UB Information Technology Environment (Updated 1.3.2008) University at Buffalo Information Technology is focussed on providing enabling infrastructure and services in support of University goals to: Improve the quality of education and research Prepare our students for work in the 21st Century Expand our international role as well as our role in the Buffalo/Niagara community Increase public and private support Act as good stewards of the environment and University resources Please see IT at a Glance - 2006-2007 for a snapshot of central IT at UB. UB2020 IT Transformation Like most research universities, UB has a distributed IT environment with many campus units involved in providing IT resources and services. The central IT organization, UB IT, provides the UB community with a broad range of basic computing, telephone, and state-of-the-art networking services, and works with distributed IT partners across campus to coordinate the planning and delivery of campus IT resources and services. Campus distributed IT staff, who provide direct support to faculty and staff using technology in their instructional, research and administrative activities, are organized into IT nodes , in order to provide critical masses of local IT support providers to schools and departments. These distributed IT staff report to their respective deans and unit heads. As part of the campus UB2020 planning process, the UB IT community is actively planning and implementing several projects as part of an Information Technology (IT) Strategic Transformation Initiative to help position UB for the future. Projects underway include: the rollout of VoIP across campus, a workstation standardization project, server and services consolidation projects, development of a campus IT shared service desk (Help Desk), a strategic information reporting initiative, and assessment of our current student systems in preparation for replacement of these systems by an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. A new campus IT governance/advisory committee structure was established in the 2006-07 academic year. UB IT: The Central Computing Organization UB IT provides centralized computing and communication services to faculty, staff, and students. Approximately 200 full- time staff are employed in this division. Campus Network Infrastructure The University at Buffalo's campus network is supported by an extensive fiber optic infrastructure which extends to all 120 campus buildings across two campuses. There are more than 180 fiber-optic-attached Ethernet LANs supporting more than 18,000 individual connections. The campus network is composed of a gigabit (Gbps) Ethernet backbone with gigabit links to buildings. The UBNet edge switch replacement project underway has upgraded approximately 25% of the communication closets and results in gigabit desktop connection speeds, an increase from the standard switched 100-Mbps Ethernet. The network includes interconnections with several local, regional, and national networks including the Western New York Health Science Consortiium, NYSERNet, SUNYNet, Commodity Internet and Internet 2 via Abilene. The campus Internet (I1) and Internet2 (I2) links have been upgraded to 300 Mbps and 200 Mbps respectively. UB is a member of the Northeast LambdaRail (NeLR), a consortium enabling educational institutions in New York and New England to connect to and support the National LambdaRail (NLR). The University has played a leadership role in the community by bringing together city, county, and state agencies in the development of a "dark fiber" (fiber optic) broadband network infrastructure that UB has subsidized and made available to local higher education and K-12 institutions, health care institutions (hospitals and research institutions), and government organizations. This regional fiber optic infrastructure connects the campus to remote research facilities, our regional partners, and commercial points of presence, providing gigabit connections to our research partners and a backbone for local not-for-profits. Wireless Access The University wireless network has become a critical resource for the UB community, as more and more of our faculty, staff, and students own and rely on multiple mobile devices, including WiFi-enabled cell phones, PDAs, laptops, and MP3 players, for a multitude of services. UB has recently launched an mUB (Mobile UB Campus) initiative to provide services and support for these personal mobile devices. CIT continues to expand wireless network access. There are currently 504 wireless access points deployed throughout the campus. More than 2500 simultaneous users can be accommodated by our wireless network. Some departments also deploy their own wireless access points. The UB Wi-Fi expansion is upgrading all existing wireless access points to current code levels to support both the Wireless "G" and "A" standards. In addition, the infrastructure is being converted to a centrally-managed system which will allow for more efficient maintenance of the large number of access points deployed. Residence Halls Network All residence halls and UB apartments are wired with Ethernet for Internet connectivity, providing one data connection or port per resident. Most residence halls and UB-owned apartments provide 100 Mbps desktop connectivity. Remote Access UB provides approximately 240 dial-in lines for off-campus access to UB resources and the Internet: a string supporting the V.90 56Kbps protocol and a digital string supporting the ISDN protocol. A VPN service provides secure connections from ISP networks. Telephones In the past, voice services have been provided through the distribution and configuration of a 10,000 line Bell Atlantic Intellipath telephone system, supporting over 15,000 stations on numerous key systems. A new IP-based voice system (VoIP) is now being deployed. UB is also partnering with a vendor to reinforce the campus cellular network to provide better coverage for cell phones. Enterprise Hardware Platforms CIT maintains more than 200 SUN servers providing the following campus services: directory and authentication timesharing administrative applications for University business and student service systems nameservice web hosting email news file storage tape backup An IBM mainframe running the OS/390 operating system also hosts University business and other administrative applications. Campus Computing Labs At present there are more than 2450 personal computers and high performance workstations in campus labs, run by CIT, schools, and departments for students. Many labs offer specialty software for course work and are open 24 hours/day. General access facilities open to all students, are being upgraded this summer (2007) to feature more than 600 Dell OptiPlex 745 Minitower: Intel Core 2 Duo Processor (2.13 GHz, 2M, 1066 MHz FSB) running Windows XP. Two of these public sites are configured as dual boot Linux/Windows systems. Instructional Technology Support and Services UB has 84 centrally-scheduled, state-of-the-art, high-tech, multimedia classrooms, located on the North and South campuses. The instructors' podiums provide touch screen control of video and sound systems, and contain computers, VCR/DVD and projections facilities. Many departmentally-scheduled classrooms are similarly equipped. In addition, all of UB's centrally-scheduled classrooms are wired for Internet access. The Instructional Technology Services Technology Classrooms web page provides information on the technology equipment found in classrooms on the North and South campuses. (See the "Classroom Attributes" link for specific information on a classroom.) Audience Response Systems (Clickers in the Classroom) will be available in all Technology Classrooms by the end of the 2007-08 Academic Year. More than 20 classrooms will have Clickers by the start of the Fall, 2007 semester. Advanced course technology services such as "digital course casting" are also provided. UB is a leader in state-of-the-art digital course capture infrastructure and course-casting/streaming, providing students with audio- and video-recordings of lectures that can be accessed from student mobile devices, including iPods and other MP3 players and laptops, as well as from desktop systems. Students access the recordings through our course management system, UBlearns, and through a UB-branded iTunes U web site. UB also has an active distance learning program with classrooms (Baldy, Bell, Abbott) equipped with real-time distance learning and videoconferencing.