Pitt and UPMC Virtual Network Extension

Overview

There is a significant amount of collaboration between the University of Pittsburgh (“Pitt”) and UPMC, in many areas, including research, patient care, operations, process optimization, and use of technology to advance the missions of both organizations. This collaboration can require a person who is in a UPMC building to access resources that can only be accessed from Pitt’s network, or people who are in a Pitt building need to access resources that are only available on UPMC’s network.

UPMC and the Pitt have jointly developed processes to virtually extend networks (virtual LANs or VLANs) between each other to facilitate this collaboration.

Please note that at this time, this network extension only applies to physical network ports.

The extension of wireless networks between Pitt and UPMC is currently not supported. This functionality might be available in the future.

This document will help you determine what type of network extension you need, information to gather that will aid in processing your request, and who to contact to start the process.

Information to gather before opening any tickets:

  1. If you are a Pitt employee with some type of sponsored access to UPMC, what department are you in? Please provide the name(s) of your departmental administrator, departmental IT contact, and Responsibility Center (RC) administrator, if known.
  2. If you are a UPMC employee, what department are you in? (this should be known/autopopulated when someone enters their user ID) Please provide the name(s) of your departmental administrator and site PC Support contact (should be queryable/autopopulate if the employee provides their address), if known.
  3. If you are dual-employed by both Pitt and UPMC, are you making this request as a Pitt or a UPMC employee? If you are making this request as a Pitt employee, you will use the Pitt process. If you are making this request as a UPMC employee, you would use the UPMC process.
  4. Your location, or the location where the Pitt or UPMC extended network service needs to be presented, if that is different. Please provide as much information as possible, including:
    • Building name and address
    • Floor
    • Room/suite number
    • Data port IDs if available (normally labeled on the wall jack)
  5. Please provide any information about the Pitt or UPMC resources that you need to be able to access. If you know the IP subnet and/or VLAN ID that needs to be extended to UPMC, please provide this information as well. Your departmental IT contact can help provide this information if needed.

Procedure for Pitt employees who need to have a Pitt network extended to UPMC

If you are a Pitt employee with sponsored access to UPMC and you need to have a Pitt network extended to UPMC, contact Pitt’s Technology Help Desk at 412-624-HELP (4357) or use the online form to open a ticket and make a note of that ticket number. In this ticket, you should provide as much information as you can from what you gathered above, and note that you need to have a Pitt VLAN extended to UPMC. This ticket should be routed to Pitt IT Security for initial review and approval.

IMPORTANT NOTE: When requesting that a Pitt network be extended into a UPMC facility, the IP addresses are assigned by Pitt, and these devices are subjected to Pitt’s IT Security policies. Please contact Pitt’s Technology Help Desk for questions or concerns related to these policies.

Once the ticket is opened with Pitt’s Help Desk, please contact UPMC’s Help Desk at 412-647-HELP (4357) or through the IT Service Portal to open a ticket, and make a note of that ticket number. Please also include the Pitt ticket number in the ticket that is opened with UPMC, along with as much of the information you gathered above as possible. This will help the technical staffs of Pitt and UPMC coordinate the work they need to do to fulfill your request. This ticket will need the information regarding the physical UPMC location(s) where the Pitt network will need to be presented. The ticket should be routed to the “ECGDatacenter” group.

Once both requests have been made, Pitt and UPMC’s technical groups will review them, verify the information, contact you to confirm or clarify the requests as needed, and communicate status as the work progresses.

New Ports

In the event that this request requires new physical data ports to be installed in a UPMC building, new wiring requests are submitted through Cherwell and will be billed back to the business unit. If the work is being requested as part of a Facilities Management project (new construction, major renovations to part of an existing building, etc), the work might be billable back to the project. If the project is unable to pay for the work, the charges will be billed back to the business unit.

Procedure for UPMC employees who need to have a UPMC network extended to Pitt

If you are a UPMC employee with some form of sponsored access to Pitt, and you need to have a UPMC network extended to Pitt, contact UPMC’s Help Desk at 412-647-HELP (4357) or through the IT Service Portal to open a ticket, and make a note of that ticket number. In this ticket, you should provide as much information as you can from what you gathered above, and note that you need to have a UPMC VLAN extended to Pitt. This ticket should be routed to the “ECG-Datacenter” group.

IMPORTANT NOTE: When requesting that a UPMC network be extended into a Pitt facility, the IP addresses are assigned by UPMC, and these devices are subjected to UPMC’s IT Security policies. Please contact UPMC’s Help Desk for questions or concerns related to these policies. Once the ticket is opened with UPMC’s Help Desk, please contact Pitt’s Technology Help Desk at 412-624-HELP (4357) or or use the online form to open a ticket and make a note of that ticket number. Please also include the UPMC ticket number in the ticket that is opened with Pitt, along with as much of the information you gathered above as possible. This will help the technical staffs of Pitt and UPMC coordinate the work they need to do to fulfill your request. This ticket will need the information regarding the physical Pitt location(s) where the UPMC network will need to be presented. The ticket should be routed to Pitt IT Network Engineering for review.

Once both requests have been made, Pitt and UPMC’s technical groups will review them, verify the information, contact you to confirm or clarify the requests as needed, and communicate status as the work progresses.

New Ports

In the event that this request requires new physical data ports to be installed in a Pitt building, a Pitt General Ledger number (“GL number” or “account number”) will be needed for Pitt’s Telecommunications group to submit their charges for this work. These charges are billed to the requesting department or Responsibility Center. All charges are one-time charges, subject to change annually as material prices change and new labor rates are negotiated. Complete a service request to have this completed.

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