Affordable connectivity and digital opportunity solutions that help libraries, museums, and cultural institutions provide public access and preserve what makes North Carolina worth connecting.

North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences

Culture & Learning Clients

Libraries & Cultural Institutions

Need reliable infrastructure for libraries or cultural institutions? 

Why Libraries & Cultural Institutions Choose MCNC

Culture & Learning

E-Rate eligible connectivity, CIPA-compliant security, and infrastructure built for 1:1 device programs and digital learning, from one-room schools to major research universities.

Education

Secure networks to protect patient data with 99.99% uptime for mission-critical care, because when systems go down in healthcare and public safety, people feel it.

Health & Safety

Transparent pricing, compliance expertise, and reliable infrastructure that helps city and county governments serve citizens and protect taxpayer dollars.

Public Sector

Direct connections to Internet2, high-performance computing support, and infrastructure built to support global collaboration.

Research & Innovation

From local businesses to large, state-wide organizations, MCNC is a trusted advisor for solving your toughest technical challenges.

Consulting

Whether it’s your network, cybersecurity posture, or technology that’s due for an update, MCNC has the expertise to perform a comprehensive evaluation and create a detailed plan of action. MCNC delivers a report card that outlines lifecycle readiness, security controls, or network architecture findings and helps you prioritize your infrastructure investments. 
To evaluate network design, configuration, and performance, MCNC conducts Network Assessments tailored to the network type and organization needs. MCNC also offers cybersecurity assessment services covering program review against best practices and industry standards, policy gap analysis, risk assessment, and network security evaluation.
MCNC’s consultants offer assessments tailored to different industries, including E-Rate Category 2 assistance to align your infrastructure needs with funding guidelines and technical requirements for schools and libraries. 
Our consultants can work with your team to determine the set of assessments your organization might most benefit from, and will deliver a report that is both actionable and comprehensive.

A Clear Plan to Strengthen & Secure Your Infrastructure

Assessment Services

Specialized professional development and technical instruction build institutional self-sufficiency for IT staff. MCNC delivers internal content and technical instruction that prioritizes intentional knowledge transfer, working with trusted third parties when needed. MCNC’s Technical Training &#038; Institutional Knowledge Transfer ensure local teams are fully equipped to manage and maintain their environments independently.

Independence & Confidence for Your IT Team

Training & Professional Development

Navigating complex regulatory landscapes and evolving security threats requires proactive leadership. MCNC provides strategic, executive-level guidance to help both technical and non-technical leaders establish resilient security policies and protect their operations.
Through our Virtual CISO (vCISO) Advisory Services, we provide a dedicated executive consulting resource to augment your team, assisting with cybersecurity technology evaluation, audit remediation, and security program development. For incident response planning and hands-on validation exercises, MCNC offers Business Continuity &#038; Disaster Recovery (BC/DR) Planning and Cybersecurity Incident Response Planning &#038; Tabletop Exercises, offering targeted training, policy development, and real-world simulations to test and validate your team&#8217;s incident readiness.

Executive Guidance for Long-term Resilience & Compliance

Strategic Advisory & Governance

Designing, migrating, and securing modern network infrastructure requires a blend of high-level strategy and meticulous technical execution. MCNC provides the deep engineering expertise that organizations need to successfully navigate even the most complex transitions.
Grounded in industry best practices, MCNC’s Infrastructure Architecture Design &amp; Configuration Support services are designed to help design efficient, strategic network infrastructure. For data center shifts, virtualization platforms, and complex infrastructure migrations, MCNC offers Infrastructure &amp; Virtualization Migration Advisory services.
To get everything running smoothly, initial deployment of cybersecurity services is made simpler with Managed Security Service Onboarding &amp; Provisioning, where the MCNC team delivers direct engineering support for initial deployment, policy migration, and operational turn-up.

Strategic Architecture Meets Practical Integration & Deployment

Architecture, Integration & Onboarding

When network challenges or security threats arise, MCNC provides advanced technical troubleshooting and systematic root-cause analysis to resolve complex network failures. And for non-profit entities and our critical infrastructure partners, we partner directly with the N.C. Joint Cybersecurity Task Force (JCTF) to support rapid containment, forensic investigation, and systematic recovery in the face of major security events.

Complete Support From Minor Issues to Major Threats 

Technical Support & Incident Response

Reliable internet, fiber, cloud connectivity, and transport services built on a 4,400-mile fiber backbone that reaches all 100 counties.

Connectivity

For over 40 years, MCNC’s network, NCREN, has provided full-duplex high-speed broadband internet services. NCREN features redundant nodes and internet transport providers distributed throughout North Carolina, delivering a highly available network experience. All of MCNC’s clients are also connected to the Internet2, the nation’s premier coast-to-coast research and education network.
Through our Cloud Connect service, our internet clients can access connections with public cloud providers, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. MCNC’s engineers will work with you to configure the best solution for your connection to the Cloud Connect service, ensuring you have the speed, capacity, reliability, and security your organization needs.

Reliable Service North Carolinians Can Count On

Internet Access

MCNC’s state-of-the-art MPLS-based Ethernet Transport network service configurations include Point-to-Point and Multipoint-to-Multipoint and are available in a variety of speeds. Having carrier-grade transport service ensures your organization can reliably connect two or more locations at Layer 2.
With Wavelength Transport (Lambda), you can also get access to MCNC’s top-tier, high-speed Point-to-Point Ethernet circuits via our robust Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) optical network. This allows your large files and data sets to be accessible and transferrable quickly — and securely.

Cutting-edge Statewide Networks

Transport Services

MCNC built NCREN, the fiber backbone connecting all 100 counties — and we own and manage every mile of it. Whether you need dark fiber, lit services, or a connection to our backbone, we&#8217;ll find the right fit for your needs.
We also offer dark fiber IRU and lease options to commercial providers like broadband companies, wireless carriers, and cable operators, because better connectivity for North Carolina means getting fiber where it&#8217;s needed most.

Flexible Fiber Options for Every Need

Fiber Leasing

MCNC uses enterprise-grade servers, hypervisors, and storage to host managed or self-managed virtual machines (VMs). Our virtual machines are custom built to your specifications in memory, disk space, and processor cores, and can be combined with other MCNC data center services, such as load balancing or firewall.
Design, install, and operate your systems hosted in MCNC’s Data Center with help from our certified, experienced experts. Our managed hosting services include performance monitoring, advanced digital diagnostics, system tuning, and assessments and planning for architecture and IT management. Whatever your needs, we can customize our services to support your organization.

Easily Support New & Upgraded Services

Virtual Machines & Hosting

Improve your network performance, strengthen disaster recovery, and increase redundancy and business continuity with MCNC’s portfolio of Data Center solutions. With locations in RTP and Rosman, NC, our offsite, secure facility safeguards your data while offsetting the full costs and responsibilities of operating your own data center. Through IBM’s Spectrum Protect, we also offer automated disaster recovery services to back up and recover your data.

Peace of Mind & Reliability for Your Data

Data Center

Around-the-clock protection from our North Carolina-based Security Operations Center. We monitor 300,000 endpoints with enterprise-grade tools and managed services that extend your team.

Cybersecurity

Powered by the CrowdStrike Falcon platform, MCNC’s Managed Endpoint Protection is engineered to keep your network safe. Its formidable capabilities prevent attacks, provide greater endpoint visibility, identify unauthorized systems and applications in real time, assess vulnerabilities, and hunt for anomalous attacker tradecraft 24&#215;7. It’s like having your own in-house security operations center, without the higher cost.
Firewalls are essential for network security — preventing unauthorized access, protecting against malware and cyberattacks, and helping maintain the confidentiality and integrity of sensitive data. MCNC’s Managed Firewall Service provides around-the-clock proactive monitoring, administration, and support for on-premise Next-Generation Firewall, managed by our team and powered by industry-leading technology from Palo Alto Networks.

Confidently Defend Your Organization

Managed Services

MCNC’s Secure Application Access integrates identity management, application security, and multi-factor authentication to give users access to public or private cloud applications without requiring a VPN.
Delivered in collaboration with Zscaler, MCNC’s Web Security Service provides enterprise and remote users with web content filtering, cloud application management, and threat protection against viruses and malware, ensuring consistent security policies.
Powered by Akamai’s threat intelligence, MCNC’s DNS Security Filtering is a hardware-free, cloud-based defense system that proactively blocks malicious or unapproved domains to protect your network from malware, phishing, ransomware, and data exfiltration.

Equip Your Network With Leading Protection

Security Tools & Monitoring

Assess, improve, and extend your digital security defenses with our expert-led cybersecurity advisory service. We provide critical strategic leadership, including Comprehensive Cybersecurity Program Reviews, standards-based Risk Assessments, and Cybersecurity Policy Analysis. Our hands-on advisory services can also fill internal staffing gaps, assist with audit finding remediation, and evaluate new security technologies. Let us help you bridge the gap between existing internal IT teams and the complex cyber defense framework you need.

Leadership & Guidance to Enhance Your Cybersecurity Posture

Cybersecurity Consulting & Compliance

MCNC continues to work to restore services in Western NC after Hurricane Helene. We have included options for helping those in need here:

Culture & Learning

Sanctuaries of knowledge. Hubs of high-tech services. Curiosity enablers. MCNC provides the secure, reliable infrastructure that North Carolina's libraries and cultural institutions rely on, so people in every corner of the state can learn, grow, and connect to worlds beyond their walls.

Libraries & Cultural Institutions

Consulting Services

Connectivity Services

Cybersecurity Services

Why Libraries & Cultural Institutions Choose MCNC

Need reliable infrastructure for libraries or cultural institutions?

Culture & Learning Clients

News & Events

Resource Library

Solutions

Contact & Support