Nominum announces that The Pennsylvania State University achieved 100 percent DHCP network service uptime for the fourth year in a row. DHCP plays a critical role in the delivery of converged IP services, and Nominum Dynamic Configuration Server provides resilient, always-on IP addressing and connectivity for Penn State's growing IP network that delivers VoIP, wireless and data services to more than 120,000 students at 23 campuses across the state. Nominum's solution was chosen because it is a built-from-scratch, commercial and carrier-proven alternative to freeware solutions, which fail to meet the uptime and performance demands of emerging converged networks.

Penn State is one of the oldest and most respected institutions of higher education in the country. The university serves more than 40,000 students at its main University Park campus and nearly 40,000 students at its 22 satellite campuses across the state. Penn State's telecommunications and networking services staff, within the university's Information Technology Services organization, is responsible for supporting the diverse needs of administrative users, faculty and students while operating cost-effectively.

Nominum DCS provides Penn State with resilient network connectivity for VoIP, enables data service to dorms and offices, and supports the growing number of wireless users on campus. Early on, the university pursued VoIP services because of the promise of cost savings. With Nominum DCS, ITS is able to use its highly-reliable Integrated Backbone network to deliver always-on dial-tone to voice services. Additionally, the university is able to maintain the same reliability for VoIP services offered by traditional PBX solutions, and therefore fully realize cost savings that can amount to as much as $720,000 per year. As a software solution, installing DCS was a simple drop and replace of the prior DHCP solution on the same hardware, which protected the University's investment in existing server hardware.

DHCP servers assign IP addresses to IP-based devices as they attach to a network. Traditionally, these devices have included desktop, laptop and mobile computers. At Penn State, growing numbers of IP-enabled phones and mobile devices also need IP addresses, and if DHCP servers are unavailable, the phones simply do not work.