Network Facilities | Technology Services Organization

The network facilities in the College of Computing Building (CCB), the Klaus Building (KACB) and the Technology Square Research Building (TSRB) are each equipped with network switches which are connected to an internal 10 Gigabit Ethernet College backbone. A group of Cisco Catalyst 6500 LAN switches form the core of the network, with Cisco Catalyst 6500 and 4500-E series switches as edge devices. The College is uplinked using redundant 10 Gigabit connections to the Georgia Tech Network (GTNet).

Our data center servers connect directly through switched Gigabit Ethernet ports, supplying excellent bandwidth for network services such as file service and digital media. In the CCB data center, we have 10 Gigabit connectivity available for servers. All ports in KACB are hot and operate at switched Gigabit speed. Gigabit Ethernet is our baseline network connection for desktop computing, printers, etc. Provisions for wired, authenticated laptop network access are available at every graduate student desk, faculty office, conference room, common area and classroom in the College. Fiber optic cabling is employed throughout our building risers to uplink edge switches to the main network core routers. Multimode and singlemode optical fiber is available in the majority of research labs and utilized only where distance or speed is required. The Colleges Cisco routers are configured so that they are able to receive and redistribute (route) multicast traffic to any College network.

Wireless 802.11n access is available in College of Computing areas in TSRB and KACB, with 802.11n access arriving in CCB during Fall 2013. Wireless 802.11b is available in the Aware Home. The wireless network service is managed by OIT and is referred to as LAWN (Local Area Wireless/Wakup Network). Wired access to LAWN is also available on all networking ports in CoC buildings. Access to LAWN is available to all faculty, staff, students and guests using their campus GT ID.

External Connectivity

Georgia Tech's state-of-the-art research network provides capabilities with few parallels in academia or industry, delivering unique and sustained competitive advantage to Georgia Tech faculty, students, and staff. Our offsite ISP peerings include diverse commodity Internet links (Cogent, Qwest, PeachNet and TransitRail) and a 10GigE Internet2 link via SoX. Since the mid-80's Georgia Tech and OIT have provided instrumental leadership in high-performance networks for research and education (R&E) regionally, nationally, and internationally. A founding member of Internet2 (I2) and National LambdaRail (NLR) - high bandwidth networks dedicated to the needs of the research and education community - OIT manages and operates Southern Crossroads (SoX, the I2 regional GigaPOP) and Southern Light Rail (SLR, the NLR regional aggregation). We work within the six Southeastern states to make affordable high-performance network access and network services available to researchers and faculty at Georgia Tech, their collaborators, other higher-education systems, K-12 systems, and beyond. Georgia Tech's network has high-performance connectivity to other members of the research and education community world-wide through dual 10 gbps (gigabits per second) links to SoX/SLR, which has peerings with NLR Packetnet, Internet2 Network, TransitRail, Oak Ridge National Labs (ORNL), the Department of Energy's Energy Sciences Network (ESNet), NCREN, NASA's NREN, MREN, FLR, Peachnet, LONI, 3ROX, as well as other SoX participants in the Southeast.

Southern Light Rail: A Georgia Tech affiliated organization structured as a not-for-profit membership corporation formed to implement, operate and maintain connectivity to the Atlanta National LambdaRail (NLR) node on behalf of Georgia Tech and other research institutions in the Southeast. This “Southern Light Rail (SLR)” corporation is responsible for representing the interests of its members with NLR and facilitating access to the NLR network for its members. SLR also serves as an umbrella organization for managing the Southern Crossroads (SoX) initiative and interconnections with regional optical networks in the Southeast.

National LambdaRail (NLR): a consortium of leading U.S. research universities and private sector technology companies comprised of 13 Members and several Associates that include over 280 universities, research institutions and other organizations. NLR has deployed of a new and unique national networking infrastructure to foster the concurrent advancement of networking research and next generation network-based applications in science, engineering and medicine. NLR's goal is to stimulate research and development for next generation network technologies, protocols, services and applications. Georgia Tech is connected to the NLR Atlanta PacketNet node via multiple 10-Gbps wavelengths and Gigabit Ethernet connectivity to PacketNet in Houston. National LambdaRail's nationwide advanced optical network infrastructure has nodes located in 28 US cities and is capable of meeting the needs of the most demanding network and scientific research.

NLR WaveNet Lambda-Based Services. Dedicated, point-to-point, high-capacity 10GE or 40GE LAN-PHY or OC-192 network connections, enabling users to control their own end-to-end pathways.
NLR FrameNet Ethernet-Based Services. Shared or dedicated point-to-point or multi-point transport at multi-megabit, 1- and 10GE data rates for high-volume data flows.
NLR PacketNet IP-Based Services. Shared routed service, connects educational institutions with one another, as well as with other networks, such as regional, national and international, IP-based research and education networks.
Southern Crossroads (SoX): a SLR initiative, contracted to Georgia Tech, has been providing value to the southeast by offering cost effective Internet2 and commodity Internet access to Georgia Tech and other southeastern US universities.

The Georgia Board of Regents - PeachNet: The University System of Georgia has implemented a statewide fiber optic network to connect the Georgia colleges and universities to each other and the R&E networking resources in Atlanta. The PeachNet network provides, Internet2, commodity Internet and network connectivity in addition to dedicated 10 GigE connection to Georgia's other major research universities such as University of Georgia, Medical College of Georgia, Georgia State and Georgia Tech-Savannah. SLR and Georgia Tech are interconnected with PeachNet.