on Since we have some time, we would like to provide a brief review of the admissions wave for the winter semester of 2023/2024.
The wave of admissions can also be clearly seen in the volume of emails.
All emails were answered manually and in the shortest possible time.
I will write a separate article about the most notable routers of this admissions wave.
on Next Saturday and Sunday, we finally have the long-awaited network restructuring happening.
These changes are necessary to improve the performance and reliability of our network.
To minimise the impact on you, we’ve planned to carry out the restructuring early in the day. During these times, there are usually fewer users online, which should reduce any inconvenience.
The scheduled offline periods will each last about an hour. We understand that this may be a bit inconvenient temporarily, but we are confident that the long-term benefits will outweigh any short-term inconveniences.
We appreciate your understanding in advance.
Yesterday, Malte worked until 11:30 PM, and Lucas until 1:00 AM, preparing and configuring.
The implementation of network changes started this morning at 10:00 AM and resulted in a longer network interruption across the entire network (student housing and dormitories) at 10:30 AM.
The interruption lasted from 11:30 AM to 2:00 PM and then from 2:30 PM to 3:30 PM. The work was completed by 3:30 PM, and the last device came back online at 4:00 PM.
During the cleanup following the work, no further outages are expected.
Whether work will be needed again on Sunday depends on whether disruptions are reported to us or if we discover issues that are not functioning as desired.
on We replaced our hardware.
Most rooms should be working, some cables need an electrician.
Next step is to stop the leaking heating.
on The water is running through our electrical cabinet, some ports have already failed. Our hardware is now off the grid and will be scrapped.
We will set up new hardware later this evening and place it next to the cabinet in the dry.
on Surprisingly, construction work for Schimpf started last week. Each room, as usual in our dormitories, will have its own network connection with a double network socket, and one connection will be active.
We don’t consider a comprehensive alternative like WLAN networking, which is often desired, to be practical here. Those who have dealt with connecting hundreds of devices to Eduroam will understand why we are avoiding it.
In each room, you can set up your own secure and easy-to-configure WLAN with a simple router for around €35, allowing you to connect everything from a printer to a PlayStation.
The connection of the WG units in Schimpf Eck depends on the work at Pfleghof, whose starting date is still unknown to us. As surprises are possible, we prefer not to estimate when it will be ready. Getting new DSL contracts doesn’t seem sensible to us. We hope that the WG units will find a fair solution to redistribute the internet access costs or find a way to get rid of these contracts once the dormitory is stably connected to our network.
The final connection via fiber optic to our network is planned but not yet confirmed.
on Good morning dear Hohenheim residents!
Today, the Uplink upgrade will be fully implemented. If everything goes well, you will be running on 10G afterwards, and the outages will come to an end.
To transport the Uplink technology from the temporary location at Schwerzstraße 2 to the new location at Egilolfstraße 57, we will need some time. Unfortunately, during this time, the Hohenheim dormitories will be offline.
Since we have to unplug the device and then reconnect it in a different building, it cannot be avoided. However, we will hurry as much as possible.
on It’s time!
Last night, we were given the task to carry out the upgrade.
As mentioned before, we had already prepared a new location for the uplink, which will enable all Hohenheim residences to go online.
To transport the uplink technology from the temporary location at Schwerzstraße 2 to the new location at Egilolfstraße 57, we will need some time. During this time, the residences in Hohenheim will unfortunately be offline.
Since we need to disconnect the device and then reconnect it in a different building, it cannot be avoided. However, we will do our best to expedite the process.
The estimated duration will probably be around one to two hours this afternoon, with several short outages as we make the necessary adjustments throughout the day, starting in the morning.
We will update this post once we have more information.
on We were able to accomplish almost everything we had planned yesterday.
We dismantled and disconnected the three generations of network technology that were stacked on top of each other.
We managed to clean the room to some extent with a broom we found. Once we speak to the janitor, we will find a place for all the electronic waste (see picture).
One of the switches currently in use didn’t look promising during the removal, so we will replace it this Tuesday evening (starting from 6 PM, depending on traffic).
This means that we will need to unplug the cables of the residents of Egilolfstraße 51 to 59 again, and they won’t have internet during this time. Some rooms will be offline for about an hour, while others will experience shorter outages.
Afterward, the room should be prepared for the installation of the main network connection for the entire Hohenheim area.
The relocation and upgrade of this connection still depend on the IT department of the student services.
We hope that with this cleanup operation, we have eliminated any obstacles that could potentially further delay the final resolution of the network issues in Hohenheim.
on In preparation for a solution to the persistent problem, we are cleaning up Egilolfstraße 57 and bringing it up to the standard required by the working group. Unfortunately, the room looks like in the pictures, so we expect it to take 2 to 4 hours. During this time, there may be intermittent network outages for certain parts of our network in Hohenheim.
We are working quickly, but you are welcome to visit us.
on All Hohenheimer dormitories are connected to our network through a central hub.
Until now, this hub was located at Schwerzstrasse 2.
The building is undergoing renovation and will be without power for a while.
The plan was to relocate the hub to the newly renovated Schwerzstrasse 3.
Unfortunately, the connection between the buildings was so poor that we had to move the hub to Schwerzstrasse 1, which delayed the internet interruption accordingly. We planned for 10 minutes, but it took 3 hours.
During operation, we found that the connection there works, but is also too poor for continuous use.
Therefore, we will replace the connections again at around 12 p.m. today.
To keep the interruption short, we will send two teams. We expect the interruption to last less than an hour, ideally just a few minutes.
Update 4:50pm: Thanks to qualified feedback, an unexpected new problem that occurred during the repair of the fiber optic problem was identified and fixed around 4:30 pm. I’ll quote the translated message and thank you on behalf of the Netz-AK.
Hi, we know you’re working hard to switch over to Schwerzstraße. Since we haven’t heard anything new about the switch attempt at 12:00 since this morning’s blog post, we wanted to let you know (in case it hasn’t already been done) that if everything is back to normal, our flat still has problems. Greetings
Nevertheless, we also understand messages that explain to us that the internet is important for studying.
The fiber optic problem was traced to the edge of our network and optimized soon.