DoIT Upgrades Campus Data Network

As part of the Performing Arts building project it was necessary to upgrade our campus data network. We anticipate that PAH will ultimately utilize HD video streaming and we needed to increase network reliability and connectivity. To do that required that we upgrade our ten year old network core. After a thorough technical evaluation of a number of leading vendors UMBC settled on the CISCO Nexus 7000 routers. The Nexus provides support for a large number of 10 Gigabit (10 billion bits per second) interfaces. These interfaces can be used to hook building or servers together to provide robust services to the campus. The PAH building will be connected through a 10Gigabit interface so we can provide support for multiple streams of HD video. This network upgrade also allows UMBC to upgrade the connections to other buildings and we are working to do this over the summer and into the fall. As researchers and students continue to expand their use of the Internet resources this gives us the flexibility to expand capacity as needed. Finally, UMBC and UMB are partnering with UMCP to upgrade our network connection to 10GB between the three research campuses. UMBC has completed our upgrade and we now can expand our network resources to meet growing demands for Internet bandwidth in support of research and teaching.