Campus Wi-Fi Service Congestion

Some users of the Campus Wi-Fi network are experiencing poor performance and connection problems due to the large number of people connecting to Wi-Fi access points in certain locations. The areas exhibiting the greatest congestion are:

1. Library Building
– LIB-72 Lecture Hall
– 2nd floor “Commons” area
– 4th Flr north west corner
– 6th Flr south west corner
– 7th Flr south side of building
– 8th Flr south east corner
– 9th Flr south east corner

2. George Vari Engineering and Computing Centre(ENG)
– Lower Ground
– ENG-201 Area

3. Kerr Hall East (KHE)
– Near KHE-119
– Near KHE-124
– Near KHS-247
– Near Lecture Hall KHE-225
– Near Lecture Halls KHE-322 and 332

The problem is partly the result of the steady increase in the usage of smart phones and iPads on campus. At times the number of smart phones and tablets connected to Wi-Fi access points represent 50% of the total number of Wi-Fi connections.

Computing and Communications Services has an ongoing program in place to increase the number of access points, which will reduce the access point-to-user ratio across campus and improve performance. The highest priority is being given to the areas listed above.

We apologize for the lack of coverage in these areas.

– Computing and Communications Services

Update February 17, 2012:

Over the weekend starting February 25 CCS will begin work on adding 18 new Wi-Fi access points in the Library building. If all goes well, the new Wi-Fi access points will be enabled on Monday Feb 27 and should relieve some of the Wi-Fi congestion in the Library.

The following list is where we plan to add new library access points:

5 – 1st floor
3 – 2nd floor
1 – 4th floor NW
3 – 5th floor
2 – 6th floor
1 – 7th floor
1 – 8th floor
1 – 9th floor
1 – 10th floor

We are also working through our options to add access points in the ENG building. Once we have scheduled  work in ENG we will post more information about Wi-Fi upgrades here.

Update February 28, 2012:

On Monday Feb. 27, 14 new access points came online in the library. The remaining four should be online today.

Update March 6, 2012:

Over the weekend starting Saturday March 10, CCS will begin installing another 19 access points in the George Vari Engineering and Computing Centre (ENG). We will add 9 on the 1st floor and 10 on the LG level. In the summer we will add more access points the 19 we add this weekend should help reduce congestion.

Update March 12, 2012:

Unfortunately, while new cables were installed last weekend in ENG, the installation work was not completed.  The new access points will not be available until some time after Wednesday.

Update March 29, 2012:

Last week we completed installation of 19 access points in ENG. The new ENG access points are located in rooms:
101,102, 103, 105, 106, 124, 132, 136, 157 LG4-1, LG4-2, LG13, LG14-1, LG14-2, LG21, LG23, LG24, LG26

We also added 16 more access points in Kerr Hall and replaced 2 defective APs. Locations:
3 APs in KHE-321C, 3 APs in KHE-321A, 4 APs in KHE-221, 3 APs in KHW-371, 1 AP outside KHN-111, 1 AP in Rye-O-Mat, 1 AP in KHS-45A, swapped out non functioning units in KHN-202 and KHN-3rd NE corner.

We also added 6 APs in Theatre School, outside the following rooms:
THR-105, THR-101, THR-203, THR-206, THR-302, and THR-306

We plan to add 7 access points in IMA by next week

Update September 7, 2012:

Thirty five new access points were added to the Library on August 31 and 109 new access points are being added to ENG in the next two weeks.

Update: Here’s a graph showing the types of devices that connected to Ryerson’s Wi-Fi network over a 24 hour period. Click on the image to see the entire graph.

Graph showing the distribution of devices and their operating systems. iPhone is the most popular followed by Windows laptops.

For more up-to-date information please see: http://www.ryerson.ca/ccs/connecting/oncampus/wireless/wireless_expansion_renewal/

 

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GroupWise web & internet access unavailable: Monday, Jan. 30, 2012 3:30 PM – 4:00 PM

A GroupWise process failure with one of the systems (GW1) caused the GroupWise Web & Internet access to become unavailable around 3:30 PM, today, Monday, Jan. 30.   Services were restored at approximately 4 PM.

We apologize for the service disruption.

-Computing and Communications Services

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Contact & Directory search capabilities unavailable: Monday, Jan. 30, 2012 1:20 PM – 2:38 PM

The search capability on Ryerson’s website under the “Contact & Directory” web page was unavailable today, from approximately 1:30 PM to 2:38 PM, due to a system change that inadvertently introduced the problem.

Precautions are being made to avoid future incidents of this nature.

Please accept our apologies for the problems this outage caused.

-Computing and Communications Services

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TRS and YDI building network and IP phone outage: Monday, Jan. 23 14:35 pm – 14:45 pm

A hardware CPU failure in one of the TRS routers was experienced today, at approximately 14:35 PM. The outage lasted approximately 10 minutes, while services failed over to a backup CPU.

The service outage affected the TRS and YDI buildings, and included a loss of wired and wireless connectivity, as well as IP phone services. Network Services is investigating the cause of the failure.

We apologize for the service disruption.

– Computing and Communications Services

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blog.ryerson.ca problem – Wednesday, Jan. 18 2012 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM

At approximately 11am this morning, the blog.ryerson.ca server became unresponsive.  The server was restarted and is now back online.  CCS is investigating the cause of the problem and apologizes for any inconvenience the problem caused.

-Computing and Communications Services

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my.ryerson.ca login problem – Thursday, Jan. 12 2012 2:22 PM – 2:45 PM

The Central Authentication System (CAS) that allows you to log into my.ryerson.ca and other systems experienced a problem starting at approximately 2:22 PM today. Services were restarted and fully available at 2:45 PM.

Please accept our apologies for the problems the outage caused.

-Computing and Communications Services

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Intermittent access issue for MAC OSX 10.7.2 (Lion) users

A small number of Mac users have expressed some intermittent issues while connecting to the Wireless RU-Secure and RYERSON networks, as well as the Wired captive portal network on campus. The symptoms are showing as declined connection and/or not being able to download the authentication web page.

After looking into the problem, CCS has discovered that there is a issue with OSX 10.7.2 (Lion) in regards to HTTPS, WPA2 and captive portal certificate handling.

The solutions offered by Apple/Mac involve disabling the security checks of the certificates within browsers or within the Key-chain itself. CCS does not recommend taking this action as it leaves the user’s computer vulnerable to unverified certificates. CCS will continue to investigate the issue.

We apologize for the service interruption.
– Computing and Communications Services

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Major service disruption (including RAMSS and OGF): Friday, Jan. 6, 2012 6:00PM

A failure with one of the UPS (Uninterrruptible Power Supply) systems in the data center caused a number of servers to loose power, due to lack of power source redundancy.   The incident happened around 6:00 PM.   Technical staff are restoring services as quickly as possible.

Affected services included RAMSS and the Finance system, as well as a few other services (e-mail scan servers, some web services).   Some of the e-scan services were not affected due to redundancy of servers in other data center locations.   Most other services have been restored.   We’re still working on RAMSS and the Finance system.

Update: RAMSS service was restored as of 9:20 p.m.

Update: OGF and Markview services were restored around 10:15 p.m.

We apologize for the service disruption.

-Computing and Communications Services

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GroupWise Problem Sending and Receiving Email

Some time after 7 PM today CCS began receiving reports that GroupWise was no longer delivering or sending Email. Staff are on the way to campus to investigate.

Update: 9:15 PM: The GroupWise gateway server, responsible for receiving and sending mail,  rebooted itself some time around 5pm. It’s services did not start automatically so were down until they were manually started at 8:45pm. Email that was delayed should already be arriving in GroupWise mail boxes and outbound mail that was not sent earlier is now being sent.

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GroupWise web access unavailable Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2012 11:45 PM – Wednesday, Jan. 4 8:10 AM

A GroupWise process hung last night, around 11:45 PM, causing web client access to fail when connecting to GroupWise.   Services were restored at 8:10 AM, Wednesday, Jan. 4.

We apologize for the service disruption.

-Computing and Communications Services

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