Tufts' new Boston data center promises to increase the speed and reliability of the Tufts network thanks to updated technology and additional servers.
The leased space in the Markley Group's Boston Data Center, which became functional this summer, will house technology responsible for improving the efficiency of the Tufts network, according to Philip Pascale, associate director of network services for University Information Technology (UIT).
The data center, described by Director of Communications and Organizational Effectiveness for UIT Dawn Irish as one "one of the most well−constructed and thought−out data centers in the country," is located at One Summer St. in Boston near the Downtown Crossing T stop.
In recent years, as UIT has developed more online services, there has been an increased need for more space to host network providers and servers, Irish said.
UIT has long been considering ways to improve the network speed and connectivity between Tufts' three campuses in Medford/Somerville, Boston and Grafton, according to Associate Director of Telephony and Operations Kyle Pope.
"A few years ago, we started building out a plan to expand our network, and to make it more robust and reliable," Pope said.
The university signed a lease for space in the data center on last winter, moved in during the spring, and by July 1 had installed the network, according to Pope.
Other groups sharing space at the data center include university technology groups from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Irish said.
One Summer St. is now Tufts' third data center, in addition to one located in the Tufts Administration Building and another housed in Miller Hall, according to Irish.
Setting up the Tufts servers at the new site was a complicated process, Pope noted.
"It was literally thousands of pieces that needed to be interconnected," he said. "Our network team did a great job."
The new center offers backup servers and connections put into place should another data center fail, Pope said.
"If either one of those data centers has a problem, you, as a user, would never know," he said. "If something fails, we have the next step in place to take it over, and keep it running as a seamless application."
Having multiple working data centers is also useful if the university needs to shut down one for maintenance, Pascale said.
The new data center will also increase the speed of the Tufts network by using fiber optic cables, which can provide multiple pathways for network requests at once, Pope and Pascale said.
"What that translates to from a client perspective, is that you have a server that can handle many more simultaneous requests and provide better performance," Pascale said.
"If you're running your laptop on the network, it will be faster," Irish said. "If you're running anything that requires access to the Internet connection, it should be faster because of it."
The data center also provides "top−notch cooling facilities" for servers, which cannot function if they become overheated, Irish noted.
"It really does a great job of protecting our hardwire and infrastructure and ability to maintain uninterrupted service," she said.
