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The Hunan Institute of Engineering, established in 1951, is located in Xiangtan, the hometown of the great Chinese leader Mao Zedong. Currently the Institute occupies a totalland area of 383,000 squaremeters, and has fixed assets of RMB 152 million.
The original two campuses of the Institute are located in the south and north of the city, where the scenic environment provides an ideal location for an education campus. The Institute has been described as a university with a rich cultural heritage.
The Institute currently offers 44 major undergraduate and specialty courses in Electric and Information Engineering, Mechanic and Electronic Engineering, Textile Engineering, Economics Management, Architectural Engineering, Chemistry andChemical Industry, Computer Science and Engineering, Mathematics and Physics,Foreign Languages and Trade, Humanities and Social Science, Physical Education, Adult Education, International Education and Applied Technology.
To cater to the over 12,000 full-time students, the Institute employs more than 1,000 staff, including 602 full-timeteachers. About 40% of the teaching staff members areprofessors and associate professors, and there are more than 140 post-graduate doctorates and masters. All the staff members are highly qualified and a number of them also hold positions in national, provincial or ministry academic organizations.
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The Hunan Institute of Engineering, an engineering university in operation for 55 years, built a new 1,200-acre campus in 2005 to cope with an expansion of the teaching curriculum and student enrolment. The new campus was connected with the Institute's two original campuses via high-performance optical fiber links.
The guidelines for construction of the new campus network were advanced technology, reliability, security, scalability, openness, cost-effectiveness, manageability and ease of maintenance. The objective is to build a high performance, highly reliable network connecting the three campuses, with the core system composed of an advanced multi-layer exchange with multiple 10-Gbit Ethernet links.
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The original campus network was installed in 1999. With the increase of types of network services and user numbers growing at geometric rates in recent years, the network began to show problems in the areas of bandwidth, stability, coverage, network management and serviceability.
The new campus, built over an area of 200,000 square meters, includes the teaching and administrative offices and student apartments. The three campuses are physically 8 kilometers apart, and are interconnected via a high-speed campus network, to realize a uniform teaching and office environment.
The foundation of the digital campus network infrastructure is network wiring and network exchange devices. The Institute wanted new wiring and network devices, with a minimum service life of 20 years and six years, respectively.
In order to maximize the benefits of its network investment, the Institute emphasized adherence to open standards, comprehensive network design, and focus on efficient network management.
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Advanced Technology: Core exchange should have high-density 10-Gbit ports, and convergence exchange should have 10-Gbit up-link ports. Full configuration of exchanges should realize line-rate throughout, and the hardware can realize functions such as ACL, QoS and multicast.
Reliability: Redundant connection should be applied for core, convergence and access exchanges, to ensure stable and reliable operation of physical layer, link layer and network layer.
Security: Network performance should not be compromised by monitoring and defense against virus and other attacks. Access control should be applied to identify users and authenticate them for accessing network functions.
Scalability: The exchange should provide large exchange capacity and numerous module slots. Open standards should be adopted for interconnection and any proprietary interconnection technology should be used minimally for network construction.
Openness: Open interconnection standards should be used by all network devices. The network user management function should be fully integrated with the operating system and application-layer gateway, as well as inter-linked with virus-defense.
Cost-effectiveness: Good investment-protection, with low operation and maintenance cost.
Manageability: All devices should support standardized network management protocols and should be uniformly managed with network management software. Real-time monitoring, classification, statistics and analysis of traffic flow should be provided, giving reliable data for network operation, control, planning and upgrade.
Maintainability: The network should provide management, monitoring and maintenance methods to allow automatic classification and reporting of all pre-warning and management events.
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After the principles for network construction have been defined, and several detailed discussions have been conducted on the network scope, as well as requirements of network traffic flow in the coming three years, the Hunan Institute of Engineering decided on the proposed solution by ProCurve Networking of HP. The ProCurve solution uses the Adaptive EDGE ArchitectureTM network with 10-Gbit Ethernet technology. The switching products were finally selected after a competitive evaluation process.
ProCurve's network design is based on two main principles: to maintain comprehensive network control with integration, and provide intelligent control at the edge of the network where users connect. This makes it possible for the network infrastructure to change from being network-centric to being user-centric.
The core devices are two 10-Gbit core routing exchanges 9408sl, one 10-Gbit core routing exchange 9308m, and four 10-Gbit access layer 3 exchanges 3400cl. The 9308m and 3400cl are connected to the two 9408sl core switches through 10Gbit
lines separately. The Gbit line is employed for redundancy. The two 9408sl switches in the center are interconnected with a Gbit line through a 10-Gbit line, and VRRP and Spanning Tree Protocol are applied.
Other convergence exchanges, the 5308xl and 2824, connect core devices through redundant Gbit lines. The 2626 and 2650 switches are used as access exchanges, and are connected to the convergence exchange through redundant Gbit lines, and to the desktop through 100Mb lines.
Intelligent edge control is provided at all exchanges, such as 802.1X access certification. For network access to the teaching computer room, a non-intelligent exchange can be connected with 5308xl, each port of which supports concurrent multiple 802.1x user identification. The 5308xl series switch integrates patented IPS (Intrusion Prevention System) technology, which provides intelligent defense against viruses. The IPS technology does not rely on virus signature for virus identification; therefore no external IPS module is needed. It classifies the viruses according to the features of worm-like virus, and identifies digital features of routed VLAN, which intelligently controls and blocks viruses, as well as reduces virus response time. At the same time, it does not impose network burden or increase the complexity of network management.
The IDM solution of ProCurve is deployed for network management and access control to realize command at the center (using ProCurve Manager Plus and Identity Driven Manager) and control at the edge (intelligent edge devices support 802.1x or MAC address-based and Web-based user identification).
The ProCurve Identity Driven Manager software dynamically manages network devices, providing appropriate and optimized network access. It automatically applies security, access and performance configuration on network infrastructure devices, based on user, location and time. IDM, together with RADIUS authentication server, also manages wired and wireless connections, and may supply a directory management function.
IDM can provide command at the center through automatic configuration of intelligent edge devices, allowing personalized service for each individual or group. It provides edge control by making correct decisions and implementation strategy at the network edge, and easily manages and promotes:
- Access control - Based on the requirements of the user
- Access right - Date, time, location, application and service, based on connection between teachers, students, administrative staff and their group
- Implementation strategy - Implementation according to user and dialogue
ProCurve Manager Plus is a comprehensive Windows-based network management solution, and IDM is its add-on module. It enables network management staff to discover, configure and monitor ProCurve devices and eliminate device faults, as well as provides advanced features such as configuration management, VLAN management, in-depth flow monitoring, group and strategy management, automatic software update.
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This project started in September 2005. Working closely with the Hunan Institute of Engineering, HP China and the integrator CGOG International Economic & Trading Co. Ltd, have completed the preliminary installation and have now started the commissioning phase.
This project meets the demands of university campus network application, as well as the requirements of security certification of all network users. Personalized service can be provided by network managers on the basis of user's characteristics, and security strategy targeted on users can be implemented, while the location of the user on the campus network, or the access interface on the exchange, is not a consideration.
The core exchange 9408sl and 9308m switches can provide IPV6 function, which ensures the future demands of the network will be met. HP's global and uniform policy of unlimited free hardware guarantee and free software upgrade are extended to all other exchanges. This ensures the Institute's current investment will get maximum protection.
The completion of this campus network enables the Hunan Institute of Engineering to effectively support multimedia applications, which integrate text, voice and video transmission, as well as connect its three campuses, providing a reliable communications platform for the Institute's students and staff. The Hunan Institute of Engineering now has one of the most advanced university campus networks in Hunan province, or even in China.
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Primary hardware
Software, Services & Support
*For the most up-to-date information, go to www.procurve.com.
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The ProCurve Networking business unit of HP is a supplier of enterprise networking solutions comprising wired and wireless networking products, services and solutions — including WAN routers, Ethernet switches, routing switches, wireless access points and network management applications — which allow customers to build networks based on open standards that meet current and future needs for security, performance and reliability.
The ProCurve Networking Adaptive EDGE Architecture™ is a unique design strategy that creates a secure, mobile, multi-service network by placing intelligence at the edge — where users connect and policies are enforced. This innovative approach creates a dynamic network infrastructure designed to keep up with advancing technology and user needs while protecting business investments.
Further information on ProCurve networking solutions and products is available at www.procurve.com.
♦For as long as you own the product, with next-business-day advance replacement (available in most countries). The following products and their related family modules have a one-year warranty with extensions available: The ProCurve Routing Switch 9300m Series, ProCurve Switch 8100fl Series, ProCurve Access Control Server 745wl and ProCurve Network Access Controller 800. Stand-alone software may have a different warranty duration. For details, refer to the ProCurve Software Licence, Warranty and Support booklet at www.procurve.com/warranty/
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