Last revision June 6, 2011
Executive Summary:
The School of Earth Sciences wired computer networks will be upgraded in late June with all new switching equipment to provide gigabit (1,000 Megabit/second) connection speeds to all workstations. Users do not need to change anything - you will just get faster network connections!
All old-style analog telephones in the School will be replaced with Voice-over-IP (VoIP) network phones with advanced features, starting with Mitchell Earth Sciences building on July 5 and 6 and continuing in Green Earth Sciences and Geology Corner during the following two weeks.
This project applies to Earth Sciences offices and labs in Braun Hall (Geology Corner), Mitchell Earth Sciences (except not Branner Library), and Green Earth Sciences buildings only. Earth Sciences spaces in the Yang and Yamazaki Environment and Energy Building (Y2E2) already have gigabit network jacks and VoIP telephones.
Only network jacks actually needed for computers, printers, phones, and other devices will be activated in order to reduce costs. This is a major change from current policy that activates all jacks, whether used or not. You can see the list of network jacks to be activated, by room.
The full story:
The School of Earth Sciences has provided its own computer networking infrastructure since the 1980s in its three main buildings: Braun Hall (Geology Corner), Mitchell Earth Sciences, and Green Earth Sciences. The School has installed the wiring from network closets to the wall outlets (called Telecommunications Service Outlets or TSOs) in each room with white analog telephone jacks and orange networking jacks. The School has purchased, installed, and managed network switches in those closets to activate all those network jacks. Telephone service has been provided by the central Information Technology Services (ITS) group on campus with phone numbers tied to specific telephone jacks in the TSOs.
Now the School has decided to take advantage of the new converged communications service provided by ITS to upgrade our network and telephone service. This new service will replace all our computer networking switches with higher speed gigabit (1,000 Megabit/second) switches that will support both computer networking and telephone service, and convert our analog telephones to advanced network-connected phones.
New network switches from ITS will replace the School's own slower (100 Megabit/second) network switches, some of which are more than ten years old, in Braun Hall (Geology Corner), Mitchell Earth Sciences (except not Branner Library), and Green Earth Sciences buildings only. The Yang and Yamazaki Environment and Energy Building (Y2E2) already has gigabit network switches and network telephones, so it will not change.
As part of this upgrade ITS will increase the total network bandwidth (speed) between switches within each building to multi-gigabits, allowing multiple large data transfers between different computers to run simultaneously at full speed. The network connection from each building to the campus SUNet backbone network will remain at a single gigabit for now, but a redundant link will be established for each building to take over if the main network link goes down.
The new ITS switches will support 10 gigabit uplinks to the SUNet backbone when those are available (currently scheduled for January, 2012).
There will be a big boost in network capacity to both the School's file server, sesfs.stanford.edu, and to the CEES computers so that multiple workstations can connect simultaneously at the new gigabit speed. These systems will get multi-gigabit connections to the switches.
You can use the new network telephone to make and receive calls just like your old analog telephone, but they have many advanced features, including:
Handles up to three simultaneous calls per telephone line.
Six-way audio conferencing from any phone; can join three calls at once.
Login to any VoIP phone to receive your calls there - or move your own phone to any active network jack within the three Earth Sciences buildings to receive calls in a new location. No more expensive and time-consuming phone line moves.
Use a service web portal (phoneuser.stanford.edu) to create and manage directories, setup call forwarding, etc.
Install a "soft phone" client on your headset-equipped computer and you can send and receive calls at your Stanford number from your own computer anywhere on the Internet, for example, at a conference.
On-campus calls between two VoIP phones are encrypted for added security.
A brief guide to features will be left with each new phone, and departments will set up training sessions to learn how to use these new features.
Users will start to see changes in mid-June right after commencement when the network connections for their computers and peripherals are moved to the new gigabit switches, providing a ten-fold increase in available network speed to most people (a few researchers already have gigabit connections). In most cases, there will be no disruption at all to users - computer data transfers will just start to run much faster! This upgrade will be completed by the end of June.
Departments will then coordinate the conversion of old-style analog telephones to new Voice-over-IP (VoIP) network phones in July. A new network telephone will plug into an active orange network wall jack (designated by green dot) in your room, and then your computer will plug into a second jack on the telephone. The voice service will use less than 1% of the gigabit network bandwidth (speed), leaving the other 99% for the computer.
All telephones in Mitchell Earth Sciences will be converted to VoIP on July 5 and 6. During the day on Tuesday, July 5, ITS will place the new VoIP network phones in the rooms in Mitchell. Starting at 5 pm on Wednesday, July 6, ITS will go room to room in Mitchell Earth Sciences to remove the old analog telephones and connect up and test the new VoIP network phones. When you come to work on Thursday, July 7, your new network phone will be installed and ready to use. Faculty and staff will need to make a one-time login to associate their personal profiles to their new phones; phones in labs and student offices are generally "static" with no associated individual profile. Training sessions for Mitchell residents to learn their new phone features are scheduled in the Hartley Conference Center on Thursday, July 7, from 2-3 pm, and on Monday, July 11, from 10-11 am and again from 1-2 pm.
Telephone conversions in Green Earth Sciences and Braun Hall (Geology Corner) will be scheduled in mid July, along with additional training sessions. Department managers will communicate the schedules for Green and Geology Corner.
ITS will provide the new network switches, but the School's network administrator Kevin Tai will be responsible for connecting the needed network jacks in the TSO wall outlets to the switches in the network closets. Because the School will be charged an annual fee for each switch port we use, only specific network jacks actually needed for computers, printers, telephones, and other devices will be activated. This is a change from our previous policy of activating nearly every orange network jack on the TSOs using cheaper 100 Megabit switches. We currently have about 2,400 active network jacks with 100 Megabit service. After the conversion to the gigabit switches, there will be only about 1,000 active network jacks.
The School's IT team has compiled a list of network jacks that will be activated on the new gigabit switches, based on analysis of network traffic during February on our existing switches to see which jacks were actually being used, plus a room by room survey of unused TSOs to see which might reasonably be used in the future. You are encouraged to check this list to make sure that enough network jacks are included to service all computers, printers, webcams, and other network-attached devices in your office and lab. Remember, a single active network jack will service both your network telephone and a computer (or other device, such as a printer).
During the first half of June, Kevin Tai will be visiting all rooms in Geology Corner, Mitchell, and Green to verify that the network jack activation list includes a sufficient number of jacks to service all network devices in the room, and to place green dots (about 1/4 inch diameter) next to the upper outside corner of specific orange network jacks that will be activated with the new gigabit service. After these green dots appear (by June 15), check to make sure that there are enough jacks for all your devices, and, if there are multiple TSOs in your room (on opposite walls, for example), that the dots are located on the TSOs most appropriate to connect your equipment.
Orange network jacks in the TSOs that do not have a green dot will go completely dead after the conversion to the new gigabit switches in late June. All white telephone jacks will also be deactivated, except for an occasional analog telephone that will be retained for emergency access if the network is not working.
Send all feedback about the number and location of network jacks that will be activated with the new gigabit service to Kevin Tai at the network administrator email alias.