Last Friday, UB experienced a campus-wide network outage which caused either a steady or complete loss of connection, according to UB Information and Technology.
The campus-wide outage was caused by the network’s core primary router hardware failing and rebooting, according to UBIT, then a “few seconds later” the same thing happened to its backup router. Once UBIT found the network outage, UB sent a campus-wide alert from UBIT and University Communications to students.
“This particular event has not occurred before as the network core routing hardware was deployed in the Fall 2019,” UBIT wrote in an email. “The network infrastructure has been designed to include redundant hardware and network paths in order to remain highly available.”
Students may have also experienced irregular cellular data connectivity because a high volume of devices may have been switching to their cell phone carriers while the Wi-Fi was unavailable.
UBIT wrote in an email it will continue to work with cell providers to “enhance” and “expand” internet coverage on all three campuses.
“We attempt to prevent network outages by building redundancy and high availability into the architecture of our critical infrastructure components wherever possible,” UBIT wrote.
Alexandra Moyen is the senior news editor and can be reached at alexandra.moyen@ubspectrum.com and on Twitter @AlexandraMoyen.
Alexandra Moyen is the senior features editor of The Spectrum.
