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| Strategic Communications Infrastructure Plan Home Project Contacts: General Overview The campus network is an integral and strategic resource of UCSC. Upgrades of the voice and data infrastructure are critical, especially in light of the massive amount of movement and growth projected for the campus in the upcoming years. Improved communications infrastructure will allow the more expedient transfer and creation of voice and data connections where currently there is no capacity. Several converging technological, economic, and political trends indicate that campus networking at UC Santa Cruz, and at other campuses throughout the world, will be changing in significant ways in the near future. During the past decade the expansion of computer networking has been remarkable, and, rather than abating, the growth is continuing to accelerate. In a continuing effort to enhance communications, the SCIP2020 project is intended to create an improved communications infrastructure on the campus. SCIP2020 is a long range plan for the campus designed to support reliable delivery of voice, video and data services through the year 2020. The planning horizon for this project coincides with the Campus Long Range Development Plan, so that communications infrastructure requirements may be readily incorporated into the implementation framework as the campus grows. SCIP2020 is necessary to address four major areas with significant financial and service implications for UCSC:
The interdependencies between the various technologies and the infrastructure are complex, creating the need for a strategic communications infrastructure plan, including life-cycle costs. In addition, the plan will address disaster mitigation and recovery, and the security implications of the technologies. Finally, as the campus celebrates its 40th anniversary, it is prudent to examine the impact of aging cables and conduit on delivery of enterprise ITS services. Prior work in this area includes the CATS Campus Cabling Upgrade Program (Smith, Fause, McDonald, 2001), which recommended upgrades to telecommunications cable and wiring closets in 70 existing buildings. Since that time, wireless data and voice services have begun to emerge as viable alternatives to wired connections. For example, SBC/PacBell has removed most pay phones on campus due to the proliferation of cellular telephones in the last 5 years. Similarly, UCSC residential students are migrating to cellular telephones as campus coverage improves, and requirements for student voice services must be reviewed. Microwave radios and optical lasers are also available to interconnect buildings at rates up to a gigabit. Yet, even higher data rates (multi-gigabit) are now possible with copper and fiber optic cable, so they also have current and future uses for instructional and research applications. SCIP2020 is needed to guide critical decisions for campus growth and development during the next 15 years. This planning period is specified to support the UC Santa Cruz Long Range Development Plan, 2005-2020, which in turn coincides with the planning horizon of the City of Santa Cruz General Plan. Over this time period, millions of dollars will be allocated for infrastructure from new construction budgets; it is important to guide those investments as well as to identify where additional investments will be needed to upgrade, augment or replace existing infrastructure. Providing data and telecommunications infrastructure with adequate capacity and flexibility to support the educational and research mission of UCSC is a central element of the 2005 LRDP. This technology will serve the campus itself, link it to off-site facilities, and provide new opportunities for students, faculty and staff through initiatives such as distance learning. Data and telecommunications infrastructure will need to be upgraded to meet short- and long-term needs for bandwidth/density and reliability. New data and telecommunications infrastructure should be flexible enough to accommodate new and emerging technologies. UCSC draft LRDP, January, 2005 SCIP2020 will include planning for the next generation of communications infrastructure. New technologies such as cellular and wireless networks suggest that the traditional approaches to the provision of voice, video and data services may not be appropriate to meet the IT needs of UCSC over the next fifteen years. This project seeks to optimize the expenditure of University funds on communications infrastructure construction and upgrades, such that voice, video and data services can be delivered to match the campus' priorities for support of UCSC's core research, instruction and outreach missions. The benefits of the strategic communications infrastructure plan will include:
The 2005 LRDP allows for 4 million gross square feet of new space. About 65% of the capacity will be developed within the existing main campus, while the remainder will require expansion into the north campus or at 2300 Delaware Ave. This will require significant investments in upgrades to existing buildings, as well as new communications closets, underground conduits, fiber optic cables and copper cables to connect new buildings. Moreover, wireless technologies (cellular phone, wireless LAN, VHF radio, others) are introducing new requirements to ensure reliable outdoor and in-building coverage. In addition to general voice and data services for faculty, students and staff, ITS must plan to support research needs as the campus builds capacity for high quality programs. Research Capacity Of the new space, about 40% will provide capacity for research, instruction and ORUs (organized research units). While the campus network core ("backbone") is now capable of supporting 1 gigabit per second network transport, not all building, room and jack locations are capable of receiving gigabit connections. Overall, UCSC needs to ensure that adequate underground conduit and in-building closet and riser space is available to supply fiber optic and copper cable to support research needs. Moreover, academic use of networks and research on network technology at other UC campuses is now moving into multi-gigabit speeds (10 gigabits and 40 gigabits per second); over the next 15 years, it is likely that terabit (1 trillion bits per second) and multi-terabit networking will arise. In the near term, UCSC will want to participate fully in CITRIS projects (Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society) using the optical networking capabilities in CalREN (California Research and Education Network), which has multiple "lambdas" or wavelengths available for research projects within California as well as nationwide through the National Lambda Rail (NLR). This may require a new fiber optic cable entrance at UCSC, in addition to upgrades to existing in-building cable plant and new backbone segments. This capability may need to be extended to off campus locations such as 2300 Delaware Avenue, as UCSC's research programs build up. One particular benefit could be high-speed connections into the University Affiliated Research Center's (UARC) planned new facilities at NASA Ames Research Center, as well as connections to supercomputer clusters such as "Columbia" at NASA Ames (over 10,000 processors) and "Blue Gene" at Lawrence Livermore National Labs (world's fastest supercomputer, presently over 32,000 processors; planned total more than 64,000). With the proposed merger of NLR and Internet2, such research opportunities will be available nationwide to campuses which are connected and able to support advanced networking. Instructional Capacity The LRDP projects 21,000 students by 2020. There will be increasing cost/benefit in supporting mobility through the use of wireless-equipped devices (laptops, notebooks, tablets, PDAs) that can extend the instructional, departmental or library resources to a student wherever a student may be, and whenever a student has time to access them. In this model, any wireless-equipped classroom might be used to conduct a laboratory, and there would be new opportunities for distance learning for groups or individuals. At the same time, existing or any new IC labs will likely require gigabit network links to enable advanced applications that may not be supportable on student-owned computers. Both scenarios require robust, reliable communications infrastructure to deliver services. Voice and Data Convergence Throughout the world, conventional wired telephony is starting to give way to cellular technology. As a consequence, demand for and revenue from student voice services is eroding rapidly, and, with improved wireless coverage, faculty and staff may follow. It is possible to deliver voice services over IP networks (VoIP); however, this requires significant investments in power-over-Ethernet to the desk set; battery backup for all of the network equipment; and quality of service provisioning, for the voice services to be of acceptable quality. A project deliverable is to recommend where VoIP makes sense. An area for investigation is VoIP convergence on wireless IP phones. Hybrid wireless IP-cellular phones will switch to the best signal as a user moves around campus, and could potentially be the one UCSC phone for each person to use both on and off campus. Full coverage of the campus would require additional wireless access points plus the power improvements for the network equipment that connects to the campus backbone. Security and Reliability New demands for information security, public safety, emergency response and disaster recovery should be evaluated in terms of needs for systems and equipment redundancy, physical security, backup power, monitoring and emergency power, which in turn impact the communications infrastructure. In general, all communications equipment will require battery backup (uninterruptible power supply) and emergency power (stand-by generator or alternate power source) in order to maintain reliable wired or wireless transport for mission-critical campus services, including voice, video, data, public safety, door lock, alarm and SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition, used by physical plant for operating buildings) systems. One focal point in this planning arena will be the new Emergency Response Center, which is scheduled to become operational in 2006-07. Risks If the project is not undertaken, the campus could expend funds on communications infrastructure retrofits or on new construction that might go unused - or conversely, be required to make larger investments later on to remediate or replace inadequate communications infrastructure in existing or future construction. Given that replacement of the telephone switch alone could require of the order of $15 million dollars, and that ongoing campus expansion and infrastructure maintenance will require hundreds millions over the next 15 years, a strategic communications infrastructure plan is a critically needed resource. The Scope or Deliverables will impact the entire UCSC campus (faculty, staff and students) and include:
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