Update on the College network infrastructure, and it’s readiness for hybrid teaching this term
Dear all,
I thought I should update everyone on what we have been doing over the summer to prepare for this term in relation to the College network, and the longer view of college network requirements. We have been working with our network suppliers (LAN3), and so they are happy for me to forward the following statement.
To ensure that Somerville College’s Network infrastructure is fit for purpose and able to meet these challenging demands the network was upgraded in the summer of 2020. Additionally, Somerville partnered with LAN3 to deliver a 24x7x365 managed network service. Both the wired and wireless infrastructures are now proactively monitored and managed by the LAN3 Service Centre.
This managed service should provide Somerville College with peace of mind and the confidence that LAN3’s team of trained networking engineers are responding to alerts set to trigger as soon as network conditions deviate from the performance levels required to provide college applications and services. This approach will allow any network issues to be discovered and remediated before they impact College IT users.
The importance of maintaining an up-to-date and fully patched network cannot be understated and LAN3 follow a strict change/patch management process to ensure that critical services are not disrupted when essential configuration changes and firmware updates are applied. The Service Centre is managed by Kevin Graves. Kevin understands the demands on a College IT department and the requirements of a College network from his time as the IT Manager of another Oxford College
If anyone has any further questions, or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact us, either via phone 01865 270597 or email ict.desk@some.ox.ac.uk.
Kind regards,