The first phase of an upgrade to the campus computer network will result in an outage to some City Campus buildings, from 8 to 10 a.m. May 11.

The work will include the installation of a new distribution router that will increase bandwidth and redundancy to campus buildings. This is the first in a series of network distribution upgrades to be completed this summer. When complete, bandwidth to all City Campus locations will double.

Additional project phases will continue on both City and East campuses through next year.

By the end of 2015, UNL will increase its Internet capacity through commodity vendors and connections to consortiums Internet2 and OmniPop.

“The high availability project recognizes that the network is a lifeline for the university to the rest of the world,” said Jim Hlava, network manager for Information Technology Services.

Project elements include:

• New distribution points that will include built-in fail-over mechanisms that are geographically dispersed across campus.

• Dual strands of fiber optic cable to each building, providing more bandwidth and redundancy.

When complete, buildings that currently receive one gigabit of bandwidth will increase to two gigabits. High-demand locations that receive 10 gigabit connections will receive 20 gigabits.

“Our primary goal is to increase the bandwidth to every campus building and strengthen the core redundancy of the network in the case of a disaster and reduce the risk of individual equipment failure,” said Kent Eitzmann, network architect.

Hlava said the project is designed to create a “fault-tolerant environment.”

“When you design a network,” adds Hlava. “You have to allow for what can go wrong. Equipment can overheat, software can have a bug, a fiber can get cut. Our network will be better equipped to respond to those problems and continue to run without the institution grinding to a halt.”

A list of buildings included in the May 11 outage is below. All wired and wireless networking in buildings listed will be affected by the work, unless otherwise noted. In addition, energy management, CCTV, alarms and electronic door access will function, but administrative access will not be available until the work is completed.

Buildings affected by the outage include:

• Oldfather Hall

• Memorial Stadium East, West, North (including CB3 and APL). Big10 Network not affected

• Hawks Championship Center

• Haymarket Park (Big 10 Network not affected)

• Stadium Parking (including Athletic Ticket Office)

• Champions Club

• Schorr Center (direct connections to Internet2 and PKI are not affected)

• Manter Hall

• Hamilton Hall

• Andrews Hall

• Burnett Hall

• 501 Building

• Avery Hall

• Architecture Hall

• Bessey Hall

• Behlen/Brace

• Hewitt Place

• Morrill Hall

• Pinnacle Bank Arena (only connections on UNL network affected, Big10 Network not affected)

For more information, contact the UNL Operations Center at operator@unl.edu or 402-472-5653.