Drew’s current Local Area Network (LAN) connects all campus buildings with 12-48 strands of fiber-optic cable, with runs to 4 central points (Brothers College, Learning Center, Pepin and Holloway). Nearly all campus buildings are on the network.
The network backbone is Gigabit Ethernet in a multiple link, redundant meshed configuration between all main network centers. Links to campus buildings are single or multiple 1Gbps links. Network ports are either 10/100Mbps connections or 1Gbps connections, the latter mostly in residence halls.
All faculty and staff offices have at least one network drop. Residence halls have “one drop per pillow,” with extra connections in study areas, lounges, and locations like the Snack Bar and the University Library. Wireless networking covers nearly all academic and public spaces, as well as outdoor locations and some residence halls. All Computer Initiative (CI) students have wired and wireless networking as part of their computer package. Drew provides all faculty, staff, and CI resident students a computer and a network connection. Members of the Drew community access their Drew network resources from off-campus through their own ISP and remote-access technologies.
File, print and directory services are provided by numerous servers in a storage area network (SAN) with features to provide maximum redundancy and fault tolerance. Drew has a single password for all networked resources through the uLogin account.
CNS utilizes Intel-based servers currently provided by HP, and a mix of Linux, NetWare, and Windows Server technologies on its approximately 30 physical servers. In addition, VMWare vSphere is used to provide virtual servers for nearly all server applications. Applications are evaluated and implemented with a focus on integration, single authentication and authorization, and enterprise-grade access control. Novell Identity Manager is used to link 3rd party applications into the uLogin security framework.