Webinar | Modernize Your Network to Support Institutional Success

This webinar is a part of the EDUCAUSE Industry & Campus Solutions series.

A modern network is an enabler of the institutional mission. It is security focused, high performance, and proactively managed with automation and analytics. Networks often evolve organically. In higher education, many institutions built their networks in the 1970s and 1980s and have upgraded them in place, often using the same approaches for several decades. Although technologies have changed considerably, funding models have lagged, and the absence of a sustainable funding model has resulted in unsustainable levels of deferred maintenance and technical debt that impair institutional success.

As organizations reach a tipping point, the only viable option forward is to modernize the network. The goal is to create a network environment with the capabilities to enable the institution's research, academic, and administrative missions over the long term. Combining this approach with forward-looking financial planning for a sustainable funding model, the historical cycle of technical debt and deferred maintenance can be broken.

Outcomes

• Learn how to pitch a modernized network to campus leadership in the interest of institutional strategic goals
• Understand the major design elements in a modern campus network
• Explore why a modern network matters to institutional success
• Discuss the next steps in the evolution to a zero-trust network

Additional Resources

• UIC IT Website
• Forward Initiative
• The Vantage Vision for a Modernized Network (blog)
• EDUCAUSE Community Group Recording on Network Architecture (netman/commtech/wireless, facilitated by Jon) (Passcode: tV9zq!Cr)
• NIST 800-207 (Zero Trust Architecture)