AFNet migration begins this month

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27th Special Operations Communications Squadron

Cannon Air Force Base is only a week or two away from migrating its computer users into the central U.S. Air Force Network. Over a period of six weeks, starting Jan. 28, Cannon AFB will become the next Air Force base to migrate into the AFNET; while this change is relatively transparent, the migration to centralized services will standardize the cyber environment and improve the network security environment. The goal of this Air Force network migration project is to collapse all existing unclassified stand-alone environments into a single structure and establish a centralized user directory and e-mail service for all Air Force network users.

The most visible change to network users will be in the format of e-mail addresses. The migration replaces the old [email protected] e-mail address with a standard [email protected] e-mail address, allowing central management of these accounts. These addresses are kept for the duration of a career, employment or affiliation with the Air Force regardless of the organization assigned. The AFNET migration project builds on the successes of the E-mail for Life program and will provide Airmen log-on capability to any connected Air Force computer without having to re-register for computer access when deployed, on temporary duty or during a permanent change of station.

As Cannon quickly approaches its projected AFNET migration start date, a team consisting of the Air Force Network Integration Center, Air Force Special Operations Major Command Communications Coordination Center, 690th Cyber Operations Group, and 27th Special Operations Communications Squadron technicians are currently preparing the network and resources to facilitate the migration of all Cannon personnel.

To prepare for the AFNET migration, here is what users should look for:

• Users will be migrated in two phases — computers in phase one and e-mail accounts in phase two.

• Computers are typically switched during the first week of the migration; all unclassified laptops should be powered on.

• Due to Cannon's large number of customers, individual user and organizational e-mail accounts will be migrated based on organization, typically occurring during the duty day.

• E-mail accounts exceeding size limits cannot be migrated, and are unable to send or receive messages. Practice good information management and reduce the size of your e-mail mailbox by moving older e-mails to locally stored personal folders.