Kentucky Wesleyan College announces a significant series of upgrades to its campus network infrastructure in preparation for the new academic year. The improvements will greatly enhance the residential and commuter student experience with greater connectivity across campus for all members of the College community.
“This is an important step and investment into our campus infrastructure,” said President Thomas Mitzel. “With improved connectivity and fiber infrastructure, students, faculty and staff will have better ability to utilize virtual learning environments. Students will enjoy uninterrupted streaming of entertainment on all devices and we have provided additional room for growth in our capacity as we move forward.”
The campus has upgraded its fiber by replacing the existing 1 GB maximum capacity to a fiber optic network with 10 GB maximum capacity. This can be further enhanced to 40 GB capacity with alterations to the network switching. In order to accomplish this massive upgrade, approximately 2.78 miles of new fiber was run throughout the campus, and fiber replacement has taken place in 15 building locations.
In addition to the fiber, approximately 20 new Cisco port 10 GB network switches have been added across campus, and structured cable was added to each of the campus residence halls. The addition of network drops in Kendall Hall (175) and Massie Hall (95) along with the installation of new cabling in Stadium Apartments, provides network drops in all campus residence hall rooms.
A refresh of the campus’ Dell server environment has also been completed, with primary and redundant server clusters upgraded to new servers and storage devices. Battery backup has also been installed in the server room to increase run time during power outages.
“These connectivity upgrades are a game-changer for our learning and living environments,” said Jeff Arnold, director of information technology. “We have also refreshed and upgraded machines in our MacLab and Writing Lab, with 25 new iMacs featuring 27’ displays and 20 new Dell laptops, providing better functionality and practical application for students in those disciplines.”
Classes for the fall 2021 semester begin on Aug. 24. Students began returning to campus in late July and will continue with move-in days through Aug. 22.