ership in regional, national, and international high-performance networks for research and education. Office of Information Technology, Georgia Tech, Network Roadmap 2010 The current status of the network is summarized later, and this is also an important aspect. Before the future proposals for the network can be understood, one should know where the network stands currently in terms of scope, connectivity, and operations status. Also an executive summary is made available to explain the overall directions for the roadmap. This is important in multiple ways: The summary provides a high-level view of items that are taken into consideration for making the roadmap. Without getting into too much technical detail, the reader could get an overall picture of the roadmap directions. The summary could also help the reader understand that not all goals expressed are actually planned to be achieved in the same roadmap duration, and some goals could be achieved through multiple steps (when the detailed roadmap is perused). The "Executive Summary Overall Direction" from Georgia Tech states: Network expansion and enhancement to reflect the state-of-the-art and to accommodate the Institute's strategic goals and developing academic, research, and business needs Focus on faculty and research enablement Enhancements in disaster recovery and redundancy options locally and globally Network and firewall equipment refreshment on a 5-7 year cycle Wireless network coverage throughout the entire footprint of our campuses, indoors and outdoors Leveraging of automation, scaling, self-service, monitoring/measurement, and change management Proactive evaluation and implementation of best practices and technologies for network integrity Evaluation and piloting of new technologies in preparation for future deployment, needs, and opportunities CHAPTER 4 NETWORK ROADMAPS From this summary, we can discern multiple items that will be emphasized later in terms of generic influences on a network roadmap, such as: Fundamental purpose of the network to