The campus network

What do we connect?

PCs and printers

mobile devices over wifi, using eduroam

door locks

CCTV

voice over IP (VoIP) phones

cafe tills

temperature sensors

heating controls

vending machines

and much more...

The University campus network connects almost every building on campus.

It connects wired and wireless devices to two large datacentres over many miles of fibre optic cable.

These datacentres house several hundred virtual and physical servers.

They are connected with 200GB of bandwidth and have their own dedicated team keeping everything running smoothly.

External connectivity is provided by our 10,000Mb/s Janet connection.

Conceptually, the network is divided into layers, separated and protected by firewalls.

On most of campus wired connectivity is achieved through our "one port fits all" (1PFA) system. This allows a registered device, or user authenticated device, to be connected to any data outlet.

All wired data outlets are a minimum of 100 Mbit/s.

Network in numbers

Approximately 100,000 wired ports available for use.

20,000 mobile devices are connected at peak times during semester time.

Authentication servers determine whether the device is authorised, and if so connect it to the proper network, or quarantine it otherwise.

Where 1PFA isn't available, traditional patching is used to allocate individual data outlets to specific parts of the network.

In all cases the routed nature of the network means that every device has an address which is only valid for its own geographic location.