With the start of the summer term bringing with it MSc and undergraduate projects, some improvements are in the pipeline:
Huxley server room expansion: it has been clear for some time now that space is running out in the Huxley 616 server room owing to the continual influx of more systems, many of which are larger power-hungry units that create yet more heat in the room. All 5 racks are pretty much full now, with the two sets of shelving bays full of tower and micro-tower servers. We are looking at ways of either expanding the room or possibly establishing a second server room nearby containing 2 or even 3 racks.
Huxley 616 network management improvements: although capable of remote network management, most of the older network switches on the internal LANs (local are networks) in Huxley 616 are not actually attached to any management network. This because for security reasons it is undesirable to mix a management subnet with other subnets that may be carrying sensitive or confidential data over the LANs they are installed on. We are now gradually replacing these older switches with newer ones whose firmware supports assigning the switch management interfaces to a VLAN (virtual LAN) so that one port on the switch can be reconfigured to use this same VLAN, effectively isolating it from all the other ports and the associated network, and then this port can be connected to the Huxley 616 management LAN. To date, all but three switches have been upgraded with the older units being redeployed on the management network itself where isolation between switch management and the connected network is not required.