Larger, more secure network launching right now

Thanks to a $500,000 grant from the federal Knowledge Infrastructure Program, STU’s Information Technology Services department has upgraded the wireless internet system for the entire campus.

The new wireless internet is just one of the planned projects. ITS is also working on an emergency back-up data recovery center, and a system that would let students print documents in the computer lab from any laptop on the STU network.

The wireless program was first because it’s an upgrade that they’ve wanted to make for a while.

The previous network is old by today’s standards. It consisted of only four single-access points located in the four main academic buildings. The connection in some classrooms was tenuous at best. And forget getting a good signal in the basement level classrooms. It also suffered from security problems. Any competant techie that wanted to get access to our intenet connection could do it relatively easily.

The new system, called the STU-Secure network by ITS, is made up of around 50 access points, all controlled from a central server. It covers almost every academic structure on campus. In our limited testing we couldn’t find a classroom or lounge on campus that couldn’t access the new network.

Since the new network is all run from a central ‘cloud’ controller you no longer have to get the computer registered for each separate building, it’s all one network.

The STU-Secure wireless will go live this week. Students will get very thorough instructions in their STU email inboxes.

Instructions will also be available on the STU ITS website once the new network is opened up.

Some students, and the Aquinian, have been testing the capabilites of the new network for about a week to help work out kinks in the system.

So far the coverage and speed has been noticably faster with only a few dozen people on the network. The real test will come this week when hundreds of new users are activated.

Dan Hurley of ITS is confident his network, and his team of help-desk staff, are ready for the influx.

Look for more coverage of the launch, and future projects, in our tech section at www.theAQ.net.