STRATEGY, IMPLEMENTATION, DOCUMENTATION

1. BEGINNING AND INTERMEDIATE STEPS ON PREPARING BLACKBOARD SYSTEM CONNECTIVITY FOR AUTOMATED REDUNDANCY/FAIL-OVER CAPABILITY STRATEGY, IMPLEMENTATION, DOCUMENTATION

2. ABOUT THIS PRESENTATION This session will show you what GW has done to prepare its connectivity for redundancy and fail-over. Much of what we discuss can be applied at schools looking for more robust and modularized connectivity but who are not planning on implementing a fail-over strategy soon. We will go over different versions, permutations and reasoning behind our current setup as many of these can offer useful insight for the wide range of circumstances that Bb schools represent. This session is more or less a sequel to the fail-over server presentation given by GW last year.

3. The George Washington University The “one-card” system had been in place for seven years with a large existing infrastructure, multiple privileges & accounts and approximately 1000 devices including IPCs, terminal servers Security 379 Activity 43 POS68 Vending 57 MDTs120 Laundry 51 VTS 8 Copiers/Microfiche 48 Interfaces: Follett JDA Bookstore POS, Pharos Uniprint, MDT, Catapult POS, Campus Video Solutions TIA Blackboard Transaction System –UNIX Edition,

4. OUR SERVER

5. Just kidding!

6. Why should you work on your connectivity. • Money • Money • Money • Face

7. Money Money Money How much does your system take-in in one day. Look at it backwards. What is real cost of precautions in terms of daily revenue. What happens to that money if system is down- it doesn’t get spent through you. Liability and safety concerns

8. Face Imagine how you will look if you haven’t been pushing for upgrades, redundancy, stable and re-routable communications.Imagine how your boss will look.Do you want to be the one that didn’t seem to be concerned?

9. DIVERSITY OF LEGACY COMMUNICATIONS AND THEIR PROBLEMS

10. DIVERSITY OF LEGACY COMMUNICATIONS AND THEIR PROBLEMS • Terminal Servers • Line Drivers • Dry pairs • Modems • RS 485 • RS 232 • Serial FDIs (BSI) • Private connections

11. DIVERSITY OF LEGACY COMMUNICATIONS AND THEIR PROBLEMS • Special connectors- inventory and repair procedures • Proprietary devices – inventory and repair cycling • Multiple service cost models – • IP • dedicated unconditioned house pairs (dry pairs) • Dedicated unconditioned Phone Co. pairs (dry LADA circuits) • Analog house pairs (dial tone). • Analog Phone Co. pairs (dial tone). • Documentation/accounting difficulties. • Specialized Technical training/familiarization • Lots of single points of failure.

12. THE QUICK DISCONNECT

13. THE QUICK DISCONNECT This was our first step to making the system more modular. We had bought a second server and it was configured. Data migration, patching, database update intervals were big issues but not the focus here. We realized that even though we had plans to cut down the times and uncertainty of these other issues, to swap out our server, even if we put it in the same place would take us a long time of plugging and unplugging. The potential for mistakes was big.

14. So we came up with this plan of consolidating all of the outside connections onto one point. In order to do this we had to add something that is the bane of any technicians existence. We had to add extra connection points. Normally this would have been a really bad thing, but in this case, it cleaned up all of our wiring and made out switchover time really short -- 10 minutes. THE QUICK DISCONNECT QUICK DISCONNECT CABLE TO INFRASTRUCTURE - -----25 PR.---- LOCAL COPPER COPPER F I B E R (AMPHENOL) ANALOG DATACARD FIREWALL UNIPRINT UNCOND. NET SWITCH PERMANENT INTERNAL CABINET INTERCONNECT WIRING

15. THE QUICK DISCONNECT QUICK CONNECTION WIRING DIAGRAM Connection mounting board inside of Server 1and Server 2 cabinets 1 ANALOG CONNECTION BLOCK 2 DRY CIRCUIT CONNECTION BLOCK 3 MEDIA CONVERTER 4 MEDIA CONVERTER 5 DATACARD JACK 6 NETWORK SWITCH JACK 7 UNIPRINT GATEWAY (LOCAL-SERIAL) 8 SERVER1 FIREWALL CONNECTION 9 SERVER2 FIREWALL CONNECTION QUICK DISCONNECT CABLE TO INFRASTRUCTURE - -----25 PR.---- LOCAL COPPER COPPER F I B E R (AMPHENOL) ANALOG ANALOG CONNECTION BLOCK (RJ12) 1-8 MDT MODEM 9 BLACKBOARD SUPPORT - SERVER1 10 BLACKBOARD SUPPORT - SERVER2 11 TEST MDT 12-13 OCP MODEM DATACARD FIREWALL UNIPRINT UNCOND. NET SWITCH PERMANENT INTERNAL CABINET INTERCONNECT WIRING DRY CIRCUIT CONNECTION BLOCK (RJ12) 1-4 GWORLD LOOP LAD CIRCUITS 5 BSI 6 TEST LAD

16. THE QUICK DISCONNECT

17. WHAT’S SO GREAT ABOUT IP?... AND WHY SHOULD I PAY FOR IT?

18. WHAT’S SO GREAT ABOUT IP AND WHY SHOULD I PAY FOR IT. Your networking people will understand it. Your connections can be repaired and replaced more easily Many of your circuit paths may already exist. Better reporting by Bb IP devices and network devices You may be able to share costs with other departments for Techs, equipment and circuit paths.

19. WHAT’S SO GREAT ABOUT IP AND WHY SHOULD I PAY FOR IT. Fewer service cost models. You can incorporate or help develop universally applied documentation. Potential for redundancy and incorporation into Networking’s overall plans. Potential for sharing exclusive connections with other vital services. Get yourself in line with where most of the future development is going. It’s all going that way anyway.

20. WHAT’S SO GREAT ABOUT IP AND WHY SHOULD I PAY FOR IT. Universal edition is coming to a Campus near you. One of the great features of the coming Universal edition is the fact that you will no longer need an NP. The NP is an expensive, proprietary, hard to configure and connect, potential single point of failure. Bb, I’m sure, and GWU in any case will be working on redundancy and failover strategies for the Universal Edition’s new NP configuration. Dependency on serial communications can prevent you from being able to take advantage of some of these features.

21. WHAT’S SO GREAT ABOUT IP AND WHY SHOULD I PAY FOR IT. Incentives- Methods of attack • Plans can coincide w/future upgrades of system • Propose and if needs be – let it get shot down • Mention other systems may be able to take advantage – get allies. • IP -Its all gonna go that way anyway. • Maybe you can start a wider initiative and make yourself look really good.

22. CONVERSION TO IPCONVERTERS

23. SECURITY SECURITY SECURITY CONVERSION TO IPCONVERTERS BJK 09/29/01 QUICK SWITCH GWORLD IN-BUILDING CONNECTION SCHEME (GENERAL) CAMPUS BUILDING GWORLD HUB LAUNDRY COPIER OTHER 485 CONV. QUICK SWITCH INVOLVES REMOVING 485 CONVERTER’S RJ45 PLUGS FROM JACKS FROM AND INSERTING PLUGS FROM IP CONVERTER LINE DRIVER RJ45 JACK RJ45 JACK REMOTE IP CONV. IP RJ45 JACK RJ45 JACK RJ45 485 BLDG NET PATCH CABLES MEDIA CONV. FIBER LINE TO CAMPUS FIBER NET

24. CONVERSION TO IPCONVERTERS For conversion of our serial, RS485 circuits over to IP connections using IP Converters, we used a staged approach where, with a very short down time, we first converted the existing connections to be modular . We created some inexpensive intermediate connector assemblies that allowed us to continue running over the old connectivity system until the pieces for the IP connectivity were in place. Then, with another very short downtime, we switched over. The hidden beauty of this conversion method is that if for any reason you have a problem with the switch over to IPConverters, you can fall back to your original hardware in seconds.

25. CONVERSION TO IPCONVERTERS 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 485 CONVERTER’S TB10 DEVICE CABLES GWORLD REMOTE HUBSITE RJ45 INSTALLATION (PRE-CONVERSION) 485 CONVERTER’S SINGLE TB10 CAN HAVE MULTIPLE DEVICE CABLES CONNECTED. TERMINALS 1-5 AND 6-10 ARE DUPLICATE SETS. STANDARD WIRING TB10 PIN CAT 5 COLOR BELDEN COLOR FUNCTION 1 / 6 WH/OR WHITE R- 2 / 7 OR/WH GREEN R+ 3 / 8 GRN/WH SHEILD SHEILD 4 / 9 WH/BU RED T- 5 /10 BU/WH BLACK T+ CURRENT RS485 CONVERTER HOOK UP

26. Create intermediate cable assemblies. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 485 CONVERTER’S TB10 RJ45 PLUGS CONVERSION TO IPCONVERTERS TB10 PIN CAT 5 WIRE COLOR FUNCTION 1 / 6 WH/OR R- 2 / 7 OR/WH R+ 3 / 8 GRN/WH SHEILD 4 / 9 WH/BU T- 5 /10 BU/WH T+

27. Make it modular. DEVICE CABLES RJ45 SCREW TERNINAL JACK RJ45 SCREW TERNINAL JACK 1 2 3 4 8 7 6 5 CONVERSION TO IPCONVERTERS RJ45 PIN CAT 5 BELDEN FUNCTION 1 WH/OR WHITE R- 2 OR/WH GREEN R+ 4 BU/WH BLACK T+ 5 WH/BU RED T- 6 GRN/WH SHEILD SHEILD 3* N/A N/A N/A RJ45 jacks should be set as uniformly as possible (preferably in rows) and separated by loop and marked for loop number and address(s). Wires can be either cat 5 or Belden type. Color codes will have two standards.485 converter pins can hold more than one wire as depicted, RJ45 jacks should not (one cable per RJ45 jack).

28. SECURITY SECURITY SECURITY CONVERSION TO IPCONVERTERS BJK 09/29/01 QUICK SWITCH GWORLD IN-BUILDING CONNECTION SCHEME (GENERAL) CAMPUS BUILDING GWORLD HUB LAUNDRY COPIER OTHER 485 CONV. QUICK SWITCH INVOLVES REMOVING 485 CONVERTER’S RJ45 PLUGS FROM JACKS FROM AND INSERTING PLUGS FROM IP CONVERTER LINE DRIVER RJ45 JACK RJ45 JACK REMOTE IP CONV. IP RJ45 JACK RJ45 JACK RJ45 485 BLDG NET PATCH CABLES MEDIA CONV. FIBER LINE TO CAMPUS FIBER NET

29. The Meshed Network

30. The Meshed Network

31. The Meshed Network • Work around power outages and connectivity problems • Can be made to be self-re-routable • Allows relatively easy connectivity for location changes of components of you system (server, carding, administrations stations) • Network metrics, monitoring, balancing

32. IP routers in a meshed network

33. IP routers in a meshed network

34. The Meshed Network With repeaters for common leg runs

35. The Meshed Network With repeaters for common leg runs

36. The Meshed Network With repeaters for common leg runs

37. IP Router switches with repeaters for common leg runs Easy conversion process Use one existing loop connection that has a common path as the trunk for the repeater.

38. IP Router switches with repeaters for common leg runs

39. SYSTEM/BUSINESS CONTINUANCE DOCUMENTATION STRATEGIES AND PITFALLS

40. SYSTEM/BUSINESS CONTINUANCE DOCUMENTATIONSTRATEGIES AND PITFALLS When adding, giving back or fixing circuits, documentation can save you time and money. • Accounting • Work description • Diagnostic aid

41. SYSTEM/BUSINESS CONTINUANCE DOCUMENTATIONSTRATEGIES AND PITFALLS For disaster recovery, documentation could make a huge difference in the time it takes to get your system back into a working condition

42. SYSTEM/BUSINESS CONTINUANCE DOCUMENTATIONSTRATEGIES AND PITFALLS For justifying decisions or defending decisions, documentation can really make stating your case a lot easier.

43. SYSTEM/BUSINESS CONTINUANCE DOCUMENTATIONSTRATEGIES AND PITFALLS DISADVANTAGES • Time consuming to create and maintain

44. SYSTEM/BUSINESS CONTINUANCE DOCUMENTATIONSTRATEGIES AND PITFALLS Three types of drawing documentation used by GW MSWORD • Drawings very portable to just about anyone. • Not widely used for drawing. • Easy to use but somewhat methods are somewhat arcane. • Exportable into Visio (some objects translate better than others). • Moderate learning curve.

45. SYSTEM/BUSINESS CONTINUANCE DOCUMENTATIONSTRATEGIES AND PITFALLS Three types of drawing documentation used by GW MSVISIO • Requires that you purchase Visio • Not everyone has it (not as portable) • Focus of software is drawing (more features). • Moderate learning curve.

46. SYSTEM/BUSINESS CONTINUANCE DOCUMENTATIONSTRATEGIES AND PITFALLS Three types of drawing documentation used by GW AUTOCAD • Drawings portable only to other Autocad users or through viewers with varying editing features. • Very expensive • Big learning curve. • Used by many Architecture/engineering firms

47. SUMMARY

48. SUMMARY A few years ago we had a system that • could not be moved • had all sorts of special connections • was understood by very few people

49. SUMMARY These steps we have taken have made it so that, with a little preparation, we can put critical system devices in a number of places.

50. SUMMARY Documentation has given us recognition as a team that can play well with others.