Wow,

If only words could describe it....



...Well there yah go.

Pallb


---------------------------------------------
Greetings,

You are receiving this message because, according to our records, you appear
to be connected to the campus network as a residence hall or Greek housing
resident. If you are not one of these folks, please excuse this posting.

Meg Brady
Asst. Director, Client Services
Computing and Information Services

===============================================
What is being done about slow Internet response
from the Residence Halls?
===============================================

The short answer is...
----------------------
UMR's Computing and Information Services (CIS) took steps the morning of
Friday August 24, 2001 that should improve response time to the Internet
from the residence halls. If after this date you see a return to the
sluggish response times of earlier last week, please report them to us
online at http://help.umr.edu

Thanks to your input we are able to continuously improve the computing and
networking services on campus. For a more detailed explanation of what
happened this week, read on.

Background
----------
During the first two days of this semester, CIS received various reports
that Internet response was slow. The Video Communication Center reported the
degraded service was affecting the delivery of video-based distance courses.
Residence Hall and Student Council representatives reported several
instances of slow Internet response from the residence halls. UMR CIS
networking staff investigated the cause(s) and determined that the link from
UMR to Morenet was not the cause, but there was a bottleneck at the
connection from Morenet to AT&T in Kansas City.

In addition, it was determined that the residence halls were generating
enough network traffic to occasionally hit the upper limit of their assigned
bandwidth. Last spring, a limit was placed on total bandwidth from the
residence halls to ensure adequate bandwidth was available for video classes
and other critical campus applications. This was done because general
Internet activities often degraded service for video classes to the point
they were not usable.

So what is being done?
----------------------
The bottleneck condition at the Morenet / AT&T junction has been fixed.

Effective August 24, 2001, the constraint on Internet bandwidth to the
residence halls has been relaxed.

UMR Computing and Information Services (CIS) and Morenet (the state-wide
network) are in the process of implementing Quality of Service on the
intercampus network. Quality of Service (QoS) is an evolving network
technology that is intended to help organizations optimize the use of their
network bandwidth by assigning priority levels to different types of network
traffic. This will ensure adequate response time for important traffic such
as distance education courses. The bandwidth available for general Internet
activities will vary throughout the day based on the use of the higher
priority activities.

Since Quality of Service is a new technology, additional adjustments or
changes will probably be made to effectively utilize and allocate our
limited bandwidth.

If you don't continue to see improved response after today as compared to
earlier last week, please let us know at http://help.umr.edu.

In September, UMR should have two new trunk lines, 45Mb each, to replace the
current single line. The current line effectively carries a bandwidth of
around 38Mb. One of the two new lines will be dedicated to Internet2
participation, carrying the traffic bound for other Internet2 participants.
The other new line will carry the rest of the intercampus and
commodity-Internet load.

What else can be done?
----------------------
Raising the awareness of the campus, especially residence hall and Greek
housing network users, of the causes and effects of network usage will serve
the common good of the campus. The bandwidth available to the campus is a
shared and limited resource. When one person or computer application uses
more than its fair share, the amount of resource available to other users is
diminished. This is taken into consideration when the network is designed
and implemented. For example, servers should be placed on network segments
that are designed for heavy traffic, where the burst loads they might
generate will not affect regular desktop computing users. This is why the
Residence Hall Network Agreement states that servers are not allowed on
residence hall network connections.

You can help improve your own network response by spreading the word.
Remind those you know of who run server systems in the residence halls that
they are degrading your network performance. Not to mention they are
breaking their network agreement and could lose their service altogether.
For example, some folks might be "sharing files" such as music or movies for
entertainment purposes. Aside from the question of copyright, there just
isn't enough bandwidth to support this type of activity, and the associated
traffic degrades response for other residents.

CIS staff will continue to monitor network activity and respond to reports
of slow service as needed to achieve an optimum level of service for the
campus. Please make your reports via the online Help Request system at
http://help.umr.edu.
-------------------------------------------