Just like Lance Armstrong over the past few years, the university network also became faster over the past few months. Luckily we don’t have any dubious activities to declare.

Last year the decision was made to start upgrading the network of all academic buildings, as well as student residences. The project entails the upgrade of fibre connections to the central IT core.

Until recently a large part of buildings on campus were still equipped with outdated cabling which caused network connections to be slow and unresponsive. The existing network was also not geared for the growing capacity and needs of it’s users.

Therefore it was decided to standardise all buildings as soon as possible and upgrade from 1Gbit per second to 10Gbit per second bandwidth. This project forms part of the greater aim to ensure the SU network will have the ability to supply adequate bandwidth to meet growing academic demands. After the upgrade, the university will be ready for future applications and services which will potentially require higher bandwidths for optimal functioning.

Thirteen academic buildings and seven student residences have been upgraded to higher speeds. The remaining buildings and residences will be upgraded over the next few months. Upgrades will, as far as possible, be done over lunch times or after hours and departments will be notified beforehand if down times will occur.

Dis nie net Lance Armstrong wat vinniger geword oor die afgelope paar jaar nie. Die US-netwerk het ook die afgelope paar maande begin spoed optel. Gelukkig het ons nie twyfelagtige aktiwiteite om te verklaar nie.

Sedert verlede jaar is daar beplan om alle akademiese geboue en koshuise se veselkoppelinge na die IT “core”, waar alles bymekaar kom, op te gradeer. Die grootste gedeelte van geboue op kampus was tot onlangs nog bekabel met verouderde bekabeling. As gevolg hiervan was netwerkverbindings soms stadig en kon nie die groeiende kapasiteit en behoeftes van gebruikers hanteer nie.

Daar is gevolglik besluit om so spoedig moontlik alle geboue te standardiseer en op te gradeer vanaf 1Gbit per sekonde na 10Gbit per sekonde bandwydte. Hierdie projek vorm deel uit van die groter plan om die US-netwerk van voldoende bandwydte te voorsien sodat die groeiende akademiese behoeftes vervul kan word. Na die opgradering sal die universiteit gereed wees vir die applikasies en dienste van die toekoms wat potensieël hoë bandwydte benodig om optimaal te funksioneer.

Dertien akademiese geboue en sewe koshuise is reeds opgegradeer na die nuwe spoed bekabeling. Die res van die geboue en koshuise op kampus word oor die volgende paar maande aangepak. Opgraderings word so ver moontlik oor middagetes of na-ure geimplementeer en departemente sal vroegtydig in kennis gestel word indien enige aftyd mag voorkom.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 25th, 2013 at 11:00 am and is filed under Connectivity, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.