In an era when many people buy a new smartphone every couple years, the information technology (IT) network at the U.S. Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico is 20 years old and needs to be replaced.
“If the site network infrastructure is not updated to newer technology, client disconnects and disruption of network traffic will become much more frequent,” DOE said in its just-released WIPP strategic plan for 2019 through 2024.
The agency said it wants to install a new, more up-to-date system that will be more reliable and “meet all of the new cyber security requirements.” The document does not say what those requirements are.
The Energy Department wants a new fiber optic system “to support [data processing] speeds 100 times faster than the existing cabling.” The current setup only supports data at speeds of up to 1 Gbit/s, or 1 gigabit per second. A new system would enable WIPP to segregate different types of data and “improve the cyber security posture of the facility.”
The WIPP strategic plan does not say when the Energy Department and WIPP contractor Nuclear Waste Partnership expect to carry out this IT modernization or how much it would cost.
