UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy and UNC Campus Computer Network Capability

Intra-Building Wiring Standards

High speed Category 5E UTP wiring to the desktop is standard in Kerr Hall and Category 5 in Beard Hall.  10/100Mb Ethernet switches are deployed within closets providing up to 100Mb to the desktop with the ability to increase as equipment is replaced and upgraded.

Each office and lab has multiple ethernet network connections - Kerr, at least (4); Beard, at least (2).

Many areas without ready access to network wiring and public spaces are supplied with 802.11b wireless access points for wireless computing.

Inter-Building Backbone

Our buildings are connected to the core backbone by single and multimode fiber using a hierarchical star architecture.  Beard is connected at 100 Mb/sec via switched Fast Ethernet and Kerr is connected at 1000 Mb/sec gigabit Ethernet.  Beard is scheduled for upgrade to a 1000 Mb/sec uplink along with renovations.

Ethernet switches are deployed within buildings to provide a scalable building interconnection. Backbone speeds and technologies are upgraded based on changes in bandwidth utilization and strategic applications.

Campus Core Backbone

The campus backbone consists of a combination of Enterasys 9000 and 6000/Matrix series switches and Cisco routers.

Internet Connections

The primary connection to the commodity Internet is presently served by   a 2.4 Gb/sec (OC-48) connection through the North Carolina Network Initiative (NCNI) to the core of the North Carolina Research and Education Network (NCREN) at MCNC.  This link also provides our connectivity to Internet2 via Abilene.  It will soon be upgraded to 10 Gb/sec.

Connections from MCNC go to the commodity Internet and Internet2.  Our connection to Internet2 through Abilene is 2.4 Gb/sec (OC-48) and our connection to the commodity Internet is a total of 1.7 Gb/sec, split across three different ISPs (Sprint, Level3 and Qwest) for redundancy, load balancing, and path optimizations.

Off-Campus Sites

Connection to the School of Pharmacy Advancement Office, an off-campus rental site, is achieved by commercial T1 service leased from Time Warner and Bell South.  Other off-campus University-owned sites are directly connected to the fiber backbone.

Remote Access

Remote access service needs are met by commercial Internet service providers (ISPs), such as Earthlink, BellSouth, or RoadRunner. These services are paid for directly by the end-user.