Published: August 11, 2010
College of West Anglia Enhances Student-Facing Services and Broadens Application Portfolio with Brocade
GENEVA - (BUSINESS WIRE) - Brocade (Nasdaq:BRCD) today announced that the College of West Anglia
(CWA), one of the largest further and higher education colleges in the
east of England serving much of Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and parts of
Lincolnshire, has installed its high performance IP switch technology.
This deployment will upgrade its network, improve reliability and
underpin a raft of new IT initiatives campus-wide, including voice over
IP (VoIP), campus-wide wireless LAN (WLAN) and HD video production and
transmission.
In April 2006, the CWA merged with Isle College to become one of the
largest further and higher education colleges in the east of England.
With four main campuses at Kings Lynn, Isle, Wisbech and Cambridge
(Milton) along with various local learning centers, CWA has more than
10,000 full and part time students, 1,300 staff and an annual income of
£36.5 million. CWA was awarded grade one 'outstanding' status in the
last Ofsted inspection report published in February 2008.
Toby George, CWA's head of IT Services, says: "After the merger with
Isle College [in April 2006], we looked at the IT environment required
to support the enlarged institution and it became obvious that
considerable investment was needed to improve reliability and put in
place an optimized IP infrastructure that would help us move forward
while reducing costs."
CWA faced various problems with its old network. First, a disparate mix
of technology was used on the various different sites, which it
inherited when the two organizations came together. This posed several
problems from interoperability to network management issues that
decreased overall efficiency. Second, the existing core network switches
were unreliable and nearly end-of-life as they were between five and
seven years old. Third, inter-campus bandwidth and server
interconnectivity was inadequate. Finally, network-monitoring
capabilities were limited in the old switches resulting in management
difficulties.
Martyn Smith, CWA's network coordinator, says: "Pre-merger, we were
running separate systems which had to be amalgamated together so that
one network served the combined institution, which then put considerable
load on our main data centre. Upgrading was paramount and the business
case practically wrote itself."
CWA IT staff developed a matrix of features and requirements - involving
around 100 different criteria - that were needed from its new networking
equipment to ensure the right technology was chosen. The team thoroughly
researched the market and considered various manufacturers. The college
deployed two Brocade BigIron RX-16 Layer 2/3 Ethernet switches at the
core and two Brocade ServerIron application delivery switches have been
supplied by Brocade partner, Vanix, in a deal worth around £138,000.
Brocade's BigIron RX series switches were ultimately chosen because they
met CWA's stringent needs, offered the best price/performance, with
Vanix providing comprehensive support and maintenance.
Smith adds: "For example, the Brocade switches offered wire speed
performance so throughput is better than competitive products, they're
IPv6 ready and Brocade has a 16-slot chassis in the BigIron range which
meant we could reduce the cost-per-port and save money by buying two
rather than three chassis to meet our needs."
sFlow monitoring technology was another important reason for the
selection. A hardware-based statistical sampling solution monitoring
down to byte level with no degradation in switch performance, sFlow
allows CWA to see with clarity what is happening to network traffic and
where it is going in real-time.
Smith adds: "sFlow allows us to pick up student related issues - such as
individuals playing peer-to-peer games - so that we can manage our
network resources better."
The Brocade BigIron RX-16 switches are located at CWA's main data centre
in King's Lynn, dual linked for resilience, along with the Brocade
ServerIron application delivery switches which will be used in future to
load balance a Blackboard-based online virtual learning environment.
With the new Brocade network, CWA is integrating numerous services onto
the new network infrastructure to maximize the investment made and
reduce costs. The Brocade BigIron RX switches now underpin a new Mitel
3300 VoIP solution which is being installed to save money on
inter-campus calls, with the expectation that video conferencing will be
rolled out shortly as well. Similarly, now that the wired network has
been upgraded, the college is implementing an IP-based campus-wide
security system and WLAN to support the use of laptops in lectures and
in student areas.
Equally, CWA has installed an iSCSI-based SAN to support its virtualized
server environment which is IP-bandwidth intensive and required
additional network performance. In addition, CWA has recently launched
its own Internet television station, called Spring Board TV, where
programmes are produced in HD as part of media courses, with the
equipment available for possible commercial use at a later stage.
Gigabit to the desktop was required to support video editing and
streaming, with the obvious 'knock-on' effect being the requirement for
faster switching in the core.
George concludes: "I have absolute trust in Brocade. We've had 100 per
cent uptime from the Brocade BigIron RX switches and they have met all
our requirements at a cost-effective price."
Alberto Soto, vice president, EMEA at Brocade, stated: "CWA has put in
place a 'future ready' reliable networking environment which will
support the ongoing expansion and development of the institution and
ensure that students get maximum use from CWA's teaching facilities."
Additional Resources
Video - Toby George, CWA's head of IT Services, talking about the
Brocade deployment: http://www.youtube.com/user/BrocadeVideo#p/u/6/lEa3utiKNeU
About Brocade
Brocade (Nasdaq:BRCD) develops extraordinary networking
solutions that enable today's complex, data-intensive businesses to
optimize information connectivity and maximize the business value of
their data. For more information, visit www.brocade.com.
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