NUS-IT-Report-Card-2021_PDF-3(FromCD)

Advanced and Secure Infrastructure

5.

Upgrade of the NUS Border Firewall Between the NUS network and the world's Internet sits the Border Firewall that monitors all incoming and outgoing traffic. This gatekeeping functionality enables a substantial and reliable university network to grow and flourish. From 2019, Internet usage by the university increased by more than 50%, from approximately 10 Gbps to 17 Gbps —a number that will likely rise further due to heightened remote university application usage and cloud usage. In anticipation of this growth, the NUS Border Network and the Firewall have been upgraded to have a bandwidth of 40 Gbps, allowing NUS to achieve a secure and consistent internet user experience and enhanced online events and learning support. This upgrade came with a Next-Generation Firewall to provide better network insights and application visibility for further security assessment and automated defence. With this upgraded firewall hardware, the NUS community is poised to experience improved performance and enhanced security. Implementing the i4.0 Data Centre Network NUS hosts research initiatives that are highly strategic to Singapore’s research community. Research projects usually require large amounts of computing resources and involve huge quantities of data. To enhance security, research competence, and capacity, NUS IT has established a state-of-the-art High Performance Computing and Artificial Intelligence i4.0 Data Centre (HPC-AI DC) facility with the National Supercomputing Centre. This centre supports stakeholders such as A*STAR, NTU, SUTD, and aims to attract future research collaborators with NUS. Adopting superior End-of-Row architecture in network switches, cost savings and overall data centre infrastructure uptime will be augmented, along with security and reliability. With flexible, scalable, and powerful connectivity, research capabilities are heightened for the NUS community and beyond.