Bringing a campus cabling plant up to standard
by Betsy Ziobron and Janet Crook

With the pride and spirit of the Fighting Irish, the University of Notre Dame’s five-person infrastructure team embarks on a campus-wide upgrade.

Renowned for its academic reputation, the University of Notre Dame was founded in 1842, and today is organized into four undergraduate colleges, ten major research institutes, more than forty centers and special programs, and a prestigious University library system. The University is situated on 1,250 acres with 136 buildings including the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, the 14-story Hesburgh Library, and the Golden Dome, which are among the most widely recognized university landmarks in the world. As the nation’s top-ranking Catholic university, school pride permeates the entire Notre Dame campus. No exception to that pride are recent efforts by the University’s in-house infrastructure team to upgrade the campus cabling plant and implement new technologies.

Strength in small numbers
Maintaining and upgrading a cabling plant for a 136-building campus is no easy task for a team of five. While subcontractors are sometimes hired for large-scale projects, approximately 95% of the campus cabling is completed by Notre Dame’s own five-person cabling infrastructure team, which includes a network designer, installation manager, and three technicians. “Our team handles this entire campus, which is like a small city with over 16,000 users,” says Eric S. Mauch, network design engineer. “We’re so familiar with the closet locations and the logistics that it’s a huge cost saving to keep everything in house.” The team is responsible for pulling and terminating a variety of cable for voice, data, video, and Cable TV during upgrades, renovations, new construction, and day-to-day moves, adds, and changes (MACs).
According to Dr. Dewitt Latimer, the University’s chief technology officer and deputy CIO, Notre Dame utilizes an in-house team for cost and performance benefits. “The fast responsiveness and ability to fine tune the work on our own schedule to meet our exact specifications is a key benefit of having an in-house team,” says Latimer. “Notre Dame invests heavily in the professional development of its staff across the board, and the team takes a lot of pride in what they do.”
With only five individuals to manage the infrastructure, selecting tools and technologies to save labor time is imperative. “When we’re pulling cable for upgrades and new projects, we still have the day-to-day issues to deal with,” says Mauch. “Tools and technologies that save time are well worth the money.”

Start of something big
Although its buildings may be decades old, the University of Notre Dame’s technology has brought high-speed Internet, email, and network access to over 16,000 users since 1996 when the University activated a campus-wide networking system. To bring the cabling infrastructure up to today’s standards and implement state-of-the-art technologies, the University recently embarked on a campus-wide upgrade. “We have multiple technology goals we’re trying to achieve at Notre Dame, and our broadest goal is to assist the faculty and staff in integrating the appropriate technology into their teaching and research programs,” says Latimer. “A robust infrastructure is an integral part of that goal.”

One of the University’s initial projects is the recent renovation of Hesburgh Library, built in 1963 for a collection that has grown from 200,000 to nearly 3 million volumes. The 14-story library is renowned for its 132-foot high mural of Christ the Teacher, known as “Touchdown Jesus,” that overlooks the end zone where fans cheer on the Fighting Irish. In late 2001, the University set out to reconfigure the library’s lower level to create a pleasing study environment with Internet access at every seat.

In the basement of the library, existing Category 4 cabling ran from telecommunication closets (TCs) to junction boxes and up through a concrete ceiling to workstations located throughout the library’s main floor. The demolition of the library’s basement included the removal of walls and solid concrete ceiling, as well as a comprehensive asbestos abatement. “The biggest challenge was to keep the existing Category 4 connections on the main floor active while the basement ceilings and walls came down,” says Jeff Freymuth, installation manager for the team. The team worked in the evening hours to reterminate the existing Category 4 cable above the concrete ceiling.
The Hesburgh Library basement was the first Category 6 cabling installation on the Notre Dame campus, designed with a combination of jacks, patch cords, patch panels, and faceplates from Hubbell Premise Wiring (www.hubbell-premise.com) and Category 6 plenum cable from CommScope (www.commscope.com). In the library’s basement and on the main floor, Category 6 plenum cable terminates to over 600 Hubbell Category 6 Xcelerator jacks installed in IFP faceplates. In five new basement TCs, Category 6 cable terminates via Hubbell’s Xcelerator Jack Panels, which feature a snap-in design for easy installation and simplified MACs. “We like the snap-fit panels, because we believe that a jack-to-jack connection offers the best performance and lowest loss,” explains Mauch. Under Hubbell’s 25-year Mission Critical warranty, the system will provide guaranteed PSACR (Power Sum Attenuation-to-Crosstalk Ratio) headroom, which ensures optimal system performance and assists in limiting the BER (Bit Error Rate) that can cause costly retransmissions and downtime.

In selecting the cable and connectivity, the infrastructure team showed their true University pride by concentrating on aesthetics. “I believe that if we look good, we feel good about our telecommunication spaces and take better care of the infrastructure,” says Mauch. CommScope provided Notre Dame with “Irish-green” Category 6 plenum cable printed with “University of Notre Dame” directly on the cable jacket. For the connectivity, Hubbell manufactured exclusive gold patch cords, green cable ties printed with the Notre Dame logo, and special Xcelerator jacks. To match University colors, each Hubbell 6-port IFP faceplate included one blue jack for voice and three gold jacks for data. Hubbell also printed blanks for unused ports with a gold “ND.” “Both CommScope and Hubbell were willing to work with us on the aesthetics,” says Mauch. “The workstations are classy looking and specific only to Notre Dame.”

In keeping with the team’s effort to choose tools and technologies that save labor time, Hubbell’s 1-Punch punch down tool was utilized for the Hesburgh Library project. The 1-Punch saves time by accurately punching down and simultaneously cutting off all eight conductors laced to a Hubbell Xcelerator jack. “The library upgrade was the first Notre Dame project where the 1-Punch tool was in mass use, and it saved almost 20,000 punches,” says Freymuth. “We each had one, and it was the golden tool.”

Campus-wide endeavors
In addition to installing Category 6 in the remaining areas of Hesburgh Library, several other projects are also underway at the University to enhance network speed and implement new technologies. In 2003, Notre Dame began implementing a wireless network, nicknamed “NOMAD,” that utilizes 802.11b access points in many academic and social areas. “In the same spirit of delivering bandwidth to where we do business, we’re implementing wireless where the faculty teach and the students learn,” says Latimer. “People don’t think linearly – learning includes a complex web of thoughts and taking tangents from here and there to solve problems. Being able to access appropriate information in real time via wireless is very powerful.”

Because the University takes a holistic approach to technology, focusing on end-to-end performance, another project in the works is the implementation of dark fiber from 90 miles away in Chicago.
This project will provide access to increased research-based bandwidth via the Internet2/Abilene Backbone Network, a complement to high-performance research networks. Internet2 is a consortium led by 200 universities to deploy advanced network applications and technologies, and Abilene connects regional network aggregation points, called gigaPoPs, to support the work of Internet2 universities. “What we pay for commodity Internet is considerably more than what the Chicago market enjoys,” says Latimer. “Because we have an insatiable appetite for commodity bandwidth, we’re using what we’re currently paying for it in the South Bend market to fund the dark fiber initiative into Chicago.” According to Latimer, the fiber will nearly quadruple the bandwidth into the Notre Dame campus for the same amount of money currently being paid for Internet and Internet2 communications.
Other significant projects include upgrading the residence halls to 100Base-T. “Notre Dame has a commitment to student life and the residential experience, and we all recognize that learning takes place in many venues, including the dorms,” says Latimer. “We are upgrading ResNet, our campus-wide residential network, to deliver the same level of performance to students as we deliver to faculty and staff.” Slated for completion in the second semester of the 2003-2004 academic year, the ResNet upgrade will deliver 100 Mbps to the port, which according to Latimer, is requisite for students to function in terms of workload. Upcoming construction on the Notre Dame campus entails a Category 6 install at an addition to the University Law School and at the new Guglielmino Athletic Center. A new cabling infrastructure with over 5000 Category 6 connections will be installed at the new science-learning center, and 3000 Category 6 connections are planned at the joint Indiana University/Notre Dame medical education and research facility. A new performing arts center is also in the early stages of construction on the Notre Dame campus, and with 96 strands, it will be the biggest installation of singlemode fiber on campus. For future projects and upgrades, Notre Dame has selected the Hubbell-CommScope Category 6 solution with exclusive green Category 6 cable, gold patch cords, and special colored Xcelerator jacks in high-profile areas across the campus. “Notre Dame is growing, and many challenges are on the horizon,” says Mauch.

Obstacles from the past
The hierarchical star topology of the University of Notre Dame’s campus cabling plant was originally designed with 96 strands of 62.5µm multimode fiber optic cable and 24 strands of singlemode fiber optic cable. Fiber runs from the main cross connect in the basement of Hesburgh Library to seven intermediate cross connects in key buildings. “The seven key buildings are strategically located to serve different areas of the campus. They extend second-level backbone cabling to each of the remaining 128 buildings via 24 strands of multimode and 12 strands of singlemode,” explains Mauch. Although Notre Dame does not have a token ring environment, Category 4 was chosen in the early 1990s because at that time, it was the standard. “There is still some remaining Category 4 cabling that needs to be replaced, because it’s not adequate for moving to 100BASE-T and not compliant with current standards,” says Mauch.
Most of the Notre Dame’s 27 residence halls contain one TC in the basement. “Some of the residence halls are over one hundred years old, and when they installed ResNet, they made a closet out of anything they could,” says Mauch. “We’re now working to get out of the broom-closet mentality and establish compliance with EIA/TIA 568-B standards, which will require the implementation of fiber riser and a TC on each floor with proper equipment racks, isolated ground power, and cooling.” Upgrading the ResNet system to 100Base-T will be a challenge for the infrastructure team, requiring the installation of Category 6 cabling in pathways originally designed for smaller-diameter Category 4. “We will pull out the Category 4 and try to use as much of the existing pathways as possible,” says Mauch. “Residence halls are also the most difficult to upgrade because many of them have old, thick plaster walls and they’re occupied 24 hours a day.”

Because coax cable was not originally pulled into the residence halls, the University has had to consider other options for bringing Cable TV to the students. “We’re looking at video over IP to offer Cable TV, a trend that’s emerging in the academic world,” says Latimer. “We can’t afford to take the residence halls off line and try to pull in coax, and video over IP is one of the drivers behind upgrading the system for sufficient bandwidth.”
Like all universities, Notre Dame faces frequent MACs, and the existing 110 cross connect system using two-pair cable instead of 110-to-110 patch cords has proven difficult to label and timely to maintain. “Network engineers have to go floor to floor searching for active ports and open pairs to accommodate moves, adds, and changes,” says Mauch. While the Notre Dame infrastructure team has control over station cable, labeling, testing, and connectivity, a lack of control over the line cord from the PC to the workstation is a concern moving forward. “Although we’ve made great strides, we’re only as fast as our slowest link,” says Mauch. “With over 16,000 users, we don’t always know what is being plugged into the network. That’s why we need to educate students and staff on the importance of not just plugging in mom’s old phone cord, or using an old cord that may be too long or has impedance issues.”

Not just for technology’s sake
Although many challenges lie ahead for Notre Dame’s five-person infrastructure team, campus upgrades will be facilitated by timesaving technologies, such as Hubbell’s plug-and-play optical cassettes. The cassettes are adapter panels installed with factory terminated MTP multi-fiber fanouts that eliminate the need for connector termination. “We used the plug-and-play cassettes in our server room to connect the servers to the LAN. Because the cassettes terminate 12 SC connectors to one 12-fiber MTP ribbon connector, we can easily connect switches and save on labor,” says Mauch. “As we move forward, we will continue to investigate new technologies that help us get the job done.” The University of Notre Dame was the first installation site for Hubbell’s plug-and-play cassettes.
University pride, whether seen in cabling aesthetics or the team’s diligence, is also fundamental to the success of Notre Dame’s five-person infrastructure team. “Customer service is our highest priority; whether it’s a professor, staff member, or student,” says Freymuth. “Whenever there’s a cabling issue, it comes back to us. And we’ve received a lot of positive feedback.”
According to Latimer, delivering a robust end-to-end infrastructure is a substantial investment for the team and the University, one that requires a fundamental approach. “It doesn’t do us any good to deliver 100 Mbps to the faceplate if the building uplinks are saturated, and it doesn’t do us any good to upgrade the core if our WAN connections to commodity Internet don’t provide enough bandwidth,” says Latimer. “We’re very careful at Notre Dame to not implement technology for technology’s sake. Our goal is to deliver service in the best way possible while looking at the big end-to-end performance picture.”

Betsy Ziobron is a freelance writer for the cabling industry.
Janet Crook is with Hubbell Premise Wiring Marketing Communications.

Reprinted with revisions, from the January 2004 edition of Cabling Installation & Maintenance.
Copyright 2004 by PennWell Corporation.