Direct path to the campus’s data center in Delaware County allows for redundancy of vital student and faculty data
With more than 30,000 students, 2,500 employees, and a new data center at its Delaware campus, it is essential that the network at Columbus State Community College (CSCC) remains online at all times to handle its large volume of traffic. To ensure this reliability, the college recently installed a direct dark fiber route from the main campus to its campus in Delaware County. This fiber path to the satellite campus keeps the college’s data secure by establishing redundancy in the northern campus’s data center.
Fibertech Networks, which has been providing fiber services in the Columbus market since 2002 and is based out of Rochester, NY, installed the dark fiber miles that connect the two campuses. The company has focused on its dark fiber offering in Columbus—fiber lines leased directly to organizations that purchase and install their own equipment—and has experienced a great deal of interest in these services from larger institutions. The service was appealing to CSCC because of the ability to own and scale the levels of bandwidth for voice, data, and video during the times that contain the highest volume of network traffic—enrollment periods.
Enrollment periods experience such a high volume of network traffic because all students are required to log on during designated time periods to access their transcripts and sign up for their next classes. Many of CSCC’s students start in the fall with a well-planned path of sequenced classes to reach graduation. Because of this, it is imperative that the college’s network is 100 percent available during these times and that disaster recovery is in place to ensure that transcripts are kept intact and can be easily accessed. If one quarter is impacted by faulty network connections, it can affect enrollment for an entire year.
“During enrollment periods, if we miss our planting seasons, then students miss their harvesting season, too,” said Jim Beidler, director of communication technologies and PC services at CSCC. “Our Fibertech network acts as the heartbeat for data synchronization and high-speed communications to the Delaware Campus data center. Because of this link, we are able to effectively synchronize, store and transport large volumes of data that instructors need for their classrooms and our staff requires for campus operations, including critical enrollment information.”
Fibertech’s ability to provide a linear fiber connection between the two campus data centers in downtown Columbus and Delaware allows the college to mirror its storage, ensure reliability with underground dark fiber, and build out virtual server infrastructure for disaster recovery. The flexibility and quality of this fiber connection also allows CSCC to feel confident that the data traveling from campus to campus is being transferred efficiently and effectively.
“With higher education institutions, you have large populations of people creating and sending large volumes of data on network infrastructure that can get bogged down very easily if not appropriately designed,” said Mike Hurley, vice president of marketing and sales at Fibertech. “Our job is to help these organizations by providing them with reliable, cost-efficient fiber services that allow them to scale their bandwidth accordingly.”
Since 2000, Fibertech has worked with higher education institutions and other large organizations to provide greater broadband capacity to meet the ever-increasing need for data access and storage. The company has been able to help colleges and universities save money by providing cost-efficient fiber services that effectively increase their broadband pipes to the necessary levels. With online learning and multiple campuses becoming more common, institutions must be able to consistently provide the same level of quality education that they offer on their main campuses and Fibertech has been there to work with these facilities to ensure that their needs are met.
About Columbus State Community College
Columbus State Community College has been dedicated to meeting the educational needs of the community for more than 40 years. The College has grown from an initial enrollment of 67 students in 1963, to its current thriving campus of more than 30,000 students. In addition to the Columbus and Delaware campuses, Columbus State operates nine off-campus centers in the suburban neighborhoods of Dublin, Gahanna, Westerville, Groveport, Marysville, Grove City, Plain City, Southwest Columbus at Bolton Field and in Pickaway County.
About Fibertech Networks
Headquartered in Rochester, N.Y., Fibertech Networks is a leader in providing fiber-optic based network services throughout mid-size cities in the Eastern and Central regions of the United States. Fibertech was founded in May of 2000 and has built metro-area fiber networks in 24 mid-size markets in the Eastern U.S. Further information about the company can be found at www.fibertech.com.
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