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NEC replaces Cisco at NSW uni |
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THE University of New England has awarded NEC a five-year, $4 million contract to replace Cisco gear as part of its data communications network overhaul
Release Date : Wednesday, 31 Oct 2007
News Source : AUSTRALIAN IT
Author : Fran Foo
At current speeds it would take too long to transfer large, multimedia files, says the University of New England's Gordon Smith
Gordon Smith, principal IT officer at the university, told The Australian the deal was part of a wider, $4 million infrastructure transformation project.
NEC, as the systems integrator, will supply the university with wireless, internet security, firewall, VPN, anti-spam and data communications equipment from myriad partners including Enterasys, Fortinet, Barracuda and WhiteGold.
"We are in effect completely replacing the university's data network which dates back to 1999 and has remained mostly the same since then.
"A major restriction is that the desktop speed is 10 megabits per second but as part of the upgrade this will move to 1 gigabit," Mr Smith said.
The new network means researchers would be able to download previously unheard of large data sets.
"At current speeds it would take too long to transfer large, multimedia files," he said.
"At any one time we would have between 6,000 and 7,000 people on campus excluding a whole lot who live outside (campus)," he said.
Mr Smith said four companies were short listed about six months ago and the contract was sealed about a month ago. "Everyone put in a good bid but the NEC-Entrasys solution best met our needs".
As part of the upgrade the university will be using smarter network admission control devices, Mr Smith said.
"This means as soon as you plug in an unknown machine into our network it will just scan to see if we want to talk to your PC or not.
"Currently users have to register their PCs with us before they work on our network so it's security by physical location.
"But we'll move to a role-based security model so it wouldn't matter where you are, rather who you are," Mr Smith said.
Researchers can then move to anywhere on its Armidale, NSW campus and obtain the access level assigned to their profile, he said.
The university plans to move to IPV6 in the next few years so it had to ensure that the equipment providers catered for that, Mr Smith said.
"We will also be building a multi-cast network to join the world's research networks for multimedia collaboration … we currently can't do this with our older technology".
The institution will delve into the world of Voice over IP next year.
"Power-over-Ethernet on each network switch will be introduced so this means we can begin to move into VoIP campuswide where IP handsets are powered by the switch.
"It also means we can easily build our wireless network because the power is there to power the access points wherever it's needed," he said.
The university will look at procuring such handsets in the second half of 2008. "From now until then I'll be busy with this data network project," Mr Smith said.
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