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Harvard's data network supports 125,000-plus users, its Border Gateway Complex routes about a half-million IP addresses, and the network carts around 150T to 200TB of data per day. Jay Tumas, who oversees the operations center at the heart of the network, recently gave Executive News Editor Bob Brown a peek behind the scenes.
Your Take
NETWORK EXECUTIVES SHARE THEIR WISDOM
Give me a thumbnail sketch of Harvard's network.
The Harvard Core Network (HCN) serves an extremely diverse user population in metro Boston and beyond.We have everything from dual Gigabit Ethernet feeds serving the entire Harvard College network with tens of thousands of clients and a Class B chunk of address space, to a channelized T-3 circuit serving remote affiliates in Washington, D.C., or a T-I serving a remote library repository in central Massachusetts.The [University Information Systems] NOC [network operations center] is the primary maintenance organization for the Northern Crossroads (NoX),New England's Internet2 aggregation point, which serves 1 million-plus users.
With its scope encompassing close to 1,000 buildings, we solicit advice from all connecting members to solidify customer demarcs, network ownership and funding models.The 120-plus connecting members may manage their own LANs and data centers, or they may have outsourced everything from network maintenance to Windows client updates to us. (To see Harvard's bandwidth use and more, go to https://public.noc.harvard.edu/.)
What lessons did you take from your time at New England Telephone that you've been able to apply at Harvard?
I learned how to maintain a robust network. Here are a few concepts that I brought with me:
* A test lab.The telcos had Bellcore (now Telcordia) to ensure their rollout of critical infrastructure went smoothly You need a lab, too. There is no better way to ensure your architecture or code upgrades proceed smoothly than to have your own lab environment to test your future configurations. It's best not to cheap out when selecting lab equipment either.You should build a lab that mirrors your production environment to ensure you are comparing apples to apples.A great way to accomplish this is to use your network spares in your lab.This keeps your spare chassis and blades hot, so you know they are good, and ensures that you are testing with configurations compatible with your production environment.
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