Fasten Your Seat Belts! Takeoff Observations from Yale University's Next Generation Network Program

With strong backing from university leadership, Yale is in the midst of fully replacing its enterprise network. This multimillion-dollar, multiyear effort will address the current network’s significant technical debt and ad hoc extensions by collapsing five physical networks into one and improving security, resiliency, speed, automation, network standards, and service management. In December 2020, the team completed installation of the new network backbone infrastructure in parallel with the current production network. The team is now focused on transitioning 350+ buildings, on a building-by-building basis, to the new network. Through the early months of building transition work, the team has enjoyed many successes but also persevered through humbling, and sometimes Sisyphean, challenges. This session highlights the most salient "lessons learned" to-date. Whether the stories involve telecom closets, research labs, parallel networks, all will tie back to one or more of these fundamentals: stay laser focused on your program goals and scope; engage, educate, and solicit support from the community; intimately know your "as is" state; and prepare in detail for every transition.