UPDATES ON Mak-NETWORK OPTIMIZATION
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Dear Staff,
Optimization (fine-tuning for better performance) of the Makerere network
commenced during the last two weeks of March and will run through to the
end of April 2015.
The excerise was organized by RENU in collaboration with its key partners
that is International Network for the Availability of Scientific
Publications (INASP) of UK, Network Startup Resource Center (NSRC), based
at the University of Oregon-USA, Ubuntunet Alliance-UA the REN for East
and South Africa.
The closing ceremony of the Inception phase was officiated by the Deputy
Vice Chancellor Finance and Administration Prof.Barnabas Nawangwe who
appreciated various stakeholders for organizing the exercise and also
emphasized the importance of the ICT support function provided by the
Directorate for ICT support at Makerere University.He further communicated
about management's commitment to improve DICTS funding for ICT projects
through the Presidential Initiative on Science and Technology starting
with the financial year 2015/2016.Several core network infrastructure
equipment was also donated to DICTS by partners of RENU (NSRC,INASP and
Ubuntunet alliance) during the closing ceremony.
The following were achieved during the direct engineering assistance
exercise (inception phase of optimization);
1) Campus Network audits were done and areas for improvement identified on
a given Unit/college network.
2) Some high-end core network infrastructure was integrated into DICTS
server room.This has created redundancy (increased reliability) on the
core network and will also lead to improved user experience when the
entire exercise is completed.
3) Developed network optimization/management skills for DICTS network staff.
On completion of the exercise,the Mak-network will be more
robust,resilient and reliable and this should result into improved user
experience.However,if after the exercise you notice limited improvement in
user experience,the problem might be with;
1) The configurations on your end-user terminal (computer,smart device etc).
2) Using obsolete computers with poor/slow processing power.
3) Connecting your high speed smart device to wireless internet via older
technology wireless access points (older wireless standards) will have an
impact on speeds.
4) The set-up and state of the local area network to which you are
connected.
5) The time of day also matters.Peak hours (9am-5pm) will always be busier
resulting into slower internet experience.
6) The already strained bandwidth resource due to the high number of users.
Therefore,while the overall Makerere network optimization exercise should
result into improved Grade of Service (GoS) and user experience,the
factors mentioned above might still dampen your experience if ignored.
Therefore,college/unit network administrators should consult with DICTS on
how to improve their local area networks for better performance.
DICTS will also continue to sensitize users on how to optimize their
end-user devices for optimal performance.
A pictorial news brief on the recently concluded direct engineering
assistance exercise,will be released on news.mak.ac.ug.