Feasibility Study for a
Statewide Higher Education Information Technology Network
State of Connecticut, September 18, 1996
Other Recommendations
- A central organization should be created
to handle the planning and day-to-day maintenance of the
statewide network. This organization should consist of
representatives from the various network constituents.
This group should handle a variety of issues: traffic
management, creation and enforcement of policies,
addition of new members, etc. Furthermore, this body
should have the ability to govem issues affecting an
network constituents, including higher education, K-12,
libraries, etc. This group would act as a liaison between
each of these entities.
The first level of support to end-users should
come from within each institution. In other words, individual
help desks within UCONN, CSU, etc. should handle the
troubleshooting and problem resolution associated with that
institution.
- Where possible, the State of Connecticut should
outsource management and maintenance responsibilities.
Management of this outsourcing function would be one of
the responsibilities of the central organization
described above. Outsourcing would most likely include
the installation, configuration, management, and
maintenance of network equipment. Furthermore, where
possible, the State should lease most equipment from a
third-party provider. This would minimize the FTEs
required in-house, and provide added flexibility to
accommodate change.
- As individual institutions open up their
resources to other public and private institutions (as
well as the Internet), security cannot be ignored. When
creating a network design, for example, the State needs
to ensure that all Internet access points are as secure
as possible - e.g., an application layer firewall is in
place to monitor and control the traffic both coming in
and going out of State sites. Furthermore, remote access
to the network should be handled cautiously - e.g., modem
banks should be centralized (no direct access to
individual servers or PCs); communications servers should
be used to monitor and filter traffic; security servers
should be utilized for added protection.
- This document identifies the costs
associated with providing a network point of presence at
each public institution. It does not identify the costs
that will be incurred by the individual institutions to
extend this network to specific locations within their
campuses. Furthermore, it does not examine the issues
associated with extending the network to institutions
outside of public higher education (e.g., the independent
colleges, libraries, and Universities and K-12). These
issues need to be addressed before implementing a
statewide network.
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