Thursday, October 1, 2015

JasperNet Receives Bandwidth Upgrade

A network update performed on 10/1/2015 has increased the amount of bandwidth available to JasperNet users from 1Gbps to up to 2Gbps.  This is the first phase of an upgrade that is expected to be completed later this month that will expand connectivity even more.

When students returned to campus for the fall semester, ITS observed an unprecedented demand for network resources - especially rich media content such as streaming video from YouTube and Netflix.  The increased demand resulted was slower-than-normal download speeds and videos that sometimes buffered.  With the recent and planned upgrades in October, ITS will deliver significantly more capacity to support the increased demand for network connectivity from faculty and students.

Below is a network traffic chart showing 100% utilization throughout most of the day, then the utilization after capacity was increased:

The graph shows network utilization at our Internet Service Provider's connection point.  The connection previously operated at maximum capacity from approximately 10AM-2AM since the beginning of the semester.  The peaks at the right of the graph show the time that the additional capacity was added.  Enjoy!