December 1997 — Telecommunications
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Cal Poly's Residential Hall Network Boosts On-Campus Residency
Like
other universities with a reputation for innovation,
California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) wanted to
stay on the leading edge of networking technology to provide
its students, faculty and administration with high-speed
access to the information and services they needed via the
campus network and the Internet. Cal Poly is a leading
four-year, comprehensive public university with
nationally-ranked programs in engineering, architecture and
business. The university emphasizes a "learn by doing"
educational experience for its 16,000-plus students. Over
2,700 of these students are on-campus residents.
Looking for an ATM Solution
As the Internet exploded in the mid-1990's, Cal Poly searched for a cost-effective residence hall connectivity solution with enough bandwidth to support over 16,000 Internet-hungry users. They wanted to provide "one Ethernet port per pillow" connections as standard in every one of its 1,420 residence hall rooms. They also required easy access to the routed FDDI-based network of mainframe and midrange systems on campus.
After evaluating a number of options, including extending its existing FDDI (Fiber Distributed-Data Interface) network, the school chose Bay Network's (Santa Clara, Calif.) ATM backbone with redundant ATM features and full network management, right down to individual ports - something no other vendor could match. The Cal Poly Housing Department also converted to an all-Bay switched architecture for the university's residence halls.
Today, Cal Poly has one of the first ATM networks in place at a university housing project. Completed in August, 1996, Cal Poly's ResNet (Residential Hall Network) uses a unique scheme for LAN emulation services that provides tremendous fault-tolerance and security as well as dedicated high speed network connections for the 2,784 on-campus residents.
Resident Halls Go High-Tech
Cal
Poly residents have unlimited Internet access, with a
reliable network built to deliver all of the tools and
information they need. "With direct access to ResNet and the
Internet from their dorm room, students are now able to
access university and worldwide resources for the first time
- 24 hours a day, seven days a week," says Kinsley Wong,
assistant director of the Housing and Residential Life
Department at the university.
Since completing ResNet in 1996, the number of returning on-campus student residents has increased by 73%. On-campus students are able to connect to the Internet and also network together within the residence halls to share printers and files, reserve library books and even size up the fit of their furniture in next year's dorm room - services not offered at many other institutions.
