Redstone Converged Solutions takes City University London into secure future

Largest UK Nortel security installation in Higher Education

Thursday 24 July 2008

City University London has appointed Redstone Converged Solutions, provider of complete networking and communications infrastructure solutions, to redesign its network to handle increasing demands and student numbers.

The existing network had grown with the University but lacked the reliability, flexibility and security to keep pace with the requirements of students and staff, who upload lecture details, submit coursework and take exams online.

“The data network provides a virtual learning environment making the University more accessible to students, staff and visitors. As coursework and exams run through the network, it is vital that it operates at its optimum rate,” says Carl Stokes, City University London Director IT Operations and Infrastructure.

“The new network will cater for students who want a variety of learning options supported by technology. One example is the high definition streaming, at 30 frames per second, of video material used to accompany lectures,” Stokes continues.

Redstone Converged Solutions was chosen out of 30 applicants following the original tender, and was the only provider to propose a complete technical solution and vision based on Nortel technologies. The Nortel Secure Network Access (NSNA) solution is a hardware and software security layer implemented to strengthen City University London’s local area network, and is the first time the NSNA solution will have been implemented on such a large scale within the UK.

Redstone Converged Solutions’ pre-staging and testing facility played a major role in reassuring the University about the successful deployment of the chosen system. Redstone Converged Solutions has also secured a five year contract with City University London to support and maintain the new LAN infrastructure following completion of the installation.

The new security solution gives a higher degree of access control and flexibility for 20,000 users across 9,000 ports. This is in line with the SuperJANET research and education network, which requires educational institutions to track individual device internet use.

At the core of the new infrastructure are four Nortel 8600 Ethernet Routing Switches with 339 Nortel 5520 – 48 port Edge switches in stacks of up to four, providing Power over Ethernet (PoE) to attached devices.

The infrastructure has been installed within the main campus and the new firewall is already operational. Roll-out of the infrastructure to the University’s remote sites has commenced and the whole network is scheduled to be operational in September 2008.

“Redstone Converged Solutions has demonstrated that it has the necessary flexibility, project management skills and experienced engineers to successfully undertake an implementation of this size, but also that it understands how a university’s needs,” says Stokes.

Rick Marshall, Redstone Converged Solutions Managing Director, says: “A project of this scale gives the University a complete technical solution that will cope with the demands of growing student numbers. Working with secure solutions specialist Nortel provides the high degree of access, combined with the reassurance of security, modern universities require.”

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