Network Upgrade Overview
The University of Texas at San Antonio
The Office of Information Technology
Why is the upgrade needed?
Obsolescence

EOS/EOL - The current core switches in use on the UTSA campus are scheduled to
become End of Sale (EOS)/End of Life (EOL) in 2012. After this date, there will be no
support or service available for these switches.
Speed

Gigabit to the desktop - The current network does not allow for the delivery of Gigabit
Ethernet speeds to the desktop. The current network backbone is limited to 1 Gigabit
per second (Gb/s) and cannot support connections faster than 100 Megabits per
second (Mb/s) to users. Gigabit speeds are increasingly becoming necessary for the
support of UTSA research initiatives.
Reliability

Redundancy - While the main switches in each campus building utilize redundant
hardware and power to provide increased reliability, there is a lack of redundancy in
the connections between the switches in each building.

Power - The battery backup systems in place in several network closets are old and
experiencing battery failures. This problem, coupled with unpredictable power issues
throughout campus can result in occasional connectivity issues.
Vendor Evaluations Criteria
A listing of the technical requirements was sent to each of the vendors and each was asked
to propose a solution which met the technical requirements. A series of meetings was held
with each vendor to ensure each vendor properly understood the requirements and to clarify
any design questions or issues.
A scoring matrix was developed to analyze each vendor’s proposed solution. The scoring
was performed by three technical staff and one manager.
The following criteria were used in the analysis:
 Features and Performance
 Support and maintenance coverage
 Management capabilities
 Pricing
 Vendor ability/capability to deliver proposed solution
Vendor Pros and Cons
•
Cisco
–
–
–
•
–
Progressive and current technology, successful implementations of proposed solution in other university
environments, cost, discounted pricing in proposed solution viable beyond three years
Cons
• Smaller market share
Total Project Cost $4.34 Million
Juniper
–
Pros
•
–
Cons
•
–
Incumbent vendor, market leader
Technology offering did not offer capabilities equivalent to that of competing vendors, history of support issues,
aging technology. Proposed solution was weak and utilized inferior product offerings.
Total Project Cost $5.1 Million
Foundry
–
Pros
•
–
•
Pros
•
Cons
•
Progressive and current technology, innovative feature set
Limited deployment of proposed solution in higher education environments, proposed hardware was not a good fit
for enterprise usage, discounted pricing offered in proposed solution was not viable beyond three years
Total Project Cost $5.05 Million
Proposed Vendor
Foundry Networks provides
Increased Reliability

Flexibility – proposed solution will provide greater flexibility to meet the demands of a growing and
research intensive university.

Redundancy - The proposed network upgrade will provide multiple connection points to each campus
building main switch to facilitate greater reliability.
Increased Speed

Capability to provide Gigabit speeds to the desktop - While the default connectivity provided to end
users will remain at 100 Mb/s, the upgrade will provide a 10 Gigabits per second (Gb/s) backbone
connection to each building. This increased backbone bandwidth will provide the capability to support
up to 1 Gb/s to the desktop where required for research or other needs.

Reference checks

University of California Davis

University of Utah Medical Center

Microsoft (Customer Research Labs)
Year 1 Spending Plan
Phase I
•
•
•
•
•
Purchase date February 09
Campus firewall -$175,000
JPL aggregation core switch 1 -$103,925
JPL network core switch -$298,177
Infrastructure and connectivity -$25,000
Year 1 contingency -$50,000
Phase II
•
•
•
•
•
Purchase date March 09
JPL aggregation core switch 2 -$94,196
JPL aggregation core switch 3 -$103,925
JPL server core switch 1 -$148,304
JPL server core switch 1 -$148,046
Infrastructure and connectivity -$45,000
Phase III
•
•
•
Purchase date July 09
SB network core switch -$258,912
Infrastructure and connectivity -$30,000
Year 1 Work Plan
Phase I - Design and coordination
•
•
•
February – May 09
March – April 09
April – June 09
Campus network design
Departmental communications and coordination
Network design testing
Phase II - Deployment
•
•
*June 09
*July - August 09
Campus firewall and (3) JPL aggregation switches deployment
JPL server switches deployment
Phase III - Deployment
•
•
•
September - October 09 JPL Core switch deployment
October - November 09 SB Core switch deployment
December 09
Year 1 completed
*Dates may vary dependent upon maintenance window approval