Case Study   Svedala Kommun (Sweden)   3Com® Switch 7700, Wireless, and Voice Solution Completes Academic Mission for Renown Swedish School Organization: Svedala Kommun Location: Svedala, Sweden Network Users: 3,200 students, 800 teachers Market Segment: Education Applications: Citrix-based reading and mathematics applications; grading; financials; scheduling; paper usage and cost management; speech synthesis; voice translation; online library catalog and information for parents. The Challenge Svedala is a large, top-tier public school serving 3,200 students -- age six to 17 -- who reside in the county of Svedala in south central Sweden. Svedala is also the region's leading technical school, providing courses in network administration and security, as well as vocational training for adults. The massive school boasts 25 locations, headed by its 600-student central campus near the city of Malmo. To best serve its students, Svedala Kommun requires a robust, cost-effective data network at its main campus to efficiently deliver the latest educational and administrative applications to all of its sites. Previously, however, the school used a 3Com® legacy Fast Ethernet network at its main campus. Although the LAN was extremely reliable, it was near capacity and unable to support Svedala Kommun's plan to centralize its applications on Citrix servers. The main campus network also lacked a centralized management function, requiring the school IT staff to travel from site-to-site to perform routine maintenance on 3Com networks at its other campuses. To rectify these situations, Svedala Kommun searched the marketplace for a managed Gigabit Ethernet network that would allow it to deploy best of breed applications and centralize its servers. The school required the solution to contain all necessary features to improve performance, carry no hidden upgrade costs, and meet current and future needs. The school also wanted the network to support a 3Com IP telephony solution used by its IT staff to streamline communications. Why 3Com The solution consists of the following products: 3Com Switch 7700 3Com SuperStack 3® Switch 4400 Family 3Com Wireless LAN Access Point 8250 3Com NBX® 100 Communications System SuperStack 3 Switch 3300 3Com Network Supervisor Based on its long-term experience with 3Com products and a demonstration of the Switch 7700, Svedala Kommun chose the resourceful Gigabit Ethernet switch as the linchpin of its network upgrade. Recommended and installed by 3Com reseller BearCom, the 10-gigabit ready switch gives Svedala Kommun the reliable speed it needs to centralize its servers. Moreover, using Network Supervisor, the 3Com graphical administrative tool, Svedala Kommun manages its 1,000 node, multi-site network from its main campus. By reducing IT staff labor and travel, the management system has lowered the school's administrative costs by 90 percent - providing an outstanding low total cost of ownership. "We chose 3Com for our network upgrade based on excellent service over our nine-year relationship," said Hans-Ake Olsson, network and telephony manager, Svedala Kommun. "3Com solutions are easy to buy and own, which is especially important for a school such as ours that cannot afford to devote specialists and consultants to manage our network." The Benefits Based on a single Switch 7700, the 3Com network delivers reliable Gigabit Ethernet connectivity to the school's new centralized Citrix Metaframe servers, which deliver a plethora of advanced multimedia applications to its 25 sites. The core switch, which scales from 1 megabit per second (Mbps) to 1 gigabit, can easily meet the school's bandwidth demands as they increase. It also distributes Fast Ethernet links to Svedala Kommun's preexisting 3Com IP telephony system. The Switch 7700's support of both Layer 2 and Layer 3 switching and Quality of Service (QoS) ensures that voice calls and time-sensitive traffic, such as text-to-speech data, receive the bandwidth they need and are prioritized for prompt delivery to users. Svedala Kommun's network administration classes even use the Layer 2/Layer 3 switching capability for educational purposes, giving students hands-on experience configuring and managing this critical feature. These classes also use the NBX system to teach students how to deploy and manage IP telephony systems, which are steadily gaining market share worldwide. By utilizing the network's power to deploy Citrix servers, Svedala Kommun is improving learning via cutting-edge academic applications. The 10-to 15 percent of students who have reading issues, for example, now use a variety of speech synthesis and voice translation applications. Chief among these is the C-pen program that uses a pen-like interface to instantly turn written input into speech. The ultra-fast 3Com solution additionally distributes a variety of multimedia reading and mathematics programs used by students of all grade levels. 3Com systems also let both students and families access important school information assets. Svedala Kommun's network-driven library catalog permits students and teachers to search and reserve books and periodicals. A web-based information system called Dexter, delivered by IST, allows parents and students to check homework assignments, attendance records, and schedules from home. The Switch 7700's built-in security features are another boon to Svedala Kommun. The switch's support of virtual LANs (VLANs) lets the school segregate traffic at its main campus by administrative department and type. Access Control Lists (ACLs) prohibit unauthorized IP addresses or subnets from accessing private financial and demographic data, as well as applications servers. The network-driven, Swedish-made IST web-based application enables the school to more effectively manage its grading, financials, class scheduling, and costs. The 3Com network even helps Svedala Kommun preserve paper - a national objective in Sweden - via the Print Control application that tracks print usage and costs and enforces printing quotas. "From multilayer switching to security to networked telephony, 3Com helps our classrooms keep pace with the latest trends in technology," said Olsson. The Switch 7700 delivers Fast Ethernet connections to SuperStack 3 Switch 4400 and 4400 PWR switches. The Switch 4400s carry Fast Ethernet and Ethernet links to NBX phones, 3Com Access Point 8250s, and PCs. The 4400 PWR switches also distribute electrical Power over Ethernet (PoE) to NBX phones and the access points, substantially reducing the school's electrical wiring requirements and expenses. At Svedala Kommun's secondary sites, SuperStack 3 Switch 3300s provide economical Fast Ethernet connectivity to students and staff. The cost-effective 3Com wireless solution delivers wireless links of up to 54 Mbps, enabling teachers to easily access administrative applications from anywhere on the main campus. Svedala Kommun soon will use the access points to provide all 200 students and teachers in its new campus with wireless connectivity. "3Com provided us a Gigabit Ethernet, wireless, and voice solution with outstanding features at an outstanding price," concluded Olsson. "Using 3Com systems, we're delivering tomorrow's technology to our students on a platform that can grow with us for years to come."