t cht lk and security will no longer suffice . Institutions of higher education need a well-thought-out plan for moving to a more resilient , on-demand model . With current on campus traffic relatively light at many universities , the best time to upgrade is now . universities will have to accommodate the coexistence of IPv4 and IPv6 networks to ensure Business Continuity and prepare for future growth .
Ensuring high availability
Continued needs of the on-campus model
For their on-campus learning population , universities need to leverage their existing on-campus networks to support growing devices and traffic . Even if the on-campus population is not growing , the number of devices and connections continues to rise . Rather than purchasing costly new IPv4 addresses on the market , a Carrier-Grade Network ( CGN ) solution makes it possible to extend their current pool through Carrier-Grade NAT ( CGNAT ), which uses address and port translation in large scale to extend the life of an IPv4 network infrastructure .
Meanwhile , it ’ s important to have a plan in place for IPv6 migration . Specialised resources such as student ERP , registration , billing , online classes and collaboration will be accessed on devices that will increasingly run IPv6 , while network infrastructures may still be running IPv4 for the foreseeable future . Since IPv6 is not backward compatible with IPv4 ,
Higher education faces one of the most challenging environments in IT . From proliferating unmanaged devices , to spiky traffic patterns driven by class schedules , to highly latency-sensitive applications such as online classes , research , video , music and gaming , university IT faces requirements more similar to a commercial service provider than an enterprise .
In meeting these demands , IT must-have a fully developed strategy to ensure high availability , Disaster Recovery , multi-cloud security and load balancing .
Secure on-demand education
As the university environment expands beyond campus , institutions need a security model based on the recognition that a threat can come from anywhere . The Zero Trust model responds to these challenges by adopting the approach of ‘ trust nobody ’ – inside or outside the network . Cybersecurity strategies are redesigned accordingly along the following key principles :
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