By spring 2003, computing services in several schools, especially within our high schools, started experiencing problems we had not encountered before. File servers, the main local computers in each building that host most of each building's data, frequently began slowing up and sometimes they actually locked up for short intervals of time. End users suddenly were unable to do any work on their computers and everything looked like the file servers had "crashed."

After some investigation, it was determined that computers within each building were competing for server resources. This problem was greatly exacerbated by the fact that multiple computers in each building were connected to the system via "hubs," which were also trying to "talk" to the server.

The diagram at the right was actually generated live by one of our diagnostic tools. Red segments reflect areas where traffic was temporarily shut down and when that happened anywhere in a building, the file server slowed to a crawl.

By using "switches," instead of "hubs," each individual computer or printer, can "talk" directly to the file server. These "switches" allow the network to handle far more information.

These switches were expensive and took time and money to configure and install. What began in the summer of 2003 was completed for every building in the District by August 2005. We have deployed 900 switches at a cost of over $900,000, using funds from several sources, including Technical Services and Building Services.

These switches are part of a dedicated effort to increase the reliability, capacity and manageability of our District's network infrastructure to insure that students and staff will have their computers perform the way they need to.