The ACI event on May 18, 2022 as the first face-to-face event in 2 years at the IT Center!
Source: Own illustration
Under the motto “SDN made in Aachen – ACI Datacenter”, the event management team of the IT Center and the Networks Department organized a workshop for data center operators in the university environment together with Cisco Systems GmbH and NTT Germany AG & Co. KG organized a workshop for data center operators in the university environment.
The focus of this workshop was the exchange of information about ACI, SDN and the current projects around the topic of data centers at RWTH Aachen University, but also the personal exchange and networking played a major role.
“Nice to welcome you here in the IT Center in presence”, with this sentence Georg Schramm, department head of the department Systems and Operations opened the ACI conference on May 18, 2022 in the IT Center in the most beautiful imperial weather.
Even though we have been able to establish over the last two years that digital meetings and events work and certainly offer their advantages, we are slowly getting back to pre-pandemic normality with face-to-face events. Although we still have a smaller number of guests, fixed seating and continue to apply strict hygiene measures, we are able to exchange ideas in person.
15 guests as well as 8 speakers were pleased during the presence event on Wednesday that the IT Center again opens its doors for events and thus the personal contact can grow again.
Exciting program for our guests
During the event, the IT Center presented cross-departmental topics from the following areas:
- – SDN data center, operations and design
- – server hosting
- – Cloud connectivity
- – Self-service portals
The introduction was made by “our data center” in conception and operation. The close cooperation between server hosting and networks was discussed, as well as the “pitfalls” of previous concepts. At the same time, the challenges of a modern data center, both for networkers and server operators, were presented and discussed in the context of cloud, especially with on-prem cloud.
After this interesting presentation and stimulating discussion, the colleagues of the Server Hosting group presented the VM ordering software, giving insight into development, operation, concept and future.
Afterwards the guests had the opportunity to get to know the DC-Admin portal during a presentation. The goal of the portal is not only to integrate the IT center internally into processes, e.g. the provisioning of networks or firewall requests, but also to give the admins (network contact persons) access to their data center areas and to grant them self-service rights. This includes, for example, the creation or removal of firewall rules.
Let’s talk about safety…
After the lunch break, our guests moved on to the security section of the presentation. The guests enjoyed a presentation of current security concepts, as well as information on the integration of next-generation firewalls into the data center/ACI.
Afterwards, the current connection of Azure to the data center and the RWTH Aachen was discussed.
At the end of the really successful event there was still enough time for personal exchange and discussion.
The speakers and contact persons for ACI at our company, Benedikt Paffen and Philipp Tomazin, are already looking forward to further workshops on this exciting topic in the coming weeks.
At Cisco’s “Datacenter University” event, a presentation is planned for June 22, 2022 in front of about 300 interested guests to report on experiences with ACI at RWTH Aachen University.
If you are interested in this topic, please send us an email. We will be very happy to put you in contact with our technical department.
Responsible for the content of this article are Dunja Gath and Benedikt Paffen.
