AFNET migration update Published April 16, 2013 By Keith Whitman 412th Communications Squadron EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- Edwards AFB will soon become the next base to migrate its computer users into a central Air Force Network. Over a six week period beginning May 28, technicians will begin migrating base workstations, network users, and e-mail into the AFNET. The goal of this project is to collapse all individual or stand-alone Air Force, Air Force Reserve, and Air National Guard networks into the AFNET. During the migration, Edwards users should be prepared for occasional service interruptions as migrations progress and expect to restore some features to their desktop environment (e.g., Outlook preferences, SharePoint access, drive mapping) after they've migrated. Although software and hardware problems are to be expected, the AFNET migration project represents a major change to how computer networks are managed, and is one of the most complex DOD technology initiatives ever attempted. Until now, Major Commands and various other Air Force organizations have been operating their own independent networks, consequently driving unique and unit specific requirements. Over the years, this "county option" approach led to standardization and security problems, high operation and maintenance costs, and a lack of enterprise situational awareness. In short, there was no single organization or commander responsible for the network. The AFNET migration project addresses these issues, and places Air Force cyber operations under the operational control of a single commander. This approach will yield a significant improvement in the Air Force's ability to fight daily virus activity and malicious intrusion attempts. Additionally, AFNET migration will centralize services like e-mail and data storage, significantly improving network security and standardization. Finally, operational and training costs will be reduced through the elimination of redundant systems and services.