Just a short update on the progress of the project.

Due to unforeseen circumstances there will be some revisions to the network upgrade project schedule.

An updated schedule will be issued in due course.

Between 0700-0900 on February the 3rd ISS Networks staff successfully completed the migration of the ISS Staff network from the existing switch in Claremont Tower, over to the new Huawei gateway device.

All users were back up and running by around 0745, after a loss of connectivity of around 15 minutes. While we still have some tidying up to do regarding our own management and administration of the new network, the migration of users was completed successfully.

We’ve also pushed back the migration of the Daysh Building to 24th February, to avoid staff holiday, and to give us more time to migrate the rest of Claremont Tower and Computer Science. The rest of the schedule remains unaffected.

As part of the Digital Campus Initiative, and in response to Recommendation #1 of the KPMG Review 2011 to “establish a common University infrastructure”, the University is investing in a major upgrade to the campus network infrastructure.

The new network will bring a significant uplift in capacity to both the campus core network (4x initially, more later) and various core-to-building connections (10x-40x in most cases) to remove congestion points and lay the ground for pushing network improvements further into buildings as demand increases.

The work to bring the new network online is already underway, and a schedule of planned maintenance to migrate buildings onto the new infrastructure has been drawn up, starting with ISS (Claremont Complex) week commencing 3rd February 2014. The rollout will then continue, more slowly initially, but ramping up to approximately 1 building/week through to the end of 2014.

You can view the current migration schedule here:

http://connect.ncl.ac.uk/download/DC_-_Network_Upgrade_Schedule.pdf

It is generally expected that migration work will take place during Tuesday maintenance periods between 0700-0900hrs, but if necessary different days and/times may be planned to balance the business needs and the risks of a given building migration.

This blog will chart the progress of the project, as well as any changes we make to the rollout schedule.