What's up with the college broadband?

IS Services Alerts - Slow Access to External Websites
Updated: Thursday, 28th October, 14:50

The following statement has been released by the Director of Information System Services, Mr John Murphy.

Dear all,

During the past 10 days there has been a serious degradation of Internet access across the College. These problems have been largely intermittent and random in nature. The College network is complex and supports many different types of network access on the main campus and 23 remote sites including Student Residences and two teaching hospitals at Tallaght and St. James. There are currently 25,000 users supported. The problem is not specific to either the wired or wireless network.

Last week an action plan was drafted and a team was setup to resolve this issue as quickly as possible. It has number one priority status within IS Services.

What has been done to date:

We have made modifications to spread the load over the infrastructure components that facilitate internet access.
Review of Domain Name Servers (DNS) for proxy service; reconfiguration of existing DNS for proxy services; and allocation of two new dedicated DNS servers. This is the route for all Internet access from College.
IS Services has communicated with other IT professionals in College and specific users that were experiencing poor performance to establish if any of the configuration changes had significantly improved their experience
A number of users were visited to analyse and review configurations on their workstations to establish if client setup was the cause of the problem.
Quantitative graphical simulation (measurement tool) of the issue. The impact of the changes above are currently being determined by reference to the measurement tool
IS Services have been engaged in a project to upgrade the components of infrastructure that provide internet access facilities following a review last year. We are in the final stages of tender award following an EU tendering process to replace the current service in order to provide a first class proxy service. It is expected to have these new components in service shortly.
What will happen the next -

The team will continue to work to determine the root cause of the problem
In parallel the Internet infrastructure upgrades will be expedited including new Proxy services
All staff and students will be kept informed of developments on the IS Services website, on Twitter and by email
IS Services apologies for the disruption caused by the issue and is aware of the user frustration that this generates. I would like to assure the College community that everything possible is being done to resolve this issue as a matter of urgency.

Regards

John Murphy

Director Information Systems Services
Trinity College Dublin
Ireland