The Next Gen² Network initiative consists of a group of key networking projects, teams, and investments working to ensure a secure, responsive, future-ready campus network. Together, these projects promise to reshape the wired, wireless, and cloud-enterprise network on UW-Madison’s campus to be responsive to our instructional, research, business, and operational needs.
Building Automation Network (BAN) Upgrade
This project replaces the existing network with VRF-MPLS architecture to eliminate aging infrastructure.The project team has 17% of the BAN building conversions complete with more in progress now.
Campus Core Router Upgrade
The campus core upgrade equipment (Nexus 7710) is installed with the fully-functional routing of IPv4 and IPv6 traffic. Wireless traffic is migrated to the wireless core/new campus core routers. The remaining migration of research networking traffic to the new research core router or new campus core router is the next priority as overall migration of the networks continues.
Globus Data Transfer Project
The WAN, SE, NS, and Data Center teams are collaborating to finalize the application install and hardware set up by the end of October for the allocated Globus/RBN servers. We also formalized a regular meeting time to identify technical questions and continue to define key actions. Please visit our site for more information about the Globus project.
Network Automation
We have the infrastructure in place (Netbox and Ansible) and we are working on a priority list of configuration. We started with staging and upgrading of firmware as the first priority. We are also currently working on a network interface deployment and the Catalyst 9300 platform initial configuration and deployment tools as the next priorities.
Wireless Network Upgrade
The Wireless Network Upgrade Project officially ended June 30th, 2021, and any remaining deployments are to be considered part of regular operations. There are 22 buildings remaining in various stages of readiness for this project. More information can be found in the project’s October 2021 progress report.