Networking

NYU-NET = nyu.edu + nyu.florence.it + nyu.cz

Carlo Cernivani

This fall, NYU has expanded its study-abroad program to include a center in Prague, Czech Republic, located in the old town section of the city. In a 600-year-old building with large, exposed wood ceiling beams, students will be taught by an all-Czech faculty, exposing them to the rich cultural, political and social heritage of the Czech Republic. At the same time, they will be networked to the Washington Square campus, for the building is also home to the latest expansion of NYU-NET abroad.

As always, communications and networking play an important roll in academic endeavors. So, once again ACF's associate network manager Jimmy Kyriannis and I packed our bags and set out to put the nyu.cz domain on the map. Although not as sophisticated as some applications may be, our Prague installation is a "meat and potatoes" network providing all of the most necessary basics. Faculty, staff and students have access to e-mail (provided by a local server), telnet, web browsing, word processing, networked laser printers and more.

NYU's facility is spread over two floors in the four-story building that includes classrooms, offices, a conference room, a library and a spacious computer lab. The facility provides sixteen Dell Optiplex PCs running Windows95. These PCs, as well as four Hewlett-Packard 4000N laser printers, are connected to a 24-port Cisco Catalyst 1924EN ethernet switch. We use the Catalyst to tie together all of the elements of our network. We've installed a Sun MicroSystems Ultra-1 UNIX system to provide e-mail, Domain Name Service, DHCP/bootp and web server capabilities for the network.

Our access to the Internet comes by way of a Cisco 2514 router that is connected to our local Internet Service Provider's Cisco 7000 series router. The ISP is conveniently located on the top floor of the building, which facilitates our connection to their network. The ISP utilizes a two-megabit wireless link from our location to the nearby stock exchange building, where the ISP accesses the Internet via a dedicated E1 (two-megabit) circuit. We have been provisioned 256 Kbps worth of bandwidth out to the Internet for our use, which we feel will be adequate given the relatively light traffic loads anticipated in the early stages of the facility's development.

Of course, increased networking demands will undoubtedly necessitate augmentation to this circuit relatively soon. The ISP's owner has told us that an additional high speed circuit will be provisioned in the near future, and that we will be able to utilize it once it is in production. The 256 Kbps mentioned above is the maximum baud rate we are permitted over the ISP's link. It is not a guaranteed or dedicated amount of bandwidth available to us at all times. We are, after all, contending for bandwidth on a shared circuit with other customers. The 256 Kbps figure merely represents a ceiling, providing the ISP an assurance that our network demands won't overwhelm their link.

The Best Laid Plans . . .

We arrived at the site at 8:00 on the second morning and began deploying our revised network. Packed with meetings with contractors, the landlord and vendors, along with the odd trip to the local hardware store, the day flew by. In fact, it was close to dinnertime before we noticed that we hadn't eaten lunch. Having lost a significant amount of time because of the landlord's snafu, we worked through dinner, fueled with Coca-Cola.

By the end of Day Three, the network was taking shape, we'd gotten some pizza delivered for lunch, and we were prepared to wrap things up on our last day there.

Our original plan was to make sure that every device on our network was connected to a switched ethernet port on a Cisco Catalyst. We stuck to the plan for the administrator and faculty systems, but we found ourselves having to compromise and connect 10 PCs and two printers to only two data jacks in the lab. This isn't a terrible situation, but it's not as good an arrangement as we would have preferred. The twelve devices were ultimately wired to a pair of Cisco hubs that we had to purchase locally. The hubs were then connected to the Catalyst switch.

A Bay Networks Annex2000 terminal server is now in place, providing access to the console ports of the Sun, router and Catalyst switch through either the network or a pair of modems. This is a valuable tool, because we can solve problems with systems or devices whether direct network access is available or not.

There are still some minor issues to be addressed. We hope that with the help of some newly hired staffers in Prague we'll be able to put the finishing touches on the network. We experienced firsthand the energetic work ethic and spirit of the people of Prague; without them, getting the network up and running would not have been possible.

Posted October 5,1998