As many students have noticed by now, there is a new building going up between the Center for Sciences and Innovations and Chapman Center. An email was sent out to inform students about the new addition to campus.

“By now you’ve noticed the construction of a small building between the CSI and the Chapman Center on the west side of campus. This will be the site of Trinity’s new core room or the digital  “˜nerve center’ for the campus’ various networks, such as connections to the Internet, television and telephone services and the wireless and wired networks,” said Charles White, vice president of information resources, marketing and communications.

The core room is the control room and regulator of Trinity’s many networks.

“The core room is basically the room where all of the network fibers that connect every building on campus terminate. So, every building has fiber running to it. Every building has twelve to forty-eight fibers through it and that’s basically our network connectivity. It also serves as a backup [for] disaster recovery,” said Fred Zapata, director and chief information technology officer at Trinity.

In other words, the core room is the switchboard for all of the network services at Trinity.

“These routers and switches receive and send digital information and serve as the switching and processing center for all the network services on campus,” White said.

The core room is currently housed in the basement of the Ruth Taylor Theater. However, due to issues with flooding and space, Information and Technology decided it would be best to move the center to a new location that was more accessible to IT professionals.

“What this new core room is, is basically we are extending the fiber that runs from the old core room to the new core room. Its above ground, the equipment will sit above grade and there will be more redundancy as far as cooling and power needs that are required for that equipment,” Zapata said.

The new location was chosen based on the accessibility for IT professionals who would need to access it the most.

“Several locations were considered, but the site between Chapman and the CSI building was determined to be the best for access by IT professionals and one where the core room would blend in with the surrounding buildings,” said White.

Construction should be finished by December, and the center will be up and running by the start of the Spring 2016 semester.

“The completion date for the building is Dec. 1. We will start putting our equipment in there soon after that. There are some new racks that will be installed. We have to coordinate with our Internet service provider and our telecommunications provider to move their equipment over. So there will be some down time when there will be no network connectivity or telecommunications on campus. Most of the moves and installations will be done during Christmas break,” Zapata said.

The addition of this building will add to Trinity’s campus and help keep the campus modern.

“This construction,” White said, “will modernize Trinity’s core room capacity and harden the security of this important resource.”