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Information Technology Networking in Higher Education:Campus Commodity and Competitive Differentiator

Robert B. Kvavik

Associate Vice President

University of Minnesota

ECAR Senior Fellow

EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Researchwww.educause.edu/ecar

www.educause.edu/ecar 2

The Network’s Growing Importance in Higher Ed…

• Networks are fundamental in higher education, used in diverse and creative ways to facilitate strategic goals

• However, knowledge of current state and future networking plans was largely anecdotal.

Institution's Network is Much More Important to Our Strategic Goals than Three Years Ago (N=517)

61.9%

31.5%4.1%1.4%1.2%0%

20%40%60%80%

StronglyDisagree

Disagree Neutral Agree StronglyAgree

www.educause.edu/ecar 3

…Prompted ECAR to Conduct this Study

• To provide comprehensive empirical information about the higher education networking environment

• To help institutions make more-informed decisions regarding their networking approaches and plans• Identifies networking technology and practices are

currently in place • Examines adoption of emerging technologies and

evolution of the central IT network

www.educause.edu/ecar 4

Study Methodology

Survey Respondents by Carnegie Class

DR, 130

MA, 137BA, 99

AA, 85

Canada, 30

Other, 36

• Literature search• Consultation with EDUCAUSE

Net@EDU Integrated Communications Solutions Working Group

• Online survey in June/July 2004• In-depth telephone interviews

with 19 IT executives at 13 institutions

• Informal CIO roundtable• Follow-up email questions on

specific subjects on selected respondents

• Three case studiesN=517

www.educause.edu/ecar 5

Most Respondents’Networks are Small

Number of Institutional Users (N=513)

5,001 to 20,000, 32.4%

40,001 to 60,000, 4.1%

Under 1,000, 8.0%

20,001 to 40,000, 14.6%

1,001 to 5,000, 37.2%

60,001 to 80,000, 1.9%

Over 80,000, 1.8%

Number of Devices (N=508)

5,001 to 10,000, 18.1%

20,001 to 40,000, 6.8%

Under 1,000, 11.5%

10,001 to 20,000, 11.3%

1,001 to 5,000, 46.8%

More than 40,000, 5.5%

Over 80,000, 1.8%

www.educause.edu/ecar 6

Higher Education is Wired;Wireless is Growing

• Wireless is prevalent in areas not as quickly hardwired• Wireless mainly supplements hardwired connectivity, especially where bandwidth and security are important

Comparison of Wired and Wireless Installations

4.57

3.01

4.55

4.68

4.72

4.96

4.98

2.13

2.54

0.00

0.00

2.79

3.03

2.60

2.12

3.63

2.35

2.39

0.00 1.00 2.00 3.00 4.00 5.00 6.00

Outdoor spaces

Classrooms: Single connection

Classrooms: One connection per seat

Indoor public spaces

Labs / research facilities

Residence halls

Libraries

Faculty offices

Administrative offices

Wired Mean* Wireless Mean* * Scale = 1 (none) to 5 (almost all)

www.educause.edu/ecar 7

Higher Ed Network Infrastructure Snapshot

Transmission Medium Standard/Bandwidth

Backbone transmission Multimode fiber optic cable

Backbone bandwidth 1 to 4.99 gigabits per second

Backbone data transmission Gigabit Ethernet

Backbone-to-end-device transmission Category 5 and 5e twisted pair

Wired end-device transmission Fast Ethernet

Wireless end-device transmission 802.11b

Commodity Internet bandwidth 4.5 to 89 megabits per second

• Larger and more complex network environments often use higher bandwidths and transmission standards

www.educause.edu/ecar 8

Private Education & Research Networks Gain Momentum

Connection to External Networks (Multiple Responses Allowed)

8.1%

17.1%

22.8%

23.8%

24.8%

38.0%

39.3%

43.0%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%

Other

National research network

Other multi-institutional network

Regional research or educational network

Regional gigapop

Internet2/Abilene

University system-wide network

State research or educational network

• 34 research and educational networks are now in place or being implemented to conduct multi-institutional and leading-edge research, hold cross-institutional classes, and/or access public networks

www.educause.edu/ecar 9

Institutions Gear Up for Converged Networks

Changes Being Made to Reflect Converged Networks (Multiple Responses Allowed)

143

126

10996

53

0

40

80

120

160

Organizationalstructure

Centraloperations

User support Policies Financial model

Number of Institutions

• Most respondents say they are somewhere on the adoption curve between evaluating and actually running converged networks for some applications.

www.educause.edu/ecar 10

Emerging Technology Adoption Focuses on Video Applications

• About half of respondents indicate that IP video streaming and/or desktop video conferencing is already in limited use on their campuses• Most other institutions are either planning to implement or

evaluating these technologies.

• There is less use of voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)—about one-fourth of institutions.

• An even smaller number of institutions are currently implementing other converged services such as cable TV over the network and integrated messaging.

www.educause.edu/ecar 11

Network Management is Increasingly Crucial

• Placing network restriction practices is common• Restricting relaying of e-mail (63.1 percent)

• Access to selected TCP/IP ports (54.4 percent).

• Use packet shaping (69.6 percent ) to minimize the impact of P2P file sharing and other applications that consume large amounts of bandwidth.

• Almost three-quarters use stand-alone vendor products (71 percent); two-thirds use open source network management software tools.

www.educause.edu/ecar 12

Which Institutions Report a Higher-Quality Network Infrastructure?

• Several similar characteristics emerge among institutions that agreed that their institution has a higher quality network infrastructure:• secure, fault tolerant, and its central backbone, desktop

connectivity, and wireless connectivity are optimally designed to meet future needs for

• Of particular note is the role that the “softer” or non-technical side of IT networking plays. • Technology is indeed important in network design and

management, but• The network is also contextually shaped and constrained

by factors like senior leadership attitudes, funding resources, and institutional mission.  

www.educause.edu/ecar 13

Which Institutions Report a Higher-Quality Network Infrastructure?

Institutions that…• consider the network to be a strategic resource• have a primary network goal of providing leading-edge network

performance and services• do not consider inadequate funding to be a barrier to the delivery

of networking services • have formal, comprehensive policies and procedures that cover

networking issues; enforce these policies and procedures consistently; and update them regularly

• provide more redundancy measures for the institution's central network

• have a disaster recovery plan for the institution's data-networking capabilities

www.educause.edu/ecar 14

Leadership Recognizes the Network’s Value

• Respondents overwhelmingly agree that their leadership views the campus network as:• an essential resource (98 percent) and critical

infrastructure (89 percent).• a strategic resource (81 percent).

• Over one-quarter (28 percent) characterized networking at their institution not only as strategic but also as a “strategic differentiator” for the campus.

• ECAR found that respondents whose campus leaders consider the network to be strategic rated the quality of their network infrastructure higher than others.

www.educause.edu/ecar 15

Respondents’ Institution’s Primary Networking Goal Evenly Distributed

• Institutions whose primary network goal is leading-edge network rate the quality of their network infrastructure—design of the backbone, desktop connectivity, and wireless networks, as well as network security and fault tolerance—higher than other institutions.

Primary Network Goal Descriptor %

Provide reliable performance and se\vices at the lowest possible cost

Cost-minimizer 19.8%

Provide appropriate levels of performance & services to different users, based upon their needs

DemandDriven 28.4%

Provide high-speed networking to the entire institution

High-speedfor all 25.9%

Provide leading-edge network performance and services to the institution Leading edge 25.9%

www.educause.edu/ecar 16

Networking Funding is Up Despite Financial Uncertainties

Change in Data Network Spending

2.6% 3.6% 4.0%

16.6%

22.9%

28.5%25.9%

22.7%21.1% 20.2%

14.9%

2.6%1.2%0.8%0%

10%

20%

30%

-15% -10% -5% 0% 5% 10% 15%Percentage Change

Institutions

Past three years (mid-2001 to mid-2004) Next three years (mid-2004 to mid-2007).

• Yet 59 percent indicate that inadequate funding is a barrier to delivering network services.• Those institutions that feel they are not experiencing inadequate funding rate their network

infrastructure as stronger, especially for the optimal design of desktop connectivity and for the fault tolerance of the network.

www.educause.edu/ecar 17

Effective Network Policies and Procedures are Important

Network Policy Characteristic Mean*

Easily Accessible 3.84

Clear and Easy to Read 3.75

Applied Consistently Across the Institution 3.50

Enforced Consistently 3.32

Regularly Updated 3.19

Comprehensive 3.14

• 77.9 percent of respondents now have formal network policies and procedures • Institutions that possess formal networking policies and procedures that are enforced consistently and

comprehensively and are regularly updated are more likely to rate the quality of their network infrastructure higher.

*Scale= 1 (strongly disagree), 2 (disagree), 3 (neutral), 4 (agree), 5 (strongly agree)

www.educause.edu/ecar 18

Network Redundancy Efforts Lag

Central Network Redundancy (Multiple Responses Allowed)

9.0%

74.0%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80%

Redundancyof somesingle

points offailure

Redundancyfor all points

of failure

Multiple Physical Routes (Multiple Responses Allowed)

43.0%

37.0%

28.0%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80%

MultiplePhysical

Routes onCampus

MultiplePhysical

Routes offCampus

MulitpleService

Providers

• Institutions that focus on redundancy report their backbone network is both fault tolerant and optimally designed to meet future needs.

www.educause.edu/ecar 19

Disaster Recovery Efforts Need Improvement, too

• Perhaps it is a matter of priorities, funding, and perceived risk, but 40 percent of respondents report that they do not have a disaster recovery plan for data networking on campus.

• ECAR research shows that institutions with a documented disaster recovery plan for their network characterize the quality of their network infrastructure more positively

www.educause.edu/ecar 20

The Future of Network

www.educause.edu/ecar 21

Implications

• Align the institution and the network.• It is important to explicitly understand the overarching institutional

characteristics and reflect these in campus network plans and goals.

• The network is never done• Because higher education thrives on discovery and

experimentation, user networking needs cannot be fully anticipated.

• IT leaders must constantly look within and beyond higher education to anticipate emerging technologies that will transform the institution and potentially create new security, integration, and support issues.

• As networks grow, demands are made not only for higher bandwidth and transmission speeds but also for more automation to support network management, for extended user support hours, and for stronger network redundancy.

www.educause.edu/ecar 22

Implications

• Ensure ample network investment• IT leaders are implementing new ways to secure adequate

financing for their networks including building new funding models to sustain their network infrastructure, enhancing vendor partnerships beyond equipment discounts, and investigating the addition of value-added or new services to generate revenue.

• Focus resources on network security and reliability• As networks become essential—and often strategic—to core

institutional processes, network security and reliability become even more critical and will continue to require significant IT and financial resources.

• Make use of opportunities provided by private higher education networks