{"id":2317,"date":"2020-11-26T11:31:34","date_gmt":"2020-11-26T10:31:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpethzprd.ethz.ch\/its\/?p=2317"},"modified":"2020-11-26T11:31:44","modified_gmt":"2020-11-26T10:31:44","slug":"covid-the-fight-against-it-bottlenecks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/its\/2020\/11\/26\/covid-the-fight-against-it-bottlenecks\/","title":{"rendered":"Covid: the Fight against IT Bottlenecks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">High\nnetwork performance at ETH Zurich was no longer required during the Covid\ncrisis, remote access to the server and laboratory infrastructure via VPN was\nin demand instead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"620\" height=\"312\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/its\/files\/2020\/11\/nl_id_img_231_620.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2405\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/its\/files\/2020\/11\/nl_id_img_231_620.jpg 620w, https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/its\/files\/2020\/11\/nl_id_img_231_620-300x151.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/its\/files\/2020\/11\/nl_id_img_231_620-600x302.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A clarification of the licence situation for <a href=\"https:\/\/ethz.ch\/services\/en\/it-services\/catalogue\/networks-connections\/remote.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (\u00f6ffnet in neuem Tab)\">VPN<\/a> revealed that the site licence allows a reassuringly high level of parallel use for all ETH members. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Demand\nincreased from 1.2 Gbit\/s to 6 Gbit\/s. That&#8217;s five times more than before.<\/li><li>The\ncapacity of the hardware upgrade increased from 5 Gbps to 15 Gbps. That&#8217;s three\ntimes more than before.<\/li><li>The\nold 5 Gbit\/s would have been unable to handle the newly required 6 Gbit\/s.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However,\nthe new VPN hardware with three times the bandwidth capacity was only ready at\nthe end of February. It was feverishly put into productive use within days and\nsuccessfully implemented on Monday, 17 March 2020. Just in time for the\nlockdown, precisely one day before. The old hardware would have been unable to\nsatisfy five times the bandwidth requirement of up to 6 Gbit\/s. A strong\nexpansion of the IP range for VPN prevented another expected bottleneck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Division into fixed Teams<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The\nlockdown meant that hundreds of network zones had to be adjusted, placing a heavy\nstrain on the network team for three weeks. The network group can only provide\nits support services to the full extent from the ETH offices and, after a few\ndays of the lockdown, split up into Team A and Team B. Due to the risk of\ninfection, these two teams have never met in person since then, only virtually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For\ncost reasons, there was no general authorisation for ETH telephone users to\nforward their ETH telephone number to a number outside of ETH. It was not\npossible to move desk telephones to home offices and they had to remain in the\nETH office. To begin with, however, a mobility solution for the ETH telephone\nnumber was only installed in our laboratory. At the end of February, a\nforward-thinking decision was made to grant blanket diversion authorisation for\nall personal connections, which was then implemented on the 15 telephone\nexchanges within a few days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As a\nrule, call forwarding must be set up on the device in the office. However, many\npeople were unable to come to the physical office. The support organisations\nwere also already very busy with the new situation. Processing the large amount\nof requests centrally was therefore not possible. As a consequence, the Phone\nControl Centre was developed within a very short period of time; it enables those\nresponsible to independently control hotline numbers. Appropriate <a href=\"https:\/\/unlimited.ethz.ch\/pages\/viewpage.action?pageId=29236528#Informationsheet%22workingfromhome%22-RedirectPhones\">instructions<\/a>\nwere prepared to relieve the ITS Service Desk and the ISGs (IT Services Support\nGroups at ETH Zurich).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/its\/files\/2020\/11\/Phone_Center.png\" alt=\"Phone Control Centre with instructions on how to redirect the phones\" class=\"wp-image-2319\" width=\"495\" height=\"458\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/its\/files\/2020\/11\/Phone_Center.png 990w, https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/its\/files\/2020\/11\/Phone_Center-300x277.png 300w, https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/its\/files\/2020\/11\/Phone_Center-768x710.png 768w, https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/its\/files\/2020\/11\/Phone_Center-600x555.png 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 495px) 100vw, 495px\" \/><figcaption><em>Phone Control Centre with instructions on how to redirect the phones<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The\nchange stop, which was ordered for six weeks due to the Covid situation, meant\nthat only repairs were carried out on the physical infrastructure or user needs\nwere fulfilled. This caused a delay of about two months to the entire hardware\nlife cycle rollout, which very sadly affects the rollout of the new desktop\ntelephones as well as the data centre, the new network core, WLAN access points\nand the floor switches. Fortunately, the floor switch production and supply\nchains in Asia were running again early enough to make equipping the new STE,\nOCT and GLC buildings on time possible. With an expanded protection concept, it\nwas possible to gradually resume all rollout activities from May 2020, meaning\nthat the entire team is now back in action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While\nIT Security Centre employees are still working from home, the on-site\nmonitoring of all construction projects was never interrupted and our UCT\nplanners ensured that construction progress was not impaired. In some cases,\nthis led to some projects (e.g. Alarmnet Phase 4) being completed up to six\nmonths early.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Contact<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Armin Wittmann, Head of ICT Networks (ITS NET), <a href=\"https:\/\/ethz.ch\/en\/the-eth-zurich\/organisation\/departments\/informatikdienste.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (\u00f6ffnet in neuem Tab)\">IT Services<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>High network performance at ETH Zurich was no longer required during the Covid crisis, remote access to the server and laboratory infrastructure via VPN was in demand instead. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":838,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[257891,25],"tags":[277379,157,297558,46843,20421,297213,289185,297659,2851],"class_list":["post-2317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-it-sec","category-news","tag-corona","tag-eth","tag-eth-telephone","tag-ict-networks","tag-it-services","tag-its-net","tag-lockdown","tag-phone-control-centre","tag-vpn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/838"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2317\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/its\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}