Background

Eurasian National University (ENU) in Kazakhstan, located in the capital, Astana, is one of the two main universities in the country. Because the university has hosted visits and speeches from the leaders of 26 countries, it is locally known as the ‘President University.’ ENU was among the top 450 universities in the QS World University Rankings in 2016, with 12 departments offering 61 undergraduate majors, 64 postgraduate majors, and 29 doctoral subjects. Currently, the university has more than 12,000 students.

Challenges

The ENU campus network has been in service for nearly 10 years. As the number of teachers and students increases, the number of smart terminals in the campus has reached over 30,000. Original wireless network devices are heavily loaded, causing low network speed and access difficulties. However, services such as transmission of key experimental data and HD video conferences require high network reliability.

Currently, wired and wireless networks are separate and authentication and management are decentralized, resulting in complex O&M. The university realizes that it needs to simplify network O&M and free O&M personnel from complicated device configuration, upgrade and maintenance, and fault location.

Another issue is mobile teaching, where teachers and students need to access the databases of different departments. Management of thousands of teacher and student accounts and modification of over 1,300 IT accounts create a heavy workload for O&M personnel, who have to change many configurations. To prevent students from being distracted from their studies by spending too much social time on the Internet, the university needs to dynamically adjust Internet access policies based on duration or traffic volume to ensure that students balance learning and entertainment.

Solutions

All-Scenario Wi-Fi Solution Builds an All-Wireless Campus Network

In scenarios such as ordinary classrooms, libraries, offices, and meeting rooms, the original wireless Access Points (APs) support only 802.11a/b/g protocols. During peak hours, per-capita bandwidth reaches only 300 kbit/s, which is insufficient to support teaching resource downloading and video conferences. The Huawei 802.11ac-compliant AP (AP5030DN) provides gigabit-level wireless bandwidth and a per-capita bandwidth of 2 Mbit/s, with more than 10 times better performance. Students can easily access teaching video resources and no longer have to worry about intermittent interruption of videos and slow downloading.

In libraries and canteens where teachers and students congregate, in addition to the slow network, it is difficult for users to even access the network. The university tried to solve the problem by increasing the number of APs, but the signals from such a large number of APs interfered with each other.

Huawei WLAN products provide automatic radio channel calibration and high-density acceleration customized for high-density scenarios. These products eradicate the problem of poor network access experience by using a range of methods, including automatic channel adjustment, multi-user collision control, and Airtime fair scheduling.

CSS2 Technology Builds an Uninterrupted Wireless Campus Network.

Core switches are being deployed using Cluster Switch System 2 (CSS2) technology, which supports 1+N backup of MPUs. This means a cluster can run stably as long as it has one chassis with a working MPU. Access switches form a single logical switch using iStack technology. The loop-free network solution using clustering and stacking ensures network reliability and stable running of applications on the university campus network, together with carrier-class reliability (99.999%) of devices.

Agile Campus with Wired and Wireless Convergence Simplifies O&M Management

Converged forwarding: The original wired and wireless networks are managed separately, requiring O&M and management personnel to have high technical skills. In addition, network fault location is difficult and time-consuming. The S12700 Agile Switch uses Huawei’s Enterprise Network Processor (ENP) chip to provide terabit native AC capability. The forwarding, control, and management of the wired and wireless networks are integrated, effectively addressing the issue of bandwidth bottlenecks.

Unified management: The agile switch functions as a centralized control device to manage access switches using a Control and Provisioning of Wireless Access Points (CAPWAP) tunnel for both wired and wireless networks. Access switches are plug-and-play, and simplify routine management by the information center staff.

Centralized user management: Authentication points are deployed on S12700 switches, and teachers and students on wired and wireless networks are centrally authenticated. The same account can flexibly switch between wired and wireless modes. Through MAC address-prioritized 802.1X authentication, teachers and students can access networks in different scenarios. The centralized wired and wireless authentication reduces the workload of account configuration and management. For wired and wireless users, one authentication system is implemented in the backend, with unified security and accounting policies. A third-party accounting platform can be used to perform accounting based on duration, traffic volume, or a combination of the two using the RADIUS protocol.

Benefits

Huawei used its deep understanding of the education industry’s requirements and networks as well as its self-developed products to build a highly reliable, high-bandwidth, and easy-to-manage agile campus network for ENU. The campus network: