Network Refresh
Information Technology Services (ITS) is currently installing the next generation of network hardware in any new buildings, renovated buildings, and throughout the network refresh project. This next generation of hardware allows us to provide a much higher level of security and performance to the University. With this offering, there are some changes we would like to communicate to the client community.
Current Events
Network Refresh UpdateWe are now in the second phase of the Network Refresh Project. Up this point, the following activities have occurred:
- 6 of the 10 routers to support the campus have been installed.
- During the months of May and June, the entire campus was migrated to the new 10 gigabit infrastructure.
- With the completion of the McNutt renovation, new Data Center equipment was successfully installed to replace the dated equipment in the old Forney Data Center. This migration occurred as part of a four hour outage on Sunday, August 26. One new router, two redundant firewalls, and two new switching chassis, were installed as part of this Data Center upgrade.
- The firewall upgrade resulted in an increase in throughput from 1 gigabit in the old infrastructure to 6 gigabit in the new infrastructure. In other terms, the firewall will no longer be a bottleneck between the campus and the Data Center.
- As part of phase two of the Network Refresh Project, the remaining four routers will be configured and installed, providing a complete physically and logically redundant campus networking infrastructure. As buildings are upgraded with new access switches over the next few years, they will be connected to the redundant infrastructure, providing alternate paths to independently located routers resulting in little or no downtime.