Notre Dame Upgrades Network with Cisco, Paving Way for AI Readiness
The University of Notre Dame recently completed a multiyear partnership with Cisco Systems Inc. to upgrade its network infrastructure, marking an important step in becoming AI-ready.
The project involved replacing over 950 switches across 170 buildings with new Cisco Catalyst 9300X multigigabit switches and implementing zero-touch provisioning through Cisco Catalyst Center.
According to John Buysse, senior director of network and telephony services at Notre Dame, the upgrade was driven by a desire for consistency in network performance, as well as the need for improved back-end bandwidth to support Wi-Fi upgrades. The new switches provide multigigabit speeds and have been deployed alongside Cisco ThousandEyes for visibility into owned and third-party networks.
The project's success can be seen in the fact that campus bandwidth usage has more than doubled between fiscal 2021 and fiscal 2026, largely due to video consumption. The team aims to support a 100-gig connection to an end user by 2030, but will plan for a 10-year lifecycle of the network.