Networking Infrastructure

Drew's current Local Area Network (LAN) connects all campus buildings with 12-48 strands of fiber-optic cable, with runs to 4 central points (Brothers College, Learning Center, Pepin and Holloway). Nearly all campus buildings are on the network

The network backbone is Gigabit Ethenret in a multiple link, redundant meshed configuration between all main network centers. Links to campus buildings are single or multiple 1Gbps links. All network ports are switched 10/100Mbps connections. Network equipment is currently on a 3 to 4 year rotation cycle. Cisco is our network vendor of choice.

All faculty and staff offices have at least one network drop. Residence halls have "one drop per pillow," with extra connections in study areas, lounges, and locations like the Snack Bar and the University Library. Wireless networking covers nearly all academic and public spaces, as well as outdoor locations and some residence halls. All students have wired and wireless networking as part of their computer package, Drew provides all faculty, staff, and resident students a computer and a network connection. Members of the Drew community access their Drew network resources from off-campus through their own ISP and remote-access technologies.

File, print and directory services are provided by Causeway, servers in a storage area network (SAN) with servers running Novell Cluster Services, to provide maximum redunancy and fault tolerance. Novell eDirectory provides single authentication to all NetWare resources through the uLogin account, as well as various Web resources through iChain. eDirectory also allows us to simply distribution of academic and general-purpose software through Zenworks.

CNS utilizes Intel-based servers currently provided by HP, and a mix of Linux, NetWare, and Windows Server technologies on its approximately 30 physical servers. In addition, VMWare ESX Server is used to provide virtual servers for some applications. Applications are evaluated and implemented with a focus on integration, single authentication and authorization, and enterprise-grade access control. Novell Identity Manager is used to link 3rd party applications into the uLogin security framework.