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FAQ 1.
What is the NEREN Safe Harbor program? 2.
How will participant servers be housed? 3.
How do I manage a server at the Safe Harbor Site? 4.
What are the site capabilities? 5.
Am I considered a NEREN member? 6.
How will the Safe Harbor Site connect to my campus network? 7.
If my campus loses Internet connectivity, what will happen to activate
the Safe Harbor site?
8.
How do we access our equipment at the site?1. What is the NEREN Safe Harbor program? The NEREN Safe Harbor program offers an opportunity for campuses throughout the north east to create a light-weight disaster recovery and business continuity service at a shared site in western Massachusetts. Through the program, we expect campuses can inexpensively create an alternate web presence, email distribution capability and minimal off-site storage. While each campus will be free to implement and maintain its own solution, the Safe Harbor site will allow individual campuses to buy server room space, power, alternate telecommunications and other necessary services at a discount. TOP 2. How will participant servers be housed? The Safe Harbor concept is to give each participant part of a physically secure space to place and maintain their equipment. The individual racks will be lockable and procedures will be established to track access to each rack. Each campus will own their own servers, allowing them to configure and secure their own servers using methods they are comfortable with. This should adequately assure data security for most needs. If a participant requires additional security, NEREN will have the ability to dedicate entire racks with separate locks for individual campuses. TOP 3. How do I manage a server at the Safe Harbor Site? Once installed, most servers allow some sort of network based remote management. This would be the primary method of accessing the server at the Safe Harbor site. In addition, NEREN will provide an out-of-hand keyboard/video/mouse capability that will be accessible over the Internet and by dial-up telephone for each server in the shared equipment racks. TOP 4. What are the site capabilities? The location is fed by two 13,800 volt city grids. The campus has a high voltage automatic transfer switch which switches the entire campus to the back up grid if the primary grid fails. Automatic fail over is 3 seconds. The 13,800 volt main distribution ring feeds a 480v 1200-Amp transformer dedicated to the data center. The data center has a single 1200 Amp, 480-volt AC power feed from this dedicated transformer. Power is connected to a 480-volt automatic transfer switch which handles our 750,000 watt Diesel Generator. The 480-volt automatic transfer switch is set for an 8 second fail over to generator should both grids fail. Street/Generator power is fed into a 160,000 watt, 480-volt UPS system. UPS power is distributed through a primary distribution unit to individual racks at 120 volts. The PDU supports A and B power feeds. Heating, Cooling and Humidity control is provided by a Liebert System3 HVAC unit with redundant compressors, pumps and evaporators. This single unit is internally redundant. Telecommunications vendors currently installed in the data-center:
The campus is staffed with at least two security guards 24/7/365. Exterior doors are locked after 5 pm. The data-center is locked with key-fob access. Full cabinet customers have 24/7/365 access to the data-center and their cabinets. Caged space is available inside the data center and will be custom built to fit your needs. TOP 5. Am I considered a NEREN member? NEREN's members currently include the University of Connecticut on behalf of the Connecticut Education Network, OSHEAN, NYSERnet, the Northern Crossroads, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The Safe Harbor infrastructure is made possible by investments made by UMass, UConn/CEN and OSHEAN in NEREN's North Church Fiber Optic Project. Institutions coming to the Safe Harbor site through a relationship with UMass, UConn/CEN or OSHEAN can benefit from the members prices. All other institutions may participate as non-members. TOP 6. How will the Safe Harbor Site connect to my campus network? NEREN will initially establish a shared ten gigabit Ethernet connection between Springfield, Boston, Hartford and Providence. Safe Harbor will be allocated bandwidth on this network that will interconnect back to each state's education network, and in turn to individual campuses. Individual Safe Harbor participants may request additional dedicated bandwidth to the site that could include dedicated Ethernet or SAN related capabilities. TOP 7. If my campus loses Internet connectivity, what will happen to activate the Safe Harbor site? NEREN has a separate Internet Service Provider link directly out of the Safe Harbor site. The link will be built to operate independently of NEREN or the State Network infrastructure that campuses depend on. This will assure that if providers in other state's are out, the Massachusetts site should still be active. NEREN will also work to build reciprocal agreements to access additional ISP's if the Massachusetts link becomes unavailable. NEREN and the participant's host education network will work with the participant to create a dynamic fail over from the campuses primary connection on to the Safe Harbor connection. The fail over for services like web sites should be no more than 2 minutes. TOP 8. How do we access our equipment at the site? During business hours stop at the guard shack and get a permit to park and tell them you're going into the owner's space. After parking, the front door will be open, allowing you to use an issued electronic key fob to the cage space. Off-Hours again stop at the guard shack and tell them you're going to the owner's space. Your name must be on a pre-approved list. The guard will open the front door and your key fob will get you into the cage space. If a key fob is unavailable, the Guard will have a temporary one for authorized individuals. The guard will not have the key to the rack. TOP |
