05 March 2020 - Janet capacity statement for ucisa members, UUK working party and other ucisa activity
Statement for ucisa members from Jisc re: Janet capability if usage changes
“We are confident that Janet can meet any potential increase in demand if our members decide to ask staff and students to work from home.
Janet has a significant external connectivity (over 3Tbit/s in total) across a number of geographically diverse locations. Connectivity between other Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Janet is done via LINX (London Neutral Internet Exchange) with two diversely routed 100 Gbit/s connections or via direct peerings (connections). We also have an additional 500 Gbit/s of external capacity that is available to us as part of our global transit arrangements, which would be used in the event of any congestion to engineer around congestion at the LINX if necessary. As part of our general programme of capacity upgrades, we’re also planning to increase our LINX capacity this summer and are currently bringing those plans forward.
Where members operate email and other services from cloud providers, that traffic would not normally touch Janet when accessed from domestic broadband services. However if home workers are using a VPN to connect to specific campus based services, members might like to ask their staff to be careful to check and verify any split-tunnelling configuration to ensure that traffic intended for third party sites doesn't unnecessarily travel their campus network twice. This would particularly apply if a VPN is left running while someone is watching any streaming services after work.
ucisa Trustee representation on the Universities UK HE sector coordination group
Arthur Clune, Director of Infrastructure and Faculty IT at the University of York (and Co-opted Director on the ucisa Board of Trustees) is representing ucisa on UUK’s working party. They are convening on Friday 6 March to discuss a variety of challenges. Of most interest to ucisa members are: institutional planning and preparedness for teaching, learning and student experience; examination scheduling and graduation; and off-site staff working and IT resilience. We will also be asking UUK to ask a wider question of government about the resilience of other commercial suppliers (such as Virgin and BT).
ucisa liaison with corporate members
We are writing to all ucisa corporate members about the potential impact on ucisa institutional members. We are beginning with key network and infrastructure companies, and with suppliers listed on the annual ucisa Corporate Information Systems survey and will represent your concerns.
ucisa liaison with international partners
ucisa is in contact regarding the current situation with equivalent membership bodies in Australia CAUDIT , America EDUCAUSE , Canada CUCCIO and Europe EUNIS.
