Meet Aviz Networks at EDUCAUSE 2026: Rethinking Campus Networking with Open Infrastructure

TL;DR

Aviz Networks Uncovers Open Networking to Enable Cost Effective Network Infrastructure for Higher Education Institutions 2026-02-25-aviz-at-educause-2026 - Aviz Networks, Inc., the leader in making open source network automation work for the enterprise, today announced it will participate at EDUCAUSE 2026, the leading association for information technology professionals in higher education, taking place next week in Denver. The university IT leaders attending EDUCAUSE, an education event not to be missed by forward-looking universities committed to providing innovative learning environments, will have the opportunity to learn how open networking will help them cost-effectively modernize and future-proof their campus campus infrastructures without vendor lock-in, from supporting AI research clusters and HPC initiatives to optimizing network visibility to accelerate a Zero Trust security strategy.

Introduction

College campus networks are changing fast. We’re seeing universities increasing AI initiatives, increasing support for data intensive workloads, beefing up cybersecurity efforts and modernizing campus tech - all on limited IT budgets. In most cases, they’re chained to a hardware supplier’s proprietary systems, making costs go up and flexibility shrink as needs evolve.

With new workloads coming with new requirements (think GPU clusters, hybrid-clouds, Zero Trust networking), networks need a new level of visibility, automation and choice to remain cost effective and flexible.

Visit Aviz Networks at EDUCAUSE 2026 to learn how we’re changing campus networking using open hardware and software to meet the need for high-performance, flexible and secure campuses in a changing world.

How Can Universities Support AI Research Without Creating Network Bottlenecks?

High-performance computing, machine learning, and the promise of artificial intelligence in research are now a part of research initiatives around the world, leading academic institutions to implement GPU clusters to drive this innovation. When the underlying network fabric for the GPUs is just as important as the computational resource, high-performance east-west traffic for the GPUs demands low latency, stable throughput and visibility to guarantee its optimum performance. Lack of visibility can cause congestion and communication challenges that stall the entire research workload. With Aviz's open networking fabric made for AI and HPC, combined with Deep Network Observability of this underlying infrastructure,IT can achieve the operational visibility necessary to support resilient AI environments by enabling researchers with consistent performance and network visibility.

How Does Open Networking Reduce Long-Term Campus Networking Costs?

The financial constraints that universities operate under-fixed infrastructure budgets versus increasing maintenance expenditures and the recurring need to refreshproprietary hardware-leave limited flexibility. In addition, proprietary networking solutions, hardware-based on vendor specific offerings-can become obsolete, impacting the total cost of ownership over the long-term, while constraining investment options for colleges. Through open networking, colleges can implement SONiC-based networking across a range of hardware from several vendors, alleviating hardware dependency on one vendor and empowering university IT teams as they budget their next generation of infrastructure investments. With an ever-evolving technology road map and budget that isn’t always growing, a transition to open networking supports campus infrastructure needs and long-term budget initiatives.

Why Is Deep Network Visibility Important for Campus Cybersecurity?

University campuses have complex and diverse network ecosystems that incorporate students, faculty, labs, administrative systems, and IoT devices, among others, as well as cloud services. These environments can’t be secured with perimeter security alone. A number of organizations are adopting Zero Trust models to secure their networks, but successfully executing Zero Trust relies on visibility.

Security teams without packet-level visibility in their network may lack the necessary details to accurately validate policy, investigate anomalies, or respond swiftly to evolving threats.

Aviz Deep Network Observability delivers visibility deep within your campus network at the packet level, providing deeper context of network behavior, enabling faster investigations and policy validation, while bolstering operational security for greater confidence and the achievement of key security goals that universities CISOs are facing.

Why Should Campus IT Leaders Meet With Aviz at EDUCAUSE 2026?

Supporting the innovation demands on campus without breaking the bank Balancing the ongoing pursuit of groundbreaking research with the persistent and ever-important needs for students, faculty, and administrative units to access the right resources at the right time – and with a budget in mind – has always been and will always be a challenge for university and higher-education IT teams. At EDUCAUSE 2026, learn how Aviz Networks leverages technology that was “born at the edge” of the hyperscale AI universe for the purposes of the research mission. Learn how: to enable your institution’s AI research to accelerate how open infrastructure can lower network costs for the university improved network observability to the campus network enhance security without adding complexity attend aviz Networks' sessions meet with Aviz Networks to discuss how other colleges and universities are working through these challenges, understand potential limitations of current network architectures and investigate practical ways to modernize the campus network.

Conclusion

Colleges and universities know what the future holds – AI research, cybersecurity, hybrid learning, and digital transformation are all putting higher demands on their campus networks than we’ve ever seen before. This comes with a challenge – how do you adapt to meet these network requirements through networking platforms that offer performance, flexibility, and visibility at long-term, affordable cost. Aviz Networks can explain what the next generation university looks like with its demonstrations at EDUCAUSE 2026 for open networking, and Deep Network Observability solutions powered by SONiC infrastructure – it gives full network control of their strategy for AI, Zero Trust, infrastructure budget spend, and more.