H3C Builds a Core Network for Peking University Shenzhen Hospital

Outstanding performance and leading technology

Peking University Shenzhen Hospital is a modern and large general hospital rooted in innovative concept and technologies, jointly invested by Peking University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and Shenzhen Municipal People's Government. It is located in the north of the center of Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, and next to the beautiful Lotus Hill Park. The hospital is full of garden scenery and elegant environment. The magnificent Shenzhen Bay in the South China Sea and Hong Kong, the Pearl of the Orient, can be seen from the top floor of the inpatient building. The hospital focuses on medical treatment and integrates scientific research, teaching, prevention, health care, and rehabilitation, with a standard layout of 800 beds and a daily outpatient capacity of 5,000 people. The hospital has a total investment of RMB600 million, covering an area of 56,000 square meters and a building area of 78,000 square meters. The hospital is full of talents, with more than 200 senior talents above the doctor's degree, from famous universities and hospitals in the world.

Peking University Shenzhen Hospital built the internal LAN three years ago and started to realize informatization at an early stage. The informatization has brought the hospital considerable economic and social benefits. However, as the need for the network continues to increase and technology continues to advance, the size or capacity of the existing network can no longer meet the needs. Therefore, to fulfill the growing demand for the network, new hospital network construction should take into account not only the technological maturity but also the service bearing capacity and scalability of the network.

Network plan

This network construction is based on the principle of protecting users' existing investment and improving network performance. In terms of device selection, the core network of Peking University Shenzhen Hospital adopted H3C S9512/S9505 10 Gigabit core switches, together with the original 3Com SuperStack 3 Switch 4400 aggregation switches and SuperSatck 3 Switch 3300 access switches.

Two H3C S9505 switches and one H3C S9512 10 Gigabit core switch are deployed in the core layer of the outpatient and inpatient buildings. The core switches are interconnected by Gigabit bundled links to build the 10 Gigabit core network and Gigabit switching platform in the hospital. After the service traffic becomes larger in the future, it can also be smoothly upgraded from Gigabit to 10 Gigabit. The convergence layer continues to use the original Gigabit switch 4400 while adding Gigabit modules. This enables a Gigabit backbone link between the core layer and the aggregation layer. The bandwidth between the aggregation layer and the access layer is further enhanced through the bundling of FE links between the aggregation switch and the access switch.

The original two-layer network is extended into a three-layer structure consisting of the core, convergence, and access layers. This enables devices at different layers to perform their respective duties. Upgrading a network device at one layer does not have a major impact on the device at other layers. This facilitates network failure locating and failure isolation while enhancing the network scalability.

In general, the network upgrade of Peking University Shenzhen Hospital has not only improved the network bandwidth and data exchange efficiency but also greatly enhanced the security and scalability of the network.

Network plan

1. High performance

Peking University Shenzhen Hospital adopts H3C S9512/S9505 10 Gigabit switches as core devices, which provide a TBits-level switching platform. H3C S9512/S9505 switches have 1.8T/750G backplane switching capability and 430M/180 Mpps packet forwarding capability. H3C has enhanced the service support capability of H3C S9500 switches. It supports fully distributed service processing from the hardware structure, distributing service processing to each interface board. Each line card contains Packets Engine with powerful processing capability, which can handle Layer2, IPv4, MPLS/VPN, IPv6, and other kinds of packet forwarding at line rate.The powerful service processing and support capabilities of H3C S9500 switches finally achieve the balance between service and performance.More importantly, the H3C S9500 switch adopts a new 10 Gigabit switch architecture, rather than a simple update of the Gigabit switch. Therefore, the network of Peking University Shenzhen Hospital can meet both the current and the future network needs with its high performance.

2. Strong scalability and compatibility

Both H3C S9500 core switches and the original SuperStack 3 Switch 4400 products support Gigabit link bundling technology, which can provide a smooth backbone network bandwidth upgrade solution. Through the reserved backplane bandwidth of the device, the S9500 switch can achieve exponential increases in switching capacity and forwarding performance by simply replacing the switching engine. The S9500 supports all international standard protocols, meets the needs of service and performance and network reliability, and supports the hybrid network with other vendors' devices. This fully protects the user's existing device investment and facilitates future network expansion.

Network benefit

The H3C S9500 switch has high scalability, compatibility, and performance. It not only saves the investment cost of hospital network construction but also meets the network bandwidth, reliability, and quality needs of the systems in Peking University Shenzhen Hospital including the Communication System (PACS) and Health Information System (HIS). This lays a solid foundation for the rapid development of the subsequent hospital services.