ECE provides wired computer network access throughout departmental office space. This is a large and complex network with dual homing on the UofT backbone, routers, gateways, firewalls, traffic monitoring, and nearly 40 switches, serving over 3000 jacks in 48 grad rooms and over 300 offices and labs in Bahen, GB, SF, Pratt, Engineering Annex (and a few locations elsewhere). We operate four climate-controlled server rooms, including one for user-managed servers and clusters.
Our network design accommodates our professors' requests for a range of flexible connectivity options. Some professors have opted to manage their own networking including IP address space, DNS, and optionally self-managed firewall and/or DHCP ('tier 3'); others have asked our department staff to manage all these aspects of their networking ('tier 1' and 'tier 2').
A few professors have entered into industry partnerships whose terms require special network configuration to ensure compliance with non-disclosure agreements ('private networks'). PCs on a private net have very restricted network access, only through a staff-administered (tier 1) gateway PC.
As well, computers linked to staff-administered networks may be assigned either to be user-managed, or administered exclusively by our department support staff. We use VLANS - virtual LANs - to manage connectivity between computers on the same support tier. For better security, we isolate staff-administered computers and networks from user-managed ones:
ECE staff also administer Linux and Solaris servers for research use. ECE research users on any network tier may be assigned a login account by their supervisor on any network tier on these (tier 1) managed systems for research computing. A login account provides email, networked storage with archival backups, and allows running Linux or Solaris software applications such as Cadence, Verilog, etc. on Tier 1 linux hosts, and compiling user source code. Each assigned user login is charged back to the user's supervisor each month while the account remains open.
ECE provides full-time support staff for research computing (as of fall 2016, six full-time staff). Part of the cost of these services, and some pooled costs for network software licenses, are recovered through charge-backs to each ECE research professor based on: the number of PCs on staff-managed networks (tier 1 & 2); number user login accounts on staff-managed servers; and for users without either of these assigned, a modest minimum charge per supervised research group member (grads, postdocs, RAs, techs and visitors/casuals). Each professor is assessed one 'tier 3/wireless only user' fee for each supervisee who is not assigned a billable Tier 1/Tier 2 PC or user login account. (We sometimes refer to this for brevity as a 'tier 3 fee', though it is applicable to any supervisee whether their supervisor does or does not operate a tier 3 network.)
Your supervisor decides what network tier your computer will connect on. If your supervisor has a Tier 3 network, he or she will likely assign you a tier 3 network connection, and will tell you what IP address and gateway/mask settings to use. (ECEHELP cannot tell you what Tier 3 IP to use - ask your supervisor.)
Otherwise, your supervisor may opt to assign you either Tier 1 or Tier 2 network connection. Staff-administered Debian linux workstations are assigned to Tier 1, permitting NFS access to your network home directory and installed linux applications. Staff-administered Windows 7 workstations are assigned to Tier 1.
Some professors use a mix of Tier 1 and 2 networks for their group, so discuss with your supervisor if you have a preference for your assigned PC.
Laptops (owned by ECE or personally) are always user-administered, since you need to be able to manage them when not on campus, so a laptop can only be on Tier 2 or Tier 3 for wired access.
Mac OS systems have not been incorporated as staff-administered, so we also assign Mac computers to either Tier 2 or Tier 3.
Given the size and complexity of ECE's computer networks, we ask your cooperation in keeping our networks manageable and working smoothly. Before connecting any computer to the network in any ECE office, grad room or lab, or relocating a computer from one network jack to another:
Users on any network tier, please…
Users on Tier 1 and Tier 2 networks, please…