currier@romeo.cs.duke.edu (Bob Currier - DCAC Network Comm. Specialist) (08/24/90)
Subject: Network Operations Center/Staff
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans
Keywords: Suggestions
Good morning;
I have been given the task of building a Network Operations Center
from the ground up. Our campus net is currently operated, maintained,
installed, fixed, etc by one person: me! We are now expanding again and
are considering wiring all the dorms to the net. Obviously, one
person cannot provide support to thousands of students during
exam week when the net in their dorm goes down. :-)
What I would like to know is the following:
Of those universities out there that have major campus networks,
how many have full-time network ops centers.
1) How many staff members do you have? Please list Engineers, Techs,
software types, administrative support staff (secretarial) etc.
2) Do you operate 24 hours a day? How many staff members on each shift?
3) Do you operate 7 days a week? How many staff members work the
weekends?
4) How do you support the dorms? Have the RA's been trained to
"triage" trouble calls before they get to the ops center? Do you
have students that handle dorm calls for you?
5) Service vehicles. Do you have any, or do you borrow another
departments vehicle when needed. (As I do now)
6) Office space. How much for how many people?
7) Test Equipment. What do you use to diagnose problems? I currently have
a T5200 with a Cabletron Lanalyzer card.
8) Monitoring Station. Do you keep constant watch on the network?
Who mans the console?
I know that I ask a lot of questions, but the information would
be very helpful. I have already prepared my own description of
a Network Ops Center, but I would like to know how closely my
'ideal' comes to reality.
A little background on our net:
We currently have two phases active, with 16 buildings on-line.
We have two Novell public clusters routed over the net, with a third
about to come up. I use Cabletron hardware for all the installations.
I have 3 cisco routers, one being used for the public novell clusters,
one for the main net router, and another for 2 public SUN clusters.
We have one off-campus site brought in by T-line to the main cisco.
The dorms that are being considered for activation have a total of
3,400 rooms. (!!) I route TCP/IP, AppleTalk, DECnet and Novell IPX.
Thanks for any responses. Please respond to:
rdc@bobsun.ac.duke.edu DO NOT 'r' to this machine, as it is going to
go down for a few days.
Bob Currier
Network Communications
Duke University
Durham, N.C. 27706
rdc@bobsun.ac.duke.edu