July 15, 2026 SCinet SCinet Sprints SCinet Teams Share this page: Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Email By M. C. Bailey, SC26 SCinet Communication Liaison On the Fast Track to SC26 While high schools and colleges are competing in track and field events, spring is the time for SCinet Sprints – where planning continues and implementation begins. Core teams, including Automation, Development and Operations (DevOps), and Routing, met at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) in Austin, while other SCinet teams, like Wide Area Network (WAN) and Edgeless, were able to participate remotely. SCinet management (above) was onsite at TACC to oversee major network decisions. As SC26 draws nearer, it becomes imperative that some decisions are set in stone now. Prior to Sprints, management booked breakout conference rooms and organized meals for the teams. During these Sprints, SCinet management facilitated communication between all the teams present to ensure everyone was on the same page. This dedication resulted in a nearly finalized network diagram that SCinet will work toward from now until November when the network is launched at Chicago’s McCormick Place. (Above Image) SCinet Management Team (l to r): Cody Rotermund, Breanna Meade, Dylan Jacob, Debbie Fligor, and Corey Eichelberger SCinet Development and Operations Team (l to r): Ross Lindsay, Karen Lopez, Adam Byczkowski, Jamie Price, Chriss Ott, Doug Southworth, Greg Veldman, Patrick Somers, Cameron Jones, Mark Feit and Ken Celenza SCinet’s DevOps team got a chance to shine during May sprints. The DevOps team is responsible not only for the tools that SCinet uses, but much of their work is used by the general conference. One of these key tools is the Connection Request System (CRS), which will be used by SC26 exhibitors to make networking requests needed for their booths. The DevOps team is working to completely rebuild the system, giving the exhibitors a new platform to request these SCinet connections to their booths. While at TACC, SCinet’s DevOps team also upgraded the “Roadie Rack,” a half rack that is located at TACC most of the year. The Roadie Rack handles year-round operations and hosts critical infrastructure, such as the virtual machines used during the SC Conference. With support from Georgia Tech and the DevOps team, SCinet’s Automation team launched new continuous integration, or CI, capabilities. These CI functions will support Automation’s software development with enhanced testing and quick feedback loops. Updated CI functions will provide a stable and performant tool suite for SC26. The Automation and DevOps teams also kicked off their collaboration on the Nautobot, sponsored by Network-to-Code, building a shared data foundation for SCinet as a whole. This cross-team partnership provisioned 10 compute nodes for development environments to be used throughout the year. SCinet Automation Team (l to r): Jake Filla, Lauren Crow, Bill Stephens, Stephanie Hanso, and Ryan Vanderburg SCinet Routing Team (l to r): Joey Cranmore, Alaa Hamedah, Keith Vaughan, Annalicia Duran, and Garrett Weeks SCinet’s Routing team also managed several major achievements during the 2026 Sprints. The team focused primarily on hardware requirements that can support 400G service and WAN connectivity. This is vital information that will be integrated into the final network. In preparation for October staging at McCormick Place, the Routing team deployed a virtual lab to begin network configuration testing, hosted by the University of Warsaw. WINS Finally, during Sprints, SCinet welcomed several of the 2026 Workforce in Networking at SC (WINS) awardees. For many of the awardees, the Sprints marked their first SCinet event. With spring Sprints complete and SCinet now racing toward the SC26 conference, we want to thank all of the dedicated volunteers and contributors. Each team member has worked hard bringing their skills and expertise to help build the world’s fastest temporary network. There are only a few months left until the conference in November, and there is still much work to do. However, SCinet is excited to continue the work on the journey from TACC in Texas to SC26 in Chicago! Welcoming WINS to SCinet (l to r): Alaa Hamadeh, Stephanie Hanson. Shereen Ismail, Jamie Price, and Esen Gokpinar Shelton (not pictured)
