The National Science Foundation recently awarded Goshen College over $550,000 for upgrades to its campus internet network.
The grant is part of the National Science Foundation's Campus Cyberinfrastructure program. The upgrades will benefit STEM education and research.
“This grant will allow us to upgrade the network backbone and our internet connection in a manner that creates a redundant, high-speed network core that can serve STEM processes, STEM research, computer labs and more,” said Paul Housholder, director of the college’s information technology infrastructure, in a press release.
Goshen College’s internet connectivity is currently limited to two gigabits per second. It can’t prioritize academic traffic and lacks redundancy. If the school’s internet connection were to fail at its source, the entire campus would lose connection.
The grant funding will be used to quadruple the school’s bandwidth. It will also create redundant fiber paths across the campus, safeguarding the school’s internet connection.
Although the campus will have eight Gbps of connectivity across the board, the upgrades will enable STEM research to be prioritized with a high-speed 10 Gbps connection to a statewide research network. The upgrade will provide 144 terabytes of storage for research and analysis across STEM departments — more storage than the entire school’s current combined Google Drive usage.
Most of the newly purchased hardware is being installed this summer, with the speed and security upgrades set to go online in the fall. Over the next year, the remaining components of the project, including the dedicated STEM storage center, will be installed as the technology becomes available.
The project will also create internships for student technical specialists, providing them with technical experience in a real-world setting. The student workers will assist with implementation and system maintenance and support.
The benefits of the upgrades extend beyond technical expertise, according to Paul Meyer Reimer, physics professor.
“This will also allow us to better cooperate with colleagues in other countries,” Meyer Reimer said. “And a strength of Goshen College is our personal relationships across the world, and this allows us to continue that, and tap into international education from campus.”
