Proceedings »
Academic Network Operations Center (ANOC) Project
This poster presentation will present the experiences and skills I gained as part of an ongoing undergraduate student lab-worker project that involves designing, building, troubleshooting, and maintaining the Academic Network Operations Center (ANOC). The ANOC provides 24/7 remote-lab access to more than 500 students in 20 graduate and undergraduate courses annually. Phase 1 of this project began in the summer term of 2016 with an outdated lab, repurposed with the addition of over 100 new devices. These additions called for the complete relocation and redesign of the lab infrastructure.
Details are provided on the methodologies and best practices I used to relocate, design, build, and bring the ANOC up to an operational state. Precise troubleshooting and preventative maintenance quickly proved invaluable throughout the project. In addition, I will share from the perspective of an undergraduate student, how the project reinforced classroom theory, with in-depth and hands on experience, which came from working in a live operational environment. The project learning experience went beyond just building critical technical knowledge and skills, it also required the application of strong team work ethics, communication and project management skills as well. Collaboration and coordination with the various support teams, University offices, faculty, and product vendors were critical to meeting project deadlines.
We are now in phase 2 of the project and have incorporated varying departmental proof of concept and IPv6 research projects into our system. We are currently working on proof of concept for virtualizing industrial automation lab equipment to provide remote access to labs for industrial engineering classes. To conclude the poster presentation, I will outline some of our best and most common practices so that similar projects can be replicated at other schools and adapted to other student projects.
Author(s):
Taylor Broach
Department of Technology Systems
East Carolina University
United States
John Pickard
Department of Technology Systems
East Carolina University
United States
Phil Lunsford
Department of Technology Systems
East Carolina University
United States