Overview of the Information and Media Center

The Information and Media Center at Toyohashi University of Technology was established in April 2005 through the merging of the Computer Center and the Multimedia Center. The center manages and operates the campus network system and computing environment to promote research and education, and provides services to faculty, staff, and students.

The wired network connecting each building in the campus was first introduced in 1996 with ATM as the backbone, and has been upgraded in 2002 and 2010. Currently, a high-security university information network installed in 2018 is in operation. This is a high-speed, highly reliable star-topology network that connects the buildings with 20Gbps optical fibres. The wireless network was installed in the lecture buildings in 2004, and became available in almost all areas of the campus in 2011. In 2013, we joined eduroam, a network roaming service for educational institutions around the world. The campus network is connected to the Internet through SINET. The connection speed was 15Mbps in 2002, and has been gradually increased. In 2022, SINET6 started operation, and it has been connected by two 10Gbps lines, enabling high-speed and stable communication.

In July 2008, we started a web, mail, and DNS hosting service to reduce the man-hours required for server management and improve security in centers, departments, and laboratories. This service has been continuously improved and is now used by more than 140 departments in the university. The email system was moved to Gmail in December 2019 to improve its availability and functionality.

In September 2010, we introduced an educational system that integrates 6 terminal rooms that had been operated separately by centers and departments. This system consisted of about 350 net-boot thin client terminals (Windows/Linux dual-boot), and users can use them in the same way anywhere on campus. Since then, the system has been improved with each update, and the current system, installed in September 2019, services about 380 terminals in 11 terminal rooms.

These networks and systems are operated based on a highly integrated authentication infrastructure. We started to integrate the authentication of various university systems since 2011, and have established a scheme in which all university systems, such as the course registration system, library system, and administrative system, can be used under the same account. In December 2012, we joined the Academic Access Management Federation in Japan (GakuNin) organized by the National Institute of Informatics (NII). In April 2014, we introduced multi-factor authentication using IC cards, and in November 2019, we introduced multi-factor authentication using TOTP applications to ensure secure operation.

For research support, we have a cluster system (2 Intel Xeon Gold 6132 per node, 2 NVIDIA Tesla V100 per node, 192 GB main memory per node, 15 nodes) equipped with advanced specialized software such as technical calculation libraries and parallel calculation tools, as well as analysis applications. The system is equipped with advanced specialized software such as technical computing libraries and parallel computing tools, as well as applications for analysis. Research users can freely use the equipment and software provided throughout the day. In addition, various seminars and lectures on these software and systems are also held.