University IT Infrastructure
Industry:
- Secondary Education
Primary User:
- Director of IT
For a university client, Root Group coordinated and executed the migration of all telephone and data networks to a new demarc (Point of Demarcation) location. We provided training and resources for the IT staff to gain more knowledge of their network.
Problem
Because of a construction project, the building housing the telecom demarc and the campus’s private fiber distribution point was slated to be demolished. With Root Group, the university was able to migrate all the affected services, including dozens of telco circuits and internal fiber runs, with a minimal amount of disruption.
Solution:
Since much of the aging network equipment had to be moved and some was close to end-of-life, we refreshed the hardware while also temporarily providing extra port capacity to allow us to stage the new environment without disrupting the old one.
We replaced a core switch and migrated the student core switch and firewalls to a new location. We assisted with the implementation of infrastructure hardware including HP Aruba switches, Cisco routers/ switches, FortiGate firewalls, and transceivers.
Part of this project included coordination with a third party for laying cable and moving the circuits. Extensive project management included tight integration with facilities employees for power requirements. We had security personnel on watch as fire alarms briefly had no network activity. This project required a lot of planning, coordination, and a rush to re-plug dozens of optical fibers and copper pairs.
Root Group also completed an audit of six firewalls by reviewing policies, vulnerabilities, and oversights, and planned and executed this project in a way that made it a training and documentation opportunity for newer IT staff, who now have a more thorough knowledge of the network.
The core of the network is running on newer hardware that will remain serviceable for years to come, the campus construction project can proceed, and several future-proofing design goals have been achieved as well. These include separating the functionality of the server room/data center networking from the core of the network (making the data center modular and opening up the possibility of moving it to another location or to a colocation, without further disrupting the rest of the campus LAN), as well as setting the stage for future implementation of border gateway protocol (BGP) across redundant internet service providers.
