Most colleges and universities were unprepared for the extraordinary connectivity demands placed on their technology systems during the pandemic. Their ability to build capacity and meet demands for students, staff, and faculty during the pandemic was remarkable. Now institutions face a much different present and future requiring ubiquitous access and security.
Mark Reynolds, Associate Director of IT at the University of New Mexico, recently made a presentation highlighting the IT demands pre- and post-pandemic as part of the recent Fierce Education’s virtual event: Higher Education: Technology Profiles in Success–Spring.
Leading an IT team of 400 staff, Reynolds shared the pre-pandemic campus landscape of wired and Wi-Fi connections his team supported. Like many universities, it was a mix of wired and wireless connectivity. The norm for the University of New Mexico, as for most universities, was in-person classes or on-demand recording for playback, and faculty and staff working in on-campus offices. Teaching and learning, campus operations, and security were all adequately supported with the mix of systems and technology infrastructure they had built.
The pandemic changed everything
One of the primary shifts in campus technology during the pandemic was that the wired connections used primarily for OT, IoT devices, security, and access control were of minimal use to students, staff, and faculty on campus as most system users were remote. There was a decreased need for Wi-Fi coverage on campus, but there was increased need for hot spots for students or partnering with city program for hot spot locations, such as bus stops, libraries, and parking lots.
Most of the university community was now accessing systems remotely with VPN concentrators and high-bandwidth applications. All education courses moved online, recorded for playback. There was also a learning curve for video conferencing programs like Zoom, Teams, and Go-to Meeting. “All the things we had been dabbling in now became status quo,” said Reynolds. “With remote staff setting up offices in their residences, network connection latency became an issue as they shared the use of the network with family or others.”
Cybersecurity now became an even greater concern at the perimeter and through the back door with apps through the VPN, and network vulnerability became a significant issue. To protect the systems, multi-factor authorization became the standard method of operation for access to the network. “Meetings changed from ‘nice to have’ to going overboard—meetings on top of meetings changed the mindset and the anxiety levels of staff, faulty, and students,” said Reynolds. “It was a strain on the IT staff to support all these changes. We weren’t ready.”
IT expectations post-pandemic
Students, faculty, and staff are now working in hybrid mode—on and off campus. Everyone has their own expectations about connectivity. Wired connections are now being used again but not at full capacity as hybrid is the new norm. Remote workers and hybrid students are straining the systems, but the expectation is for anywhere/anytime access for playback and streaming. The cybersecurity vulnerability has not changed from the pandemic years. The network is still at high risk with denial-of-service attacks and maintaining business continuity.
The new normal post-pandemic reliance on the network for stability, little to no latency and redundancy has further strained the design and support of the IT infrastructure and staff. “Connectivity is king,” said Reynolds. “Speed, integration, ubiquitous coverage, low latency, ease of use, and ease of hand off or hand over is now the normal, not the exception. Universities have to embrace all forms of connectivity that is not just ubiquitous, but is interconnected.
“The moral of the story is no matter where you go, no matter what devices people have, people expect them to connect,” said Gerri Hinkel, Director of Solutions and Vertical Marketing at Aruba, one of the sessions’ sponsors. “You can’t be narrow-minded and assume that one hyper-connectivity or radio-access network will meet all your needs.”
“Inter-connectivity is a tougher challenge to address,” she said. “IoT, SMART spaces and buildings, the number of student devices, and supporting the teaching and learning changes are all dependent on a foundational ability to connect reliably.”
Principal Architect at AT&T Devon Winthrop, the session cosponsor, said “it’s important to keep in mind that there needs to be a ubiquitous edge too. Should the traffic flow all the way to the cloud? Or should we bring the cloud to the multi-edge core?” Winthrop reminded attendees that the edge is more than just the devices; it’s the router, the end points, and the cloud. Because of network complexity, “security as a service is becoming more important and in demand,” said Winthrop.
For Reynolds, his current challenge is to focus on the learning curve of supportability. “We have competing demands for cloud-based and on-premise technologies, and we need to maintain support while we refresh which requires funding – our biggest challenge.”
To view the demand session, click here.
For more news from the event, see:
Technology Critical to Facilitate Higher Education Decision-Making