Try harder, scammers!

Okay, I’m still laughing about this.

A week ago, I received a phone call from someone that claimed my computer was attacking their systems and that they wanted to work with me to prevent my computer from doing so. Makes sense, right? I mean, of course they would have my telephone number after only seeing my computer’s IP address.

Wait a minute…

It was the end of the day, so I decided to have fun with them. It wasn’t until we were a few minutes in that it dawned on me to record the conversation. Nevertheless, I think some fantastic moments in this audio. Take a break, have a laugh, and tell me what you think in the comments!

Listen: Phone scammers unsuccessful attempt to compromise my computer

Is the Internet broken!?

We knew it was coming.

In fact, emails were being exchanged, bracing ourselves for what was about to occur. Then, sure enough, 1:00pm struck and “the Internet stopped working” . . . at least that’s what I overheard others in the building claiming. What happened?

Unless you live in a cave, you’re aware that Apple released iOS 7 for their mobile devices yesterday. Certainly the owners of the 51,000+ iOS devices on campus knew this. The moment it was released, the amount of traffic leaving the university (bound for the Internet) increased significantly. After the first 15 minute burst, we began to think that was the worst of it. Then 3:45pm came and boom! EVERYONE wanted the latest Apple goodness.

In order to show you how this looks from our perspective, let me give you a baseline. As of this post, the university has roughly 5Gbps of Internet bandwidth from our provider, OARnet. You can see a week ago on last Wednesday, utilization plateaus right around this cap.

Fast forward a week and you can easily see just how much of an impact Apple’s software release had on campus.

Clear as day, right? To be clear, the Internet did not “break”. There was just massive contention for the shared amount of bandwidth we have at the university. The same thing occurred last year with iOS 6, and similar events occurred during last year’s BigTen basketball tournament. It’s no different than everyone jumping onto I-71 at the beginning of a holiday weekend; there’s only so much room on the road.

So to all my colleagues, fellow Apple users, and disgruntled Tweeters out there, this is why “the Internet broke”. I’m sorry getting iOS 7 took longer than you desired. Download it today . . . it just took me 3 minutes! 🙂

There’s too many!

Growth is constant. We know this. Just look at the world population! This is no different when it comes to adoption of technology and use of network resources.

Every autumn quarter — er, semester (still not used to that) — we see an expected jump in users on the campus wireless network. More students are bringing more devices and are connecting to the ever increasing number of Wi-Fi access points we  deploy. It is shocking, however, just how many there are. Let’s take a look.

Going from Autumn 2011 to Autumn 2012, I admit: we were caught off guard. We saw an increase from about 17,000 devices to 27,000 devices – a 59% increase!

Concurrent Wi-Fi usage Fall 2012

Concurrent Wi-Fi usage Fall 2012

This was the first fall term after the iPad was released to the public and the tablet rush began. So, our assessment was that this increase, while monstrous, was an outlier. In previous years, we had seen roughly 15% increases. Going forward, we would be aware of such bursts in Wi-Fi usage while also being cognizant that this increase was not inline with previous trends.

Enter summer of 2013.

Like all summers, we made preparations for fall. In addition to adding IP address space, we also combined the academic and residence hall infrastructure and resources so they could be shared and accommodate both daytime and evening peak usage periods. We were prepared!

Nope. We weren’t.

The amount of growth was once again astounding, now seeing 42,000 devices . . . a 53% increase!

Concurrent Wi-Fi usage Fall 2013

Concurrent Wi-Fi usage Fall 2013

 

With these two consecutive years of unprecedented growth, we have to assume similar growth year after year going forward. This means next year, we could be expecting upwards of ~75,000 devices!

And I thought THIS year has been busy . . . 🙂

Inaugural post?

I am not a good blogger.

Still reading? Okay, I’ll continue.

I have had blogs in the past that were largely unfocused or too self-centered. Expectedly, they were quickly abandoned. The longest running one I have is for my photography site, but even that one seldom sees updates. What’s the common recurring problem?

Time.

Who has time to pause, ponder, and articulate thoughts with any frequency? If you do, I’m envious. With a demanding career, an ever growing entrepreneurship,  a wife, and two kids two years old or less, time is precious and rarely used to contribute to the innerwebs.

Wow. This first post is kind of a downer. My point is that despite all my previous challenges, my thought as it stands today is that this new outlet (u.osu.edu) may just enable me to resurface the pleasure I take in writing. Or . . . it may gather dust like all the rest.

Let’s see what happens . . .