Network Upgrade Project reaches completion
The Office of Information Technology (OIT) has completed the multi-year Network Upgrade Project. This project was a major lifecycle refresh that was initiated in 2018 with the Board of Trustees' approval to spend $5.5M for this effort. The main objective was to replace the core routers, border and Data Center firewalls, wireless network controllers, and a portion of the building switches and wireless access points. There are some remaining switches and access points that still need to be replaced, which will happen during a continuing effort to refresh approximately 20 percent of the network hardware every year. This will eliminate the need to seek funding every five years to do a complete and massive overhaul.
In short, OIT has accomplished the following major activities:
- Reassessed, and modified where needed, OHIO’s network architecture
- Upgraded core routing components
- Upgraded border and Data Center firewalls
- Replaced end-of-life switches
- Replaced end-of-life access points
- Installed new fiber optics where necessary
- Migrated outdated 110 blocks to new RJ45 patch panels in IT closets
- Renumbered public IP addresses to private IP addresses
In addition to the Network Distribution and Engineering teams, many others were involved in this massive project, including individuals from Project Management, Systems Engineering Architecture, Information Security, and the Low Voltage Cabling team in Facilities. Additionally, OIT would like to thank the faculty and staff across all campuses for their flexibility and patience as we have worked in their spaces. In all, there have been over 20,000 OIT hours spent on this project!