| Newsletter 12, June 1996 |
The first phase of the planned three-year project to upgrade the Campus Network is progressing well. Reductions in the cost of ATM equipment over the last year have enabled us to reach a greater level of development in this phase than was originally envisaged.
The new 155Mbit/s link between City Campus and Beckett Park has been installed. It is provided by Bell CableMedia, who have contracted to provide a 2–hour fix in the event of a failure.
At each end of the link there is an ATM switch, with switched Ethernet devices to carry traffic on to the existing Network infrastructure. Although few of the Ethernet switches’ ports are in use at this stage, there should certainly be noticeable benefits to all from the network segmentation that has occurred as part of this new setup. The ATM switch at Calverley Street also has the capability to accommodate our SuperJANET link when ATM becomes available on SuperJANET.
A further ATM switch has been installed in the James Graham Building IT Suite at Beckett Park in order to allow high-speed switching within the new Learning Centre. The file-servers serving the facilities in the new Centre will have direct ATM connections, and the PCs will be connected to the ATM network via Ethernet switches. The increase in available bandwidth this will give should provide a significant improvement in network speed to all PCs in the Learning Centre.
We plan to extend ATM service to Leighton and Brontë halls as part of the refurbishment work for the relocation of the Faculty of Business. This work should be completed by August, ready to provide an improved service to the new occupants.
Nigel R Armfield
