Internet2 Next Generation Infrastructure Update: OESS and Cloud Connect Migrations Begin October 11

By Linda Roos, Internet2 Senior Director, State and Regional Networks

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

Internet2 is making steady progress on the transition of services to the Next Generation Infrastructure. We are now planning to begin the OESS and Internet2 Cloud Connect (I2CC) migrations on October 11, 2021.

Over the past several weeks, Internet2 has been transitioning member-facing peering exchanges and research and education services from our legacy network onto the new 400G Cisco-based platform. These migrations are now over 80% complete. The team will continue to work closely with operational collaborators at each state and regional network to transition the remaining BGP sessions through the end of October.

OESS and Cloud Connect Migrations

The next migration phase will begin on October 11. I2CC and OESS services, specifically all point-to-point OESS connections and layer 3 VPNs, will be moved one at a time during a five-to-six day migration window to avoid disrupting any redundancies. Migrations for layer 2 multipoint circuits have not yet been scheduled.

One dependency for the OESS migration process is that all access control lists (ACLs) for connection creation, deletion, and editing in OESS must be moved to the Cisco interfaces just prior to the migration. Once we move those ACLs to the new infrastructure on October 11, OESS users will be unable to make direct changes to any existing OESS connections until after those are migrated to the new network. For any required changes during the migration window, please contact the Internet2 NOC for assistance.

Up Next: Layer 2 Multipoint Circuits

Migrations of the layer 2 multipoint circuits are contingent upon a Cisco software update to be released in early October, which will provide the needed support for the multipoint circuits. Once Internet2 certifies and deploys the updated code, the team will schedule those final multipoint circuit migrations. We anticipate this will occur at the end of October.

More Information

More information about the migration process was shared with the OESS and I2CC user communities via email on October 1. Additional targeted notifications to all operational contacts associated with each OESS connection are also being sent this week to coordinate each migration. 

If you have questions or want to learn more about the ongoing transition to NGI, please email the team at networkdevelopment@internet2.edu.