Network news: Fast Facts showcase last year's big wins

Network News is a semi-regular feature that highlights current events in UIT's Network Services group.

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2019 is in the books, and it was another impactful year for UIT’s Network Services team.

For the past three years, Business Data Analyst Rosalia Villegas has compiled project-related metrics for the team. Each January, she presents a high-level summary of her findings about the previous year in a Fast Facts PDF document, which was redesigned in 2019 with the help of a student employee.

Highlights

• 14,050.56 — Wi-Fi total annual session time, in years
• 35,608 — Average number of wireless users per day
• 7.38 PB — Total annual wireless traffic
• 14,465 — Average number of Apple users per day
• 11,295 — Total network devices
• 1:491 — Engineer-to-device ratio
• 50+ campus and hospital buildings updated to 5GHz-only
• 99.69 percent — Network Operation Center (NOC) service availability

"Our amazing team identified 119 projects last year, and they're fully committed to completing these projects," said Abraham Kololli, Network Services associate director. "The Fast Facts summary doesn't tell the whole story, but it does show that our team is dedicated and engaged on three main fronts — running network operations, engineering design and automation, and project coordination."

In addition to these notable numbers, here are some key Network Services accomplishments in 2019:

Automation

• Upgraded The Online Automated Services Toolkit (TOAST) to Python 3.6 and placed the platform behind authentication to enhance the security of TOAST and its users

Load balancing

• Installed and configured F5 network equipment at the Downtown Data Center and Tonaquint Data Center

Edge engineers

• Designed and replaced switching infrastructure, and started to manage networking functions at Marriott Library, the College of Mines and Earth Sciences, and Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute (SCI)
• Designed and planned the installation and deployment of network equipment in:
• Call Center at the South Jordan Health Center
• University Hospital Ambulatory Care Complex
• Sugar House Health Clinic
• South Campus Housing & Dining

Data center

• Eccles Broadcast Center (EBC), Downtown Data Center (DDC), Institutional Review Board (IRB), and Clinical nodes will be replaced — design and configurations were completed in 2019, with full implementation scheduled before the end of 2020
• Upgraded entire DDC ACI switches with current software releases 

Firewall/security

• Migrated Clinical Data Center firewall Juniper to Palo Alto, which provides a 300 percent increase in available bandwidth and enhances threat prevention
• Updated the DDC firewall from version 8.1.7 to 8.1.8

Wireless

• Designed and configured University Hospital phase II redesigns, and provided 24-hour support during the first week go-live of the Voalte healthcare communication platform
• Completed whole-building Wi-Fi designs according to Cisco/Apple design guide and University of Utah standards for the following newly-constructed buildings:
  
  • Robert H. and Katharine B. Garff Building
  • Ambulatory Care Complex
  • Sugar House Clinic
  • Craig H. Neilsen Rehabilitation Hospital
  • South Campus Housing & Dining
  • Midvalley Health Center Call Center
  • Kahlert Village (in-progress)

“I’m really proud of all we’ve accomplished in 2019,” Kololli said, “and I’m very excited about what 2020 has in store for us.”

 

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