Western Carolina University's campus network will undergo major changes this summer in a move to enhance its reliability and security. New equipment has been purchased to refresh the core of the network and new firmware, software that is embedded in a hardware device , will be deployed to existing network equipment.
These changes will allow the Division of Information Technology to retire its current network software (SecureFast) that is now a dated technology and does not allow the network to perform at its best.
The new core network will be in place by the middle of May. Once its operation is tested, campus buildings will be moved over to this new core. The goal is to complete the migration of all campus buildings to the new core by the end of June.
Benefits to campus:
- Greatly enhanced security
- Enables prioritization of critical network traffic
- Simplifies troubleshooting of network issues
- Isolates the impact of network outages due to rogue devices or misconfigured systems
- Enables the future implementation of ‘user-centric' networking where a user's role, not a location, defines how the network is configured
The network conversion schedule is as follows:
Thursday, May 11
Scott (residential area)
Friday, May 12
NCCAT
Tuesday, May 16
The Village
Wednesday, May 17
Moore
Thursday, May 18
Walker
Leatherwood
Helder
Friday, May 19
Reynolds
Robertson
Madison
Buchanan
Saturday, May 20
Central Drive
Albright-Benton
Harrill
Tuesday, May 23
McKee
Wednesday, May 24
Fine and Performing Arts
Center Advanced Technology
Thursday, May 25
Library
Norton
Friday, May 26
Graham
Old Student Union
Bird
Breese Gym
Tuesday, May 30
Natural Science
Thursday, May 31
Ramsey
Print Shop
Friday, June 2
Belk
Tuesday, June 6
Stillwell
Hoey
Wednesday, June 7
Reid
Thursday, June 8
Forsyth
Friday, June 9
Coulter
Tuesday, June 13
UC
Wednesday, June 14
Chancellor's House
HFR
Thursday, June 15
Dodson
Brown
Friday, June 16
Warehouse
Facilities Management
Tuesday, June 20
Scott (administrative area)
Wednesday, June 21
Killian
Killian Annex
Thursday, June 22
Outreach
Friday, June 23
UC
Bookstore
For more information on the new network, please contact Scott Swartzentruber, director of networking at 227-3212 or email scotts@email.wcu.edu .
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