What does a network infrastructure upgrade project involve?

Before starting any network infrastructure upgrade project, network teams must understand exactly why their network requires an upgrade in the first place. Depending on the answer, network architects may go about the project in exceedingly different ways.

For example, if the organization requires a network infrastructure upgrade because existing hardware or software has reached an end-of-life stage, architects may choose to simply swap aging network appliances with upgraded models — all while keeping the network configuration and architecture untouched. However, if the upgrade is due to network performance or data security reasons, it will likely require far more changes to routing and switching flows, security policy and other changes to network device configurations.