Infrastructure and Services

2026 Updates:

Internet2 continues to update its web pages to ensure content and relevant information are available and easily findable for the community. Building on the October 2024 homepage refresh and service page redesign, which yielded an 11% increase in overall website traffic, a 66% increase in key conversion events, and a 500% increase in scroll depth, Internet2 has continued to improve the findability and accessibility of its Service Catalog through enhanced menu structure, user journeys, and service page design.

In February 2026, Internet2 completed a full redesign and relaunch of the InCommon website in partnership with agency Gravity Global, incorporating updated messaging, positioning, and brand updates developed in 2024. The new InCommon.org features improved content architecture, streamlined navigation, and enhanced discoverability for InCommon’s programs and services. Internet2 continues to conduct regular user testing and leverage analytics across its web properties, including Internet2.edu, InCommon.org, and MS-CC.org, to ensure digital experiences align with community needs and expectations.

October 2024 Updates:

Internet2 continues to update its web pages to ensure content and relevant information are available and easily findable for the community. Internet2 made significant improvements, and completed a homepage refresh and redesigned the service pages featured on the organization’s website. This work aimed to clarify and improve service catalog accessibility and functionality based on community feedback and input from the Internet2 roadmap effort. Key design changes included a more discoverable and manageable menu structure, enhanced user journeys, and a new catalog, categories, and service pages. Internet2 plans to conduct regular user testing and surveys post-implementation to ensure the modifications align with user expectations and preferences.

Community Engagement continues to engage and inform the community with messaging in ways that target our multiple stakeholders on services, solutions, and engagement opportunities through multiple channels and various touch points.

In 2025, Internet2 will work closely with the InCommon team to refresh and redesign the InCommon website based on new messaging, positioning, and brand updates completed in 2024.

Original Priorities Identified Before October 2024:

• As the number and types of Internet2 services and offerings have significantly increased in the past decade and because they also provide value to a more diverse set of stakeholders, the Community Engagement (CE) division will lead an effort to identify key stakeholders (and groups) and work to prioritize these and their needs while also developing approaches that make it easier for these prioritized groups to have the information they need in an easier fashion through Internet2’s digital communications.
• Community Engagement will work to refine the Internet2 Service Catalog on the Internet2 website to make it easier to understand the service and solution offerings, the value proposition and business need, and the eligibility requirements to access or acquire the service/solution.
• CE will lead the development of improved and refined UX/UI on both the Internet2 and InCommon websites so the community can easily navigate and access available services and solutions.
• CE will help create and guide the user journey to help discover information across all Internet2 web-based platforms (e.g., legal, procurement, C-suite, technical, etc.).
• CE will create and maintain a matrix of Internet2 services, solutions, benefits, and value that articulates the ability of all stakeholders to leverage those benefits based on relationship (member type, non-member by type – higher ed, K-12, etc).
• Community Engagement will continue to engage and inform the community with messaging in ways that acknowledge and target the different stakeholders on services, solutions, and engagement opportunities in a manner that resonates with their business needs.
  • CE will develop approaches that are not complicated for the stakeholders as prioritized.
  • CE will also consult at least twice a year with key stakeholder groups to create feedback mechanisms designed to continuously improve our communications, digital experience, and engagement channels.

2026 Updates:

Network. The Trusted Infrastructure Program is guiding the network’s evolution as a community-wide effort, with work underway to advance backbone capacity, strengthen routing integrity, and deepen research support. Internet2 introduced a new international R&E peering policy to prevent leaked commercial routes from entering the R&E ecosystem, and is actively expanding the Internet2 Insight Console to give community members self-service access to network services and cloud connections.

A new global exchange point in Boston expanded Internet2’s east coast peering to three interconnected sites alongside New York and Washington, each offering 400G native connectivity across 96 exchange ports. Transoceanic capacity, delivered through key collaborative partnerships, now includes 400 Gbps circuits between Boston and Paris and Amsterdam and New York, and 100 Gbps circuits connecting both Guam and Oregon to Singapore.

Performance. Internet2’s Performance Assurance Service (PAS), built on the community-developed perfSONAR toolkit, has been expanded to all 47 packet-serving points of presence (PoPs) on the next-generation network. Work is also underway to integrate network paths with SENSE via the Insight Console API, enabling dynamic provisioning of services across all available paths and improving end-to-end performance visibility across the platform. As a founding member of MetrANOVA (Advancing Network Observation, Visualization, and Analysis), Internet2 continues to work alongside partners to develop and disseminate common network measurement and analysis tools, tactics, and techniques across the global R&E community. 

Automation and Security. Internet2 is advancing network orchestration through AI-driven network management and self-provisioning tools via the Insight Console. The cloud-based DDoS Mitigation Service scrubs attack traffic and returns clean traffic to subscribers over their existing Internet2 connections, protecting more than 100 member institutions across 12 Internet2 Connectors. Shared lessons learned from routing security incidents and published a Routing Integrity scorecard to promote best practices across the research and education community. Looking ahead, Internet2 and CAIDA are partnering on the (2025–2028), which will use active probing to detect route leaks between R&E and commercial networks.

October 2024 Updates:

Upgrade and automate the network:

The expansion of Cloud Connect to the seven interconnect locations and RPI network wide  – and the optimization of those locations – has been a key strategic goal for the Network Services division. Recently, team members – from both the network infrastructure and infrastructure software & systems teams – completed the first hardware replacements and site consolidations in this program. The second replacement will be conducted in November, and the five remaining sites will be completed in 2025. All sites will receive redundant Cisco NCS 57D2 routers to provide peer-facing connectivity at 10G, 100G, and 400G line rates. Additionally, sites are being prepared to supply additional 400G peer facing connectivity to meet developing demands for cloud and AI applications. 

Team members have also continued to implement performance improvements to the core platform, following a first principle of continual improvement. These projects included the removal of route reflectors from the core network configuration, the initial deployments of discrete coherent optics, as well as the migration of core network management functions to Chicago (including the Monsoon ISS cluster and the optical management software.) Significant augmentation of the network core also occurred, with additional nodes added in the northeast US (for NEREN) and in Fargo (for NDSU and Northern Lights  Gigapop). 

Flexibility Enhancements:

The Insight Console saw considerable development across 2024, following its initial launch in November 2023. Major improvements were made to the design and user experience for the flagship Virtual Networks feature, including interface improvements making resources easier to troubleshoot and manage and support for 10 Gb connections. A new home page, main menu, and site navigation design was implemented, along with fixes and improvements in the search function and session handling. The Looking Glass function was expanded to include support for multiple hardware platforms and to include the devices deployed at Internet2’s Global Exchange (GXP) endpoints. A new documentation website was authored and deployed. Finally, considerable sustainability and maintainability changes were implemented, including rigorous automated quality-assurance testing and improved support for rapid iteration and release of new versions.Expand Insight Console and NS API support to include the full platform, including international exchange points.

Research 5G/6G Integration:

Internet2 has started to develop initial relationships with neutral host providers as part of its independently leveraged NET+ programmatic and I2PX strategic peering activities. We will establish direct peering with a neutral host provider to transport mobile offloaded traffic through the R&E networks.

Promote Routing Integrity: 

We are actively engaged in the following initiatives to promote and enhance routing integrity:

• Collaborating Globally: We are working with the international Research and Education Network (R&E) community to develop and implement technical controls based on published routing policies (via IRR). This collaboration strengthens resistance to harmful routing leaks while preserving the resilience of our interconnected networks.
• Community Engagement: We actively engage the Internet2 community through blogs, podcasts, office hours, and personalized assistance. Our goal is to deepen the community’s understanding of the role and importance of routing integrity.
• Influencing Standards Development: We are partnering with standards bodies such as ARIN and MANRS to ensure that the needs of the R&E community are incorporated into the evolution of routing integrity standards.

Support RPKI Adoption

Our ongoing efforts to promote RPKI adoption include:

• Advocating to Decision-Makers: We are elevating the importance of Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI) adoption among decision-makers through informative blogs and presentations.
• Empowering Engineers: We provide continuous support to engineers by offering workshops, office hours, and one-on-one sessions. These efforts help develop the skills necessary for deploying RPKI Route Origin Authorizations (ROAs).
• Simplifying Implementation: We are collaborating with DDoS mitigation vendors, Internet2 BGP participants, and organizations like NANOG to streamline and clarify the process of identifying RPKI-ROA requirements for DDoS-protected networks.

2026 Updates:

Accomplishments in 2025 tell a story of a community that moved decisively from strategy to execution, translating the ambitions of the Futures2 report into tangible progress across every pillar of InCommon’s work.

Futures2 called for InCommon to become the trusted authority for IAM in research and education — strengthening trust, improving usability, and scaling services to meet the evolving needs of the community by 2028 — and 2025 showed that trajectory taking clear shape. The Federation, now enabling access to more than 6,000 academic and research services, advanced interoperability and reliability through community-contributed expertise, while new tools like Federation Checker and IAM Sketch — direct Futures2 deliverables — gave institutions practical support for architecture planning and day-to-day operations.

The Trusted Access Platform deepened adoption through reorganized Grouper documentation and on-demand training, making it meaningfully easier for institutions to build on shared IAM infrastructure. eduroam expanded its footprint to 44,000+ hotspots across 887 higher education and research deployments, with the Support Organizations program now serving 11 states and extending secure connectivity into K–12 schools, libraries, and community spaces — a direct expression of Futures2’s ambition to reach learners wherever they are.

The InCommon Academy engaged more than 1,700 IAM professionals through a broadened mix of flagship events, on-demand learning, and responsive programming like Thread Meet-ups and Community Bonfires, building the human capacity that Futures2 recognized as essential to the community’s long-term strength. Globally, InCommon deepened participation in REFEDS, the Shibboleth Consortium, the OpenID Foundation, and the SeamlessAccess coalition — reinforcing its role in the worldwide trust fabric that Futures2 envisioned. With the Security-Focused Innovation Group established, the RPDO Working Group launched to reduce federation onboarding friction, and a redesigned website on the horizon, InCommon enters 2026 not just having honored the commitments of Futures2, but having built the momentum to carry them further.

October 2024 Updates:

The InCommon Futures2 Report was completed/published in January of 2024 and is available on the InCommon Policies page. Activity areas have been established to support the major themes outlined in the plan.

Original Priorities Identified Before October 2024:

In 2009, Internet2 community leaders gathered to develop “The InCommon Futures Report.” This report was submitted to Internet2 and its board as a set of recommendations to ensure InCommon’s growth and adaptation at a critical juncture in its development. At the time, InCommon was serving about 100 institutions. Most of the recommendations of that report were prioritized and InCommon is now serving more than 1,000 institutions and organizations.

Over the last 20+ years, the United States higher education community has collaborated to design and build an infrastructure, build and curate tools, and develop a community of identity and access management (IAM) professionals through events and training for the purposes of enabling extra-institutional access to data workflows to support global collaboration — in secure and privacy preserving ways — in the support of research, learning, and campus life. The locus of these activities has been the InCommon community.

During several periods over these 20 or so years, there has been a confluence of dynamics that have compelled the community to conduct an assessment of its capabilities and determine future directions. During each of those periods, non-disruptive and mostly subtle adjustments were made to accommodate the changing dynamics. In 2023, there is ample evidence for needing another moment of reflection and assessment. In fact, it can be safely said that the dozens of technical and executive thought leaders in and around InCommon are rapidly coming to the conclusion that this time is different, that potentially disruptive and more than subtle adjustments to direction are needed and needed soon.

A foundational premise for all services and capabilities developed by InCommon — the organization and the community — is that InCommon (the organization) performs the functions that are best done together or can only be done together. To continue to enable global collaboration and operational efficiency that meets and anticipates the needs of United States higher education, our community must examine the current and desired future states of InCommon infrastructure, tools, training, and advocacy.

As InCommon enters a new era of opportunity in an ever-changing environment, the InCommon Steering Committee in conjunction with InCommon management is beginning a planning initiative (“Futures2”) to develop a plan of outcomes that will shape its strategies to ensure its relevance in the next five years and that are structured to meet the evolving trust and identity (T&I) and R&E landscape and competitive challenges.

Status: The InCommon “Futures2” work is in progress and scheduled to be completed by 1 Feb 2024. A commercial planning partner SecondMuse has been secured to assist. There has been a broad community survey, 1:1 interviews, roundtables, and meetings with all of the various advisory bodies in the Trust and Identity Services ecosystem of advising. Ongoing monitoring and stewardship of the project is being conducted by the InCommon Steering Committee and InCommon/Internet2 staff.

2026 Updates:

Through the GNA-G Routing Working Group and Internet2’s Routing Integrity Initiative, Internet2 continues to engage with the international R&E community to implement technical controls based on published routing policies, and partners with standards bodies including ARIN and MANRS to incorporate R&E needs into evolving routing integrity standards. Internet2 also actively promotes RPKI adoption and streamlines Route Origin Authorization (ROA) deployment for campus networks.

The Insight Console deployed three major enhancements in support of Internet2’s broader goal of leveraging internal and commercial toolsets to proactively monitor performance and strengthen routing integrity across the community: Route Policy capabilities for the Virtual Networks Cloud Router, a self-service BGP diagnostic feature, and improved RPKI-ROA and IRR consistency checks. A Trusted Infrastructure Federation (TIF) pilot further demonstrated federated, AI-assisted troubleshooting across R&E network boundaries, packaging Looking Glass code for member deployment and integrating AI-powered diagnostics into a collaborative troubleshooting ecosystem. 

October 2024 Updates:

Enhance International Connectivity:

CANARIE, ESnet, and GEANT, Internet2 unveil 1.2GB of R&E capacity across the Atlantic 

In March Internet2, in a joint effort with CANARIE, the Energy Sciences Network (ESnet), and GÉANT, announced today a major expansion of 400 gigabits per second (Gbps) transoceanic circuit capacity dedicated to transferring research and education (R&E) data. As part of the Advanced North Atlantic (ANA) collaboration, this marks a significant achievement in high-speed connectivity between North America and Europe, supporting data-intensive science globally.

ANA’s network expansion supports multinational, data-intensive science collaborations, including the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator, and the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), the ongoing effort to build the world’s largest radio astronomy observatory. It adds much-needed capacity for transmitting instrument findings to researchers globally, enabling ground-breaking discoveries. Learn more about the partners and the impact this capacity will have on global research here.

Boston Global Exchange Point added into Internet2 International services offering

In response to community demand, Internet2 completed the commissioning of a new global exchange point in Boston, Massachusetts. This expanded Internet2’s east coast peering to three interconnected sites, additionally including New York (MAN/LAN) and Washington (WIX). The new exchange point is based on the Arista 7280PR3 platform and offers 400G connectivity for members connecting both domestically and transatlantic.  

Original Priorities Identified Before October 2024:

October 2024 Updates:

• The Cloud Scorecard now boasts over 80 services represented.  In Q4 2024, a new Scorecard is being unveiled with improved usability and a new business model. View the Cloud Scorecard. 
• CLASS, Cloud Learning and Skills Sessions, continues to adapt to meet the constantly changing needs of cloud architects and engineers in higher education. 
• This year was a busy one for the NET+ Business, Procurement and Legal Advisory Committee (BPLAC), BPLAC developed and publish a Community Framework for IT Vendor Management.

2026 Updates:

In 2025, Internet2 and the eduroam community made substantial progress on several fronts — advancing the service’s reach, extending it into new sectors, and improving the tools and governance that sustain it. The headline numbers tell part of the story: eduroam now spans 44,000+ hotspots globally, with 887 higher education and research deployments and 4,360 locations across the US, including 1,338 K-12 schools, 240 libraries, and 15 museums.

Missouri’s MOREnet and Wisconsin’s WiscNet joined the eduroam Support Organization (eSO) Program, bringing the total to 11 states — and the eduroam Advisory Committee (eAC) reveal just how much energy sits behind those figures. WiscNet brought two of Wisconsin’s largest school districts (Madison and Waukesha) fully on-ramped, with Green Bay and others following. MOREnet graduated from pilot to full eSO status with 27 organizations on its waiting list, brought 21 St. Louis County Libraries online as hotspots, and drew around 30 new organizations interested in joining in 2026.

Merit Network in Michigan put eduroam on a community-change footing, with Detroit Public Schools’ pilot going live, 100+ locations turned up across Detroit, and three-year funding secured from Rocket Mortgage to connect underserved communities — while simultaneously exploring eduroam’s potential in Detroit Lift Zones through talks with Comcast. These are not merely technical deployments; they are demonstrations of eduroam reaching populations it was not previously serving.

On the infrastructure side, InCommon made meaningful improvements to the service’s reliability, visibility, and manageability. Rate-limiting was upgraded from a per-site IP model to a per-device MAC address model, improving both security and accuracy. Analytics dashboards providing daily data updates were introduced and distributed to eSO and eduroam admins, giving institutions far better visibility into usage and growth. eduroam reporting was migrated into Federation Manager, ending the era of emailed PDF reports and integrating the data where administrators already work. Migration of TLRS infrastructure to AWS is underway, which will simplify architecture and increase resilience.

The advisory community also did serious governance and standards work. The Baseline Expectations (BE) working group completed community consultation and the eAC voted to approve the document for InCommon Steering review, establishing a shared accountability floor for US eduroam deployments. Separately, the Best Practices Guide update working group surveyed over 127 community members to inform a new edition, with pain points around user provisioning, certificate management, onboarding, and troubleshooting clearly identified. A Cloud Infrastructure working group engaged vendors around RADSEC and hosted RADIUS solutions to lower the barrier for smaller institutions. NSHE published an open-source rapid-deployment eduroam IdP container with Google LDAP support, making it easier for K-12 organizations and others with limited infrastructure to participate. And the community began early-stage work on eduroam at airports, conference venues, and field science sites — signaling a shared appetite to push eduroam well beyond its traditional boundaries.

October 2024 Updates:

eduroam continues to grow in both “classic” adoption and with the eduroam Support Organization (eSO) program. As of Q4, 2024, the number of organizations subscribed to eduroam is 1,167 – an almost 300% increase in the last decade.  The eduroam Support Organization program expanded in 2024, now including Minnesota and Michigan, for a total of nine eSOs as 2024 comes to a close.

The eduroam Support Organizations program now serves nine states: Arizona, Connecticut, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Washington.

Original Priorities Identified Before October 2024:

Internet2 operates the United States node for the global eduroam roaming Wi-Fi network for R&E. eduroam is available in more than 100 countries, including more than 1,000 universities and non-profits in the United States. Individuals use their campus credentials to use the service. In 2022, the United States eduroam community grew the number of United States service locations to 2,958, the second largest number of service locations in any country in the world.

The eduroam Support Organization (eSO) Program is creating a new explosion of eduroam adoption beyond higher education campuses.  Working with state and regional networking organizations, Internet2 has expanded the reach of eduroam in Utah, Nebraska, Arizona, Oregon, and Connecticut. More recently the state of Washington and Nevada have entered the onramp for becoming an eSO.  Internet2 will continue to develop and expand eduroam through the eSO.

Via the leadership of the eduroam Advisory Committee, Internet2 will also continue to improve interoperability, ease of installation, and various aspects of security of the platform.

2026 Updates:

In 2025, NIH and InCommon made meaningful progress toward enabling university researchers to access NIH’s sensitive Controlled Access Data Resources (CADRs) — such as dbGaP — using their campus credentials rather than consumer identity services like login.gov or ID.me.

The most consequential milestone of the year was NIH’s formal confirmation that the REFEDS IAP High identity proofing standard, used by InCommon member institutions, is an acceptable equivalent to the NIST IAL2 requirement for CADR access. This policy decision, communicated to the CADR community in September 2025, removed a critical barrier to InCommon adoption.

On the university side, InCommon launched an Identity Proofing Accelerator program to help campuses implement IAP High, with eleven institutions completing the program by early 2026. Separately, analysis confirmed that at least 202 InCommon member institutions are already home organizations for CADR users — representing a substantial ready addressable population once campus IdPs are properly configured.

New technical tools advanced the effort, including InCommon’s SP Readiness Validation Tool (allowing CADR operators to test their configurations), NIH’s Security Compliance Check Tool (testing university IdPs), and an automated Splunk-based dashboard tracking login patterns across all three credential types at NIH.

The group also agreed on success metrics: 80% of targeted institutions meeting identity requirements and 34% of researchers from those institutions accessing CADRs with InCommon credentials, both by end of 2026. Key challenges heading into 2026 include low CADR operator uptake of InCommon, government-driven delays in onboarding timelines, and the difficulty of verifying that universities are genuinely implementing the required identity assurance standards.

Building on the success of the partnership with NIH, InCommon is in ongoing discussions with representatives of DoE, NASA, HHS, NSF and NIST.  All organizations have roughly the same challenge – how can thousands of people collaborate on data and tools, globally, securely as seamlessly as possible regardless of their institutional affiliation?

October 2024 Updates:

One of the directions established in the InCommon Futures2 Report is a subtle but strategically important refactoring of the comprehensive community advising structure that has long served InCommon well. As a result of this on-going shift, the Community Architecture Committee for Trust and Identity] has recently helped collate and submit feedback to the NIST request for feedback to changes in the NIST Digital Identity Guidelines.

InCommon continues to partner with the NIH to drive forward InCommon’s ability to adapt to emerging requirements around “levels of assurance” in inter-organization access management. The InCommon Community Trust and Assurance Board (CTAB), has launched a working group to address some of these challenges and questions. 

The InCommon Community Trust and Assurance Board continues to support a regularly occurring tabletop exercise to support the international SIRTFI requirements in inter-federation security response capabilities.  Another exercise is being organized for autumn of 2024 .

Original Priorities Identified Before October 2024: