Hong Kong: ICS Opens New Campus Building Featuring H3C IP Networking

Background

The International Christian School (ICS) is one of Hong Kong’s most highly regarded educational institutions. Following the school motto of “Instruction for life, Commitment to Christ, and Service to the community”, ICS offers a comprehensive program of academics, athletics and fine and performing arts education aimed at balancing academic excellence with social responsibility.

As a leading educational institution, ICS believes an information technology infrastructure is a key part in providing a sound school environment in the 21st century, where the use of Internet and data communications is a part of everyone’s life. Collaboration between IT and academic studies brings the best education to students in the age of info-tainment. Seeking to strengthen its multimedia educational platform in classrooms and computer labs and administrative IT resources for its new campus building located in Shek Mun, Shatin, ICS deployed H3C’s high-performance, high-bandwidth 10GE networks and wireless solutions to support around 1,300 ports – including wired and wireless – for data and voice traffic.

The Solution

The new ICS campus building network required high performance interconnections and outstanding expansion capacity. The H3C 10G network infrastructure solution includes the H3C S7506R multi-service routing switch at the network core; H3C S5600 switches in the “Computer on Wheels”(COW) store on each floor for 10GE interconnection with the core S7506R switch; and H3C S5100 switches for high-speed GE-to-desktop/laptop connectivity. H3C’s S3600 PoE switches also provide power to support AP and IP phones with a Quality of Service (QoS) guarantee that ensures accurate data and voice transmission. H3C also deployed a WX2200 wireless controller, the AP3750 access point product and its WXM wireless management software platform for total wireless coverage and network management throughout the new building. The H3C S7506R multi-service routing switch provides 1.68Tbps backplane bandwidth, a 768Gbps switching capacity, and 432Mpps forwarding capabilities. The S7506R also provides L2 and L3 wire-speed forwarding performance, large capacity, and high density. The dual switch and route processing modules of the S7506R offer excellent network reliability, while its 10GE wire-speed interface provides powerful processing capabilities between the core and edge switches located at the COW store.

The H3C S5600-50C L3 GE edge switch offers full wire-speed 10GE connection with a switching capacity of 136Gbps and a forwarding capacity of 101.18Mpps. Higher reliability is achieved by utilizing H3C’s IRF stacking technology that allows up to 96Gbps of stacking bandwidth. The S5600 series switches also feature comprehensive security controls and abundant QoS policies. The S5100-48P-EI GE edge switch offers a switching capacity of 96Gbps and a forwarding capacity of 71.42Mpps and full wire-speed multi-layer switching. The S3600-28P-PWR-SI switches feature powerful security control policies to prevent illegal users from accessing the network.

To enable stable and secure wireless coverage, H3C’s centralized wireless switch solution supports IEEE 802.11a and 802.11b/g standards. The H3C wireless solution features advanced wireless management software platform and access policy controls such as rogue detection and isolation, user and group security profiles, and Web-portal login authentication to offer fast and easy roaming with secure guest user provisioning throughout the campus.

Why H3C?

ICS was impressed with H3C’s innovative technologies, reliable products and solid reputation for quality of service. H3C’s consultants and technicians worked closely with ICS to design the new building’s network, ensuring it met all requirements for performance, IP-based application support and scalability.

“At ICS we don’t just talk IT, we put IT into action,” said Ben Norton, Headmaster, ICS. “We stress learning through student participation with technology. The H3C solution provides high performance and reliability, which will help ICS further its vision of maximizing IT to enhance our educational environment. H3C’s IP-based technology platform and the IToIP vision were perfectly in line with the ICS strategy, which is a crucial requirement for ICS’s future network expansion.”

The Benefits

The H3C-built wired and wireless networks in ICS’s new campus building provide performance, reliability and scalability enabling the school to improve the delivery of its extensive multimedia teaching resources, AP course and online examination program, as well as its administrative IT environment.

With the help of H3C’s reliable, speedy and high-bandwidth network, parents can also have a more thorough understanding of their children’s school lives via the intranet. Teachers can lessen the administrative burden of keeping student attendance records by using the smart card system, and all parties can utilize the daily broadcast to facilitate communications within the campus. Teachers, parents and students now have a convenient and effective communication platform, thanks to H3C technology.

H3C’s IP-based 10GE network solutions also let ICS enjoy the speed, bandwidth and flexibility of cost-effective network expansion for future growth. H3C’s end-to-end QoS guarantee for voice and data transmission throughout the network provides a high quality communications platform for ICS’s new campus building.

With wireless steadily growing in popularity and the implementation of its “Computer on Wheels” (COW) campaign, ICS needed to provide anywhere, anytime wireless access for teaching staff and students to enjoy instant online activities and learning information updates. Leveraging the total wireless solution from H3C, ICS can now offer total wireless coverage throughout the new building in a stable and secure wireless environment. Wireless security is guaranteed with H3C’s centralized management and easy-to-manage guest registration tools.