Network News: Meeting COVID-19 connectivity challenges
Abraham Kololli,
associate director,
Network Services (CTO)
UIT’s Network Services team stepped up when connectivity mattered most.
Business continuity during the COVID-19 pandemic required the majority of university employees and students to work and attend school remotely, which roughly tripled the use of the U’s virtual private networks (VPNs).
According to Business Data Analyst Rosalia Villegas, peak VPN usage increased from 600 campus users and 400 University of Utah Health users on a daily basis pre-COVID-19 to 1,600 and 1,200 post-COVID-19, respectively.
To meet this demand, the team increased the bandwidth and IP addresses available to the U’s VPNs through the Cisco AnyConnect and Palo Alto Global Protect clients. After this went into effect, campus VPN licenses shot up from 2,500 to approximately 10,000, and U Health VPN licenses went from 2,500 to approximately 5,000.
In a recent column, Chief Technology Officer Jim Livingston touted this and other contributions from the team as part of the overall response from the CTO organization. Despite seeing a surge in service requests (up 41 percent), Network Services stretched itself even thinner by offering a helping hand to the UIT Help Desk and ITS Service Desk, temporarily reallocating four network engineers to meet additional in-bound call capacity.
Network staff members also ensured that frontline health care workers had the bandwidth to do their critical work. They worked closely with the Cable Plant team to set up new mobile network environments for 21 COVID-19 testing tents in Farmington, South Jordan, Sugar House, Park City, and adjacent to the main hospital on campus.
Courtesy of Network Services
Courtesy of Network Services
Courtesy of Network Services
Courtesy of Network Services
Courtesy of Network Services
"We have been very lucky with the support we received from many parts of the organization to help us stand up networks on such short notice," said Network Services Associate Director Abraham Kololli. "Whether it was focused on providing network to tents for our health care workers, or meeting the demand of increased VPN capacity, we had everyone's support to help us provide the best service possible. This speaks highly of the collaborative nature and "can do" attitude of our broader IT staff, beyond the Network Services team. Thank you for making us successful."
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