To provide support for, and plan the orderly development of, the University network so that it operates reliably (e.g. like a public utility service) while evolving to meet changing needs and technology, supporting network-enabled applications such as electonic mail and access to the World Wide Web, both on and off campus through the Internet.

IMPORTANCE TO UNIVERSITY MISSION:

• Facilitates creativity in the discovery of knowledge, creativity in the communication of knowledge, excellence in teaching, quality, innovation, passion for learning, and serving the social needs of our community.
• Supports originality and imagination in research and learning, which in turn maintains and improves the high quality of McMaster's faculty, staff and students.
• In association with other universities, schools, libraries and colleges it brings attention to McMaster's innovativeness and supports the goals of serving our community through external partnerships and serving the social, cultural and economic needs of our community.
• The network is part of the university infrastructure similar to the telephone system.

Potentially all faculty, staff and students of the University. It also enables interaction with external scholars, researchers and the general public, to exchange material with peers at McMaster, and to access publically available information, such as the Library catalogue and web-published information.

HOW WELL IS IT DONE? HOW DO I MEASURE?

(a) Achievement of Objectives

Routed since 1992, it has evolved into a multilayered switched network to meet increased load and diverse requirements. Production reliability continues to be enhanced through added fault tolerance, seeking to ensure service levels as good, or better than commercial services.

(b) Service Level

CIS tracks all network faults, achieving approximately 99.5% service availability. Switched subnets throughout the University confine the majority of faults to limited areas.

(c) Cost

The annual cost of development to keep the network technologically current and maintaining it include the cost of 5 analysts, infrastructure investment, maintenance of existing network, fees for Internet access through ONet (currently $145,000), and modem costs

EXTERNAL LINKAGES

-With Internet access, we have municipal, provincial and global links. Associated with ONET and CA*Net, ONet is evolving into ORION (Ontario Research & Innovation Optical Network)

-Consortium with the Hamilton CommunityNet, Hamilton Public Library, Hamilton Wentworth District School Board, Hamilton Wentworth Catholic District School Board, FibreWired Hamilton, Weslink Datalink Corp.

-Links with Hamilton Health Sciences Corporation, St. Joseph's Health Care, and many affiliated health organisations in the region.

-Other Universities in the province are linked to the national research network CA*Net and across the United States through their Internet3 research network.

INTERNAL LINKAGES

-Informal agreements with various customer organizations with specialised networking requirements and applications within their own subnets to facilitate customer support and maintenance in collaboration with the network group's support for the central infrastructure.

- Network Advisory Group made up of key network customers on campus.