Changes
→Network Topology
== Network Topology ==
In Blacksburg, CNS has redundant fiber uplinks to Ashburn, Virginia and Atlanta, Georgia. The [[Mid-Atlantic Broadband Communities Corporation]] provides the OC-192 (10 Gigabit) connection to Ashburn and the additional OC-192 connection to Atlanta. The connection to Ashburn terminates at from the [[Andrews Information Services Building]] , and the OC-192 (10 Gigabit) connection to Atlanta terminates at from [[Hillcrest Hall]]. In summer 2015, the OC-192 connection to Ashburn will be upgraded to OC-768 (100 Gigabit).<ref>[https://www.vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2015/04/042115-it-gigabits.html]</ref>
For cost-savings reasons, the university's connectivity is primarily provided through an aggregation network shared by several other universities in Virginia, the [[Mid-Atlantic Research and Education Exchange]] (MREX). MREX is operated by Virginia Tech and provides connectivity for the [[Mid-Atlantic Research Infrastructure Alliance]], an alliance of the universities that receive connectivity through MREX.<ref>[http://www.marialliance.net/about-us]</ref>
MREX operates two regional hubs: MREX-ATL at Telx Atlanta and MREX-DC at Equinix Ashburn. MREX-DC was formerly the only regional hub, and was previously part of the predecessor to MARIA, the [[Mid-Atlantic Terascale Partnership]] (MATP). At each hub, MREX operates a Cisco ASR9000 series aggregation router.
At Equinix in [[Ashburn]], MREX-DC has a 100 Gigabit connection to [[Internet2]], 10 Gigabit connections to [[ESnet]] and the Equinix Internet Exchange, and 30 Gigabits of commodity Internet connectivity through Cogent. Virginia Tech, through MREX-DC, additionally has a 10 Gigabit connection to [[w:Mid-Atlantic Crossroads|Mid-Atlantic Crossroads]] and several peers, and a 1 Gigabit connection to [[w:NetworkVirginia|NetworkVirginia]].
At Telx in Atlanta, MREX-ATL has 10 Gigabit connections to [[Southern Crossroads]], [[ESnet]], the Telia Internet Exchange, and 30 Gigabits of commodity Internet connectivity through Telia. MREX-ATL was opened in 2014 and is the first network facility operated by Virginia Tech located outside of Virginia.<ref>[http://www.cafm.vt.edu/busprac/_docs/bpseminar_2014/2014-BusinessPracticeSeminar-Internet.pdf]</ref>