Internet downtime frustrating users

By Jesus Diaz

A recent string of campus-wide Internet outages caused headaches for students over the past three weeks.

"I am really disappointed that the university has Internet and network problems," said sophomore Helene Viger. "Sometimes I can't even sign in to view my assignments and turn in my homework."

Todd Schmitzer, manager of networking and telecommunications, said a software update to Cisco Clean Access Agent, a system designed to produce a secure and trouble-free network, is to blame.

Other issues concerning inconsistent bandwidths across campus locations have students questioning the university's Internet reliability.

According to Schmitzer, network downtimes included Thursday, Jan. 21 from about 4:30 p.m. until midnight with other network issues at midnight on the following Friday.

"The problems are entirely related to the Clean Access application from Cisco," he said.

Said sophomore and Information Technology worker Gianna Drake: "Cisco Clean Access Agent went down so basically anyone trying to connect to the Internet though Cisco couldn't connect."

"The Internet has been down before, but this time was to a bigger extent since it was a longer period of time," she said. "It's usually shorter."

Managers told IT student workers to help students with their Internet necessities, but the student workers were never told the reason why the Cisco system failed for more than a day.

"We're not allowed to have any of that information," said an IT student worker, who chose to remain anonymous.

"It seems to be happening a lot this quarter; it didn't seem to happen as much last year or last quarter," said the source. "I think there's a possibility of the expansion of the network being an issue."

The Jan. 21 outrage was particularly noticeable by the students since the whole campus did not have access to the Internet due to the Cisco system's failure to log people into the network.

According to Schmitzer, the Cisco system's malfunction also caused other minor outrages on Thursday, Jan. 28 from about 4:30 p.m. until 11 p.m. and on Feb. 1 around 9:30 a.m.

The Cisco system has also failed multiple times since the start of the term and included small outages that lasted about an hour.

The reliability of the Cisco system started to become a problem at the end of December when a new version of software was installed so that Windows 7 and Apple Snow Leopard users would be able to use the authentication system, Schmitzer said.

The new software upgrade introduced technical issues that were not present in the older version.

As a result, the Cisco system would not allow people to authenticate and gain access to the network.

"It was very inconvenient because I had to work on a project that required me to open multiple links," said sophomore Arthur Gallanter. "Some people even went off campus in order to finish their work."

Bandwidth expansion also concerns students, as the university network appears to be faster at different locations around campus.

A study evaluating the university's wireless network was done using the same computer during a 30-minute period of time on a Sunday evening.

The study was done at Casa Italiana Hall and Dunne Hall using Speedtest.net, a Web site that allows users to test the speed of their Internet.

Speedtest determined that students may download 4.50 megabits per second and upload 6.38 megabits per second at Casa Italiana.

This speed allows Casa Italiana residents to download MP3 files of five megabytes in nine seconds, video clips of 35 megabytes in two minutes and movie files of 800 megabytes in 56 minutes.

The same test was done at the other side of campus in a similar room at Dunne Hall and showed that the overall download speed was 1.43 megabits per second and the upload speed was .27 megabits per second.

This speed allows Dunne residents to download MP3 files of five megabytes in 29 seconds, video clips of 35 megabytes in three minutes and movie files of 800 megabytes in 75 minutes.

The test also gave the university's network 2.7 stars out of five.

"I was watching a video and the bandwidth was so low that it was blurry," said freshman MacGregor Ehlen, a Dunne Hall resident. "I've also been a little mad about the Cisco system being down too because it's been going in and out for the past two weeks," he said.

Differences in these two areas of campus, however, do not reflect the overall bandwidth of the university.

"I do not believe Santa Clara's Internet bandwidth needs improvement at the current time," said Schmitzer.

According to Schmitzer, the bandwidth was more than tripled about 12 months ago from 150 megabits per second to 500 megabits. "We are not fully utilizing the current available bandwidth," Schmitzer said. "The average usage graphs show that there is significant bandwidth still available," he said.

The graphs posted at the IT Web site show that the average bandwidth used is generally 340 megabits per second.

"The IT staff has been working, and continues to work, with Cisco to troubleshoot and resolve these issues and has had some limited success," said Schmitzer. "We are still experiencing some periodic issues."

Contact Jesus Diaz at jadiaz@scu.edu or (408) 554-4546.