CWRUnet Open Forum

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CWRUnetOpen Forum

• By
• CWRUnet Engineering
• Jeff Gumpf, Director of Engineering, CWRUnet
  Services
• November 15th, 2001

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Topics for Discussion

• File Sharing Bandwidth Use
• Wireless Update
• Premise Cable Review
• OARnet Update
• E-Mail Calendaring
• Questions and Answers

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File Sharing Bandwidth Use

• Some new sharing software being used in residence
  halls
• Does port hopping making it difficult to control
  by port
• Uncontrolled output is pegging the off-campus
  bandwidth limit
• One system was using 17.5 Mb/s outbound traffic
  this week
• We are now throttling heavy users to 1 Mb/s of
  off-campus output
• Primarily impacts off campus users, that is, the
  users of the data
• Can affect the user running the sharing server
  because of dropped packets
• May have to throttle further

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Wireless Update

• Cisco VPN server we use will support PDAs in
  January
• Wireless pilot for Housing
• Fribley Commons
• Wade Commons
• Leutner Commons ()
• Sherman 1st floor lounge

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Premise Cable Review

• Difference in cost between Cat5 and MM fiber is
  about 460 per port for Fast Ethernet (100 Mb/s)
• Media converter (180)
• Fiber (388) vs Cat5 (168) port in Ethernet
  switch (220)
• Fiber jumpers (67) vs Cat5 jumper (7) (60)
• Port density in large SERs
• Additional cost will be incurred to move from
  Fast Ethernet to Gigabit Ethernet
• Media converter
• Difference in fiber vs copper port cost
• Evaluating cost of retrofitting Cat5 into premise
  system
• Is it cost effective to retrofit Cat5? Do now or
  wait until remodel?
• First step budget estimate for 2 buildings
  underway now
• 2nd step retrofit in about 5 buildings to get
  more accurate costs

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OARnet Update

• Company (Mission Networks) that planned to
  install dark fiber in Ohio closed November 10th
• Inability to raise necessary capital in current
  economic environment
• Unlikely to be revived in the next two years
• Alternatives being explored, but probably wont
  have the comprehensive coverage of the Mission
  Networks plan

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E-mail Calendaring

• Problem Statement
• Lack of enterprise groupware/community tools to
  support the calendaring, e-mail, and scheduling
  needs of campus
• Current environment of highly distributed,
  non-standardized, unevenly supported solutions
  creates significant technology management issues
  as well as adds substantially to the total cost
  of ownership across the campus
• Enterprise toolsets to support these needs have
  become common practice in most enterprises in the
  last 4 or 5 years

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E-Mail Calendaring

• Scope/Definition
• Groupware applications have a need for a
  dependable messaging system
• The selected messaging system should, at a
  minimum, provide
• A robust e-mail system
• Support for software that is e-mail enabled
  (MAPI)
• Common, network accessible calendaring and
  scheduling system

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E-Mail Calendaring

• End User Requirements
• Access to system will be through clients,
  software running locally on individual desktops
• Ease of use
• Client software must be build with the familiar
  GUI available on the platform on which it is used
• It must be well integrated into its respective
  platform and operate on the principle of least
  astonishment
• Platform support
• client software must support PC, Unix and Mac
  operating systems
• We should select clients for their best fit to
  the respective platform
• Clients must support Internet standards such as
  IMAP4, POP3, LDAP, HTML, and MIME
• Operability across platforms
• Clients in a mixed environment should be able to
  use and transfer e-mail between platforms using
  multiple clients without losing e-mail

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E-mail Calendaring

• Support for IMAP disconnect mode
• Clients should allow one to download a selected
  set of messages, read and respond to those
  messages offline, and then reconnect and
  resynchronize the messages from the computer with
  the server on demand
• Support for PDAs
• PDAs should be fully supported
• Both major platforms (Palm and Pocket PC) should
  be supported
• Easy deployment
• Deployment of client software may be through
  download or CD distribution with a preference
  toward download
• Security
• Selected software must provide the campus
  community with a reliable and secure system, as
  well as ensuring the privacy of data
• Software may be a single integrated groupware
  solution or a hybrid of selected components

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E-Mail Calendaring

• System Requirements
• Scalability
• Must scale well to meet current and future needs
• Should handle growth in various resource needs
  (eg, users, traffic)
• Management tools
• Should be easily managed both centrally and in a
  distributed fashion
• Tools should be accessible locally and remotely
• Problem resolution
• Must readily lend itself to problem resolution
• Tools should be available to assist in problem
  determination and solution
• Interoperability
• E-mail and calendaring solution must coexist in a
  heterogeneous and sometimes eclectic menagerie of
  pre-existing systems

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E-mail Calendaring

• Data store
• The data of the system must be stored so as to
  maximize speed of access of the data
• Data must not be easily corrupted
• In the event of data corruption, it must be
  easily restored
• Performance
• System should perform to expectations, ie, be
  fast
• Tools should be available to measure performance
• Coexistence of directory structure must coexist
  with CWRUs directory structures and support
  standard LDAP implementation
• 3rd Party Software - Messaging is a pervasive and
  deeply rooted technology and many applications
  have been written to exploit it. Any e-mail
  system selected must be able to support a wide
  array of 3rd party software
• Security
• The chosen system must have a robust
  authentication mechanism
• Data must be secure and well insulated from
  either inappropriate casual viewing or aggressive
  attempts to compromise data integrity

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E-mail Calendaring

• Operations Requirements and Impacts
• Selected software must support SNMP for
  monitoring the system
• Operator interfaces
• Candidate software should have excellent
  monitoring views and maintenance dialogs for
  operators
• Software should have an API for customized
  software development
• Training and Documentation - Vendor must have
  excellent training materials and proper
  documentation
• Backups software must support a broad range of
  backup software and techniques
• Operator workload software should minimize
  operator workload
• Service contracts supported by vendor
• Maintenance minimize downtime for maintenance
  activities

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E-mail Calendaring

• Candidate Systems
• E-mail
• Microsoft Exchange
• iPlanet Messaging
• Open software (freeware) messaging
• Calendar/Scheduling
• Microsoft Exchange
• Steltor Corporate Time
• iPlanet Calendar
• Evaluation underway will publish to the web
• Pilot of all systems between now and end of
  calendar year
• Small group of representative community members
  will be asked to join
• Will need to try all of the candidate systems

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The End

• Thank you for attending todays open forum!
• Questions and Answers