While management and operations continue to benefit from a single, consolidated location for this equipment, Penn moves one step closer to being able to distribute its routing load to multiple locations when necessary. Since ATM switching is now a feature, some direct ATM connections are made possible into the production network either to support advanced projects now in production or servers that require the added bandwidth. Pervasive ATM Alternative C represents where the Task Force believes Penn should be in 3-5 years. This is mostly dependent on the necessary investment level, but even more important on the development of products and standards in the marketplace to make deployment of or migration to this alternative possible. Ethernet switches are deployed within buildings as bandwidth requirements demand.
Secure hubs prevent promiscuous listening on the few shared ethernet segments that remain.
If the availability of the products needed to implement Alternative C becomes more distant, this alternative may provide some necessary solutions. Central routing is only for outside or inter-campus connections. Ethernet or fast ethernet switches deployed in all buildings reduce the size of the collision domain and provide a scalable building interconnection. This alternative allows the campus to migrate more slowly to ATM for inter-building connections. Routing switches at the core start to distribute routing load.