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OIT Modem Pool Image

This JOHO image displays the percent utilization of the University of Massachusetts Office of Information Technologies (OIT) off-campus modem pool (Ph. #: 5-3700), every hour for an entire year (8,784 data points). The modem pool is for off-campus users, and runs up to 33.6Kbps. At the end of the year the pool contained approximately 400 modems. At the University of Massachusetts, approximately 8,000 students and 4,000 faculty and staff live off-campus.

To measure the utilization, OIT counted the number of modems in use every 15 minutes. The value plotted for each hour is the maximum of these four values divided by the total number of available modems in the pool (x100).

Image Layout

The JOHO image has one panel for each month. January is at the top left, February is at the top center, and December is at the bottom right. Within each panel, the top row of cells represents the first day of the month, and the bottom row of cells represents the last day of the month. The time in a day goes from midnight on the left of a panel to midnight on the right. Noon is in the middle of each panel.

Each tiny colored cell indicates the percent utilization for that day at that time. The key at the right indicates the relation between color and percent utilization. A utilization of 0% is shown as the dark blue color at the bottom of the color bar. At 50% utilization the color changes from green to orange. The white at the top of the scale indicates 100% utilization. Black indicates times that the data were not available.

Image Interpretation

The JOHO image shows that modem utilization follows the expected pattern of low use during the early morning hours (the broad blue regions), and heavy use in the evenings (the white areas). Most undergraduates leave the area during January. The February panel shows that when the students returned the pool was saturated from mid-afternoon until midnight, Sunday through Thursday.

The third week in March is Spring Break, and again many students leave the area. During the break OIT installed 64 more modems in the pool. This nearly eliminated the saturation for the remainder of the academic year. From mid-May through August the utilization of the pool is lower. Faculty, staff, and graduate students who live off campus and often attend the University all year long are using the modems during the summer months.

Students return after Labor Day. A gradual increase in utilization indicates the period during which students are getting new accounts. From late September through mid-December the pool was again heavily used during the evening hours. Use on Christmas Day was low, but still about 50%!

More about JOHO

These characteristics of modem pool utilization through the year (as well as others we haven't mentioned) are immediately visible in this JOHO image. Standard graphical tools, with their very limited ability to display large amounts of information, cannot give the executive or the analyst the complete picture.

JOHO places all of the information in front of the executive. There is no need for statistical analysis that smoothes over the complexities in the trends, or hides the exceptions to standard behavior that are often the critical information the executive needs when analyzing phenomena.

JOHO has other capabilities beyond simple information display. If you would like to know more about JOHO, please contact us.