January 6, 2006
Based on work by DoIT Network
Services, UW-Madison
Ron Kraemer, Deputy CIO

• ATM LANE with 5 or 6 routers.
• Centrally-managed configurations for 50-
75 devices.
• Campus departments administered their own local networks (no qualification process).
• “Hodgepodge” of hardware, software, procedures and network designs.

• Standardized on Cisco equipment.
• 10 Gb/s backbone.
• 1 Gb/s departmental connections.
• A centrally-purchased and centrallymanaged core network.
• Embracing department engagement.

• Nearly 900 Cisco network devices.
• A few Juniper and NetScreen devices.
• 49,700+ managed ports.
• The number of managed buildings, devices, and ports grows daily.
• Common network management tools.

Central
Network
Management
Collaborative
Delegated
Hybrid
Pending (buildings)
Total
Data current as of December 2005
By
Workgroup
13
177
16
24
230
By
Building
7
113
4
8
24
156

• Sustainable funding model
• Continuous communications
• Campus-wide wireless service with distributed guest account administration
• 24x7 network operations center
• Relationship with UW Police and Physical Plant
• Continually update tools
• Empower department IT staff to manage some things that are important to them using a powerful set of webbased network monitoring and administration tools

• Loosely-coupled set of web-based utilities for network administration.
• Tools are team-developed in-house, optimized toward local networking practices, driven by user need.
• About 244 trained network administrators.
• Allow users (campus LAN administrators and network engineers) to manage network devices, change device configurations, troubleshoot, inspect traffic data, coordinate with users, and perform other network management tasks.

• Run command-line operations on devices and view results.
• View ethernet switch logs.
• Useful for troubleshooting.

• Graph router interface and switch port statistics.
• Time-series summary graphs displaying different types of traffic statistics at the campus network border.
• Searchable interface to traffic statistics.
• Uses free tools (like MRTG) to gather and present stats

• Configure device ports (2,079 port changes 1/4/2006).
• Perform multiple port changes as one transaction.
• Examine switch port configurations and other switch information.
• Users can only change devices/ports for which they are authorized.

• Discovers all currently active VLANs.
• User selects one or more VLANs.
• Display devices and ports on which the VLANs are active.
• Display VLAN attributes:
– Configuration of routed VLAN interfaces
– Any trunk allowed VLANs
– VLAN Spanning Tree Protocol priorities
• Device names and ports will be hot-linked (where applicable) to EdgeConf.

• Select one or more network devices.
• Find all VLANs on each device.
• Get all technical and administrative contacts for each
VLAN from the WiscNIC database.
• User can compose an email message.
• Message will be mailed to all users.
• Used to alert users when certain devices are going to be affected by NS actions.

• Push commands, operating code, or configuration code to selected network devices.
– Run command-line directives (e.g. ‘show int’).
– Upgrade system software.
– Modify device configurations.
– Manage ACLs.
• Parallelized for maximum efficiency.
• Can specify a delayed device restart date/time.
• Parses results into log files which can be viewed from the web browser .
• Performs error-checking.
• Reports results via email.

• Most network administrators throughout campus feel empowered.
– Users manage their local networks.
– Users determine tools emphasis and direction.
• Improved campus relations.
• Improved security management.
• “Cost-smart” for campus.
• Enables more effective response to challenges (security) and opportunities
(better services).