The IP Storage Network Refresh project was successfully completed during an extended maintenance window, which ended at 8 a.m. on Sunday, March 22, 2026.
This critical initiative ensures the storage network meets modern data center standards and is ready to support future campus needs. In a highly coordinated effort, University IT (UIT) teams, working with partners like Stanford University Libraries, replaced the legacy Cisco Nexus 5696/2300-series Fabric Extender (FEX) infrastructure with a new, higher-capacity solution.
This work was completed well ahead of the May 31, 2026, end-of-support date, mitigating significant operational risk.
Why the planned outage was necessary and how the team minimized downtime
The project required a full "rip and replace" of the legacy Cisco Nexus/FEX architecture, which cannot be done without a service outage. During the planned outage, servers lost storage connectivity while physical connections were moved. To minimize the impact, the project team leveraged the proven cutover strategy from the successful November 2024 Managed Machine Room refresh. Three teams worked concurrently, starting in the Northwest Data Center Communication Hub (NDCCH) and then moving to Forsythe Hall, validating each FEX pair replacement rack by rack. This parallel execution model contained system outages to a range of 15 minutes to four hours, depending on the cutover sequencing.
New infrastructure boosts performance and capacity
The new infrastructure transitions our storage network to a modern, spine-leaf data center fabric, using Juniper QFX spine/leaf switch infrastructure and Cisco Nexus 9300-series top-of-rack (ToR) switches. This refresh provides a significant increase in capacity and enables future performance upgrades across the IP storage system.
Key bandwidth improvements include:
- Core-to-Top-of-Rack Links: Upgraded from 2x40Gbps to 2x100Gbps
- Forsythe-to-NDCCH Interconnects: Upgraded from 40Gbps to 2x100Gbps
- Server Connectivity Path: Now enabled for upgrades from 10Gbps to 25Gbps
- Storage Filer Path: Provides an upgrade path to 100Gbps
Cross-team collaboration and planning create a smooth transition
The project’s success is a direct result of meticulous planning and deep collaboration between multiple UIT teams and campus partners. The groups worked together to assess impacts on storage-dependent workloads, carefully plan shutdown and restart sequences, and manage technical risks throughout the migration.
Special thanks to the contributing teams:
- Project Sponsors: Keith Agosta, Alvin Chew
- UIT Networking (Core Infra / Network engineering): Drew Saunders, David Littrell, Will Habeck
- UIT Hosting Services & Technical Facilities: Lucrecia Kim-Boswell, Javier Reyes, Ryan G Quintos, Pablo Hernandez, Jeffrey Hui, Oscar Fuentes, Rebecca Galvin, Maurice Brown, Victor Reyes
- UIT Enterprise Infrastructure Platforms: Lonlone Lee, Sanjay Pinto, Joseph Dick, Adam Lewenberg, Pablo Judd, Stanley Lee, Alan Ge
- UIT Enterprise Linux Systems: Tony Chu, Emil Popov, Sanjib Goswami, Calvin Hom
- UIT Enterprise Windows Infrastructure: Stanley Lui, Kanchan Mathur, Karen Tsai, Laurie Miller
- UIT Authentication and Collaboration Systems: Srinivas Rao, Sriram Krovvidi
- UIT Enterprise Technology - Technical Services: Jen Hong, Ramani Raman,Dilip Malavalli Krishnamurthy, Kumar Priyadarshi, Ramesh Manda, Ekanatha Hosangadi Pai,Akshay Mathur, Rajesh Mandalapu, Anvesh Duddukuri, Chak Bandreddi, Mary Chaitanya Mekala, Jayant Mahishi, Rashmi V, Sreenivas Konduru, Badrinath Tripathy, Virendra SIngh Shekhawat, Varun Naib, Prabhat Kumar, Varun Kumar, Mahesh Sirikonda, Vasu Malluri, Kishorebabu Devabakthuni, Srinivasa Rao Gangavarapu, Chris Heroux, Robert Rodriguez
- Stanford University Libraries: Julian Morley, Robert Smith Client Technology Solutions and Consulting: Sid Obra, Jai Sharma
- Enterprise Technology Leadership: Armand Capote, Bhavana Tirukovaluri
- IT Facilities Infrastructure & Resilience Leadership: Matthew Ricks
- UIT Project Management Office: Jim Hofen
