Nortel network helps solve City University network problems

Internet Business News, July 24, 2008

INTERNET BUSINESS NEWS-(C)1995-2008 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD

Nortel (NYSE: NT) (TSX: NT) channel partner Redstone Converged Solutions, a member of the London-headquartered Redstone Plc group of companies, has used Nortel network equipment to deploy an upgraded network for City University, London.

City University has over 10,000 students in addition to its faculty members and presents courses in business, health, law, computing, engineering, journalism and the arts. The University claimed it was struggling to cope with student demands on its previous network with modern students expecting to be connected anywhere and anytime using a large variety of devices.

Many of City University's students originate from overseas and are responsible for their own course fees. The existence or absence of a fully capable IT network at a university is one facility that a potential student might use to differentiate between alternative education providers, so City University sought to increase its potential to attract revenue generating overseas students by installing a new network.

The new LAN at the University has Nortel's Ethernet Routing Switch 8600 at its core, able to support 384 1Gb or 24 10Gb ports. The ERS 8600 provides QoS capabilities and Nortel's Split Multi-Link Trunking provides sub-second redundancy for link and switch.

Nortel Ethernet Switch 5520 is used for the server stacks and edge devices providing high-density Gigabit desktop connectivity and Power over Ethernet (PoE) capability. Nortel Secure Network Access allows students to use their normal windows login but actually be authenticated to the University network at the same time.

The network is administered by Nortel Enterprise Network Management System enabling network administrators to identify and resolve problems and performance bottlenecks before they impact network services.

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