Meet the IT Staff: Network and Telecommunications Services

Jay Lively

Manager

Accomplishments

• Led the migration of campus networks to private IP address space, leading to increased protection for non-public devices through limiting exposure to the public Internet.
  
• Oversaw the completion of the deployment of a modern VoIP phone solution, bringing increased availability and flexibility to university phone services.
  
• Coordinated the design and deployment of network services in new building construction, ensuring that these facilities have modern, reliable network services at their time of opening.

Areas of Interest and Growth

• Identifying technologies to improve efficiencies, automation, and scaling with the goal of freeing up time and resources to focus on driving business outcomes. 

Cliff Bellah

IT Field Technician

Accomplishments

• Provided telecommunication line location services for new construction and maintenance construction projects, ensuring accurate and clear marking of buried lines to prevent service interruption.
  
• Served as a contact point for construction contractors in the field, relaying short-notice important information to department staff when necessary.
  
• Mapped the location of the Stillwater Campus' telecommunication lines in the university's GIS mapping system, decreasing the reliance on paper diagrams and allowing increased accessibility to line location data.

Areas of Interest and Growth

• Supplement my knowledge of telecommunications plant to better troubleshoot issues beyond physical connectivity.

Current Projects

• Working with Bluepeak to establish colocation facilities on campus 
• Coordinating network and phone infrastructure buildouts as part of the construction of the university president’s house 
• Creating a central database of physical network jacks on the Stillwater campus 

Cort Bobier

Network Operations Technician 

Accomplishments

• Fixing Wireless AP software bug in Library. Allowed customers to study without interruption during dead week.
  
• Taking responsibility for wireless network duties to prevent wireless down time for students.
  
• Completed upgrades of networking equipment in multiple campus buildings to provide a better and more secure network for customers.

Areas of Interest and Growth

• Learning more about the wireless network landscape to provide great Wi-Fi service

Current Projects

• Removal of c2960s Switches.

Jeremy Brooks

Network Engineer

Accomplishments

Jeremy Brooks has worked in Telecommunications for over 10 years. After receiving his BS from Oklahoma State University he started working as an entry level technician in the Telecommunication department. Since starting, Jeremy has worked on the Banner implementation and has assisted the A&M campuses with network projects. He also helped deployed eduroam throughout the OSU A&M system and is currently working on deploying new wireless technology.

Areas of Interest and Growth

• WiFi 6 (802.11 ax) IoT with WiFi 6 6GHz band and how it will help WiFi

Current Projects

• Deploying WiFi 6 hardware in high density areas on campus Deploying WiFi sensors to help find issues Researching certificate base authentication on the wireless network

Ben Clark

Network Specialist

Accomplishments

Ben has worked over 15 years in IT and 7 years in Higher Education with experience in several IT roles around the US. Ben has completed several industry certifications and has extensive experience in administering IP-PBX applications for higher education.

Areas of Interest and Growth

• Inclusion and Diversity 
• Speech-enabled Interactive Voice Response Systems 
• Network Security 
• e911 Solutions for Enterprise 
• Robotics

Current Projects

• Kari's Law and RAY BAUM's Act compliance
• Upgrading Cisco Telephony Server Suite 
• Critical Infrastructure Updates

Emmett Coleman

Network Engineer

Accomplishments

• IP Migration to Private IP Space to enhance protection for computers on campus and also to reduce our utilization of public IP addresses.
• Implemented Multi-Factor Authentication for Network Devices
  
• Implemented Libre NMS for better visibility into the performance of our Network infrastructure

Areas of Interest and Growth

• Learned to communicate internally better due to contact restrictions from Covid

Joshua Fischer

Network Operation Center Technician 

Accomplishments

Mr. Fischer has been apart of OSU for over 10 years supporting OSU’s endeavors. Was instrumental in planning and deploying multi-functional engineering computer labs. He has a plethora of experience and knowledge troubleshooting user systems along with network systems. 

Areas of Interest and Growth

• Wireless network hardware and software troubleshooting with implementation.
• Network switch hardware and software troubleshooting with implementation.
• Improving network connectivity, security, simplicity throughout the high education world.
• Setting up rotation system for network equipment to reduce network down time due to equipment failure.
• Learning all about telecommunication within higher education.
• To improve technical skills for being a bigger part of OSU Information Technology.
  

Current Projects

• Networking Service Team to update eduroam website
• Training in NOC Technician on-call procedures.
• Upgrading 2960s switches to 2960x switches due to security updates

Kile Fitzgerald

Network Specialist

Accomplishments

Kile has worked in IT since he was 14 years old. He has an AAS in Networking/Cybersecurity from Rose State College and a BS in Computer Science from Southeastern Oklahoma State University.

Areas of Interest and Growth

• Data center architecture and HPC. Exploring/implementing free and open source (FOSS) projects as a means to better familiarize myself with enterprise-grade technologies.

Current Projects

• Campus-wide network restructuring for security and organizational purposes; involving the migration of most campus public DNS entries to the OSU private IP space. Upgrading the operating system that runs campus DDI appliances. Migrating OS installations away from nearly end-of-life storage equipment in the data center.

Ryan Frederick

Assistant Manager

Accomplishments

Ryan has worked in Higher Education IT for over 15 years, serving in various roles at public universities in Oklahoma and Kansas. A graduate of Kansas State University, Ryan has overseen the administration and maintenance of online learning systems serving students on a global scale, led the migration of multi-campus phone services to modern VoIP solutions, and coordinated phone system integrations with municipal public safety answering points for effective campus emergency response.

Areas of Interest and Growth

• Increase channels of communication between Telecommunications and other areas of University IT 
  
• Explore opportunities to integrate phone services with existing collaboration services provided by University IT with the aim of providing a comprehensive communications and collaboration service offering to the university
  
• Work with other areas of University IT to identify existing back-end University IT services duplicated by Telecom and evaluate the feasibility of de-duplication of these services

Current Projects

• Coordinating integration of incoming call information with the IT Helpdesk ticketing system in order to reduce time needed for data entry by IT Helpdesk agents
  
• Overseeing the exploration, selection, and implementation of solutions and practices to bolster the security of university DNS services

Kevin Gambill

Network Operation Center Technician 

Accomplishments

• Upgrade for network equipment hardware in 14 closets across with over 88 switches replaced.
  
• Implemented the TACACS DUO dual authentication to the layer 2 switches.
  
• Removal of End-of-Life equipment and surplus.

Areas of Interest and Growth

• Continue to upgrade switching infrastructure. Continue to clear all old and outdated            equipment from our storage via surplus

Current Projects

• Replacement of end-of-support network equipment throughout the Stillwater campus
• Provisioning of network and phone equipment for the new university president's house

Dale Gibson

Network Operation Center Technician 

Accomplishments

• Updated voice gateway software on all gateways campus wide, ensuring continued reliability of phone services.
  
• Updated switching infrastructure software campus wide, ensuring secure network access for tens of thousands of devices.
  
• Upgraded building network infrastructure in numerous buildings, ensuring reliable network access.

Areas of Interest and Growth

• Implement scripting to automate bulk upgrading of equipment.

Current Projects

• 2921 upgrade/replacements, vg renaming

Ben James

Assistant Manager

Accomplishments

I have 31 years experience in Telecommunications and 25 years experience at Oklahoma State University. In a field where equipment turnover is around 5-7 years most of my accomplishments are in areas that survive the test of time. We have developed pseudo-standards in naming and labeling everything so that our network is mostly self-documenting.

Areas of Interest and Growth

• Routing and switching technologies  
• IPv6
• Research Computing
• Management 
• Security 
• Video Surveillance

Areas of Interest and Growth

• Guest Wireless
• Data Center Switch Replacement
• Device Registration
• IP Address Migration (NAT Project)
• NAC Wired Authentication
• SCADA Network Micro-Segmentation
• UPS System Upgrades
• Whitehurst Layer-3 Routing

Daniel Miley Jr

IT Field Technician

Accomplishments

• Assisted in Transfer of the new Discovery Building from Baker Hughes Network to OSU's Network
  
• Completed ComScope Fiber Optic and Ethernet Termination training
  
• Completed training for Okie Dig Cable Location and Marking

Areas of Interest and Growth

• Continuing to learn more about network and telephone system infrastructure.

Current Projects

• Working with Bluepeak to establish colocation facilities on campus
• Coordinating network and phone infrastructure buildouts as part of the construction of the university president’s house 
• Creating a central database of physical network jacks on the Stillwater campus 

Jack Moore

IT Field Technician

Accomplishments

• Assisted with new facility construction projects to ensure that the physical network infrastructure was properly deployed per specifications.
• Coordinated with third party ISP field technicians in the buildout of specialty circuits for academic departments, ensuring their specific needs were met.
  
• Worked with Life Safety to transition fire alarm and security systems from phone communication to network communication, improving the detail and timeless of life safety data from these systems.

Areas of Interest and Growth

• Transitioning application of my skills from traditional analog phone service to VoIP and network services.

Current Projects

• Working with Bluepeak to establish colocation facilities on campus 
• Coordinating network and phone infrastructure buildouts as part of the construction of the university president’s house
• Creating a central database of physical network jacks on the Stillwater campus 

Robert Sprott IV

Network Engineer

Accomplishments

• Configured Advanced Call features allowing users to take more advantage of voice/video communications from existing services.
  
• Timesaving scripting to improve information gathering for call records through automation. Allowing for data to be viewed quickly.
  
• Updated Documentation to reflect current software version. Helping staff and customers understand the systems they use daily and features that could benefit their productivity.

Areas of Interest and Growth

• Better understanding of systems in use and how they operate together.
• Allowing for improvements on how others can complete their jobs and tasks.
• Adaptivity has been key to a changing ecosystem.

Current Projects

• Telephony Integration with O-Key and iSupport