencrypted SSID campus wide

 Outdoor access is provided through a Nortel Wireless Mesh system

  Indoor hotspots are a combination of legacy Symbol APs, Nortel 2220 APs and the new Nortel 2330 DAPs

 All rollouts for the foreseeable future will be using the Nortel 2300 series APs

 All open access wireless go through Infoblox registration system

Recent and Upcoming Projects

 Nagios  Infoblox DHCP  Bradford in ResNet  Building Upgrades  WAN Upgrade

Nagios

 Allows for more proactive network monitoring

 Core and edge routers are monitored along with appliances and servers that provide network services

 Eventually, building LANs will be monitored, providing a live network “weather map” to help clients and technicians assess current issues

InfoBlox DHCP

 There are currently two DHCP systems on campus right now, the old system, which is now running on an InfoBlox appliance, and the new network registration system

 The InfoBlox appliance also provides DNS services for all of campus and network registration services for the wireless networks

  InfoBlox provides redundancy in the form a high availability pair

 Rollouts of the new system continue

Bradford Campus Manager

 Bradford Campus manager is the product that has been selected to replace Perfigo in the residence halls

 Bradford provides for greater security and partitioning of the ResNet networks

 It works through dynamic vlan switching  Compliance checking for OS updates

and virus software will continue to be a requirement for the residence halls

Building Upgrades

  GREG   HOCM   MPHL   SGNU   FBAC   JBAR   BWAR   ALUM   JBHT   OZAR   WATR   MULN

WAN Upgrade

 The WAN will be upgraded to 2 10Gb connections into AREON

 10Gb Firewalls will be put in place to recreate the DMZ

 New 10Gb Juniper MX960 routers will be purchased for WAN connectivity