For researchers in north Alabama, an upgrade in bandwidth and security is giving them a leg up on their work.

UAB Medicine in Huntsville has more than 800 devices, and previously had 600 users working on research with only 100 Mbps of bandwidth, said David Wolford, network architect with UAB IT’s network team. With more bandwidth needed to support ongoing research, UAB IT stepped up to help not only bring faster speeds but reduce costs.

“The project provided an increase in bandwidth from 100 Mbps to 10 Gbps for a similar cost to the existing service. The overall cost for bandwidth is significantly lower,” Wolford said.

UAB IT began the project in 2019 and planned out multiple phases to help bridge the gaps of service. Wolford said the first phase began by establishing campus services with linking Huntsville and Birmingham with dark fiber, which is fiber-optic cables that are not in use yet. The next phase began shortly after the old service was switched over and UAB fibers became live. Other phases included internet access to the new campus, establishing firewalls, and adding VPN tunnels.

“The biggest hurdle and delay we faced was coordinating with vendors to migrate their VPN tunnels since it requires changes at both ends,” Wolford said. “We started that phase in November of 2022, and it was officially completed in April of 2023.”

Multiple teams within UAB IT and outside worked to make this win possible. Members from security, networking, and Huntsville IT each brought their knowledge to help bring service more than 100 miles away.