Organization: Wonkwang University
Location: Iksan, South Korea
Employees: 20,000 students, 500 faculty and staff
Market Segment: Education
Applications: Student information system, financials, web-based courses, research applications, medical and legal databases, Internet, email, administrative applications
The Challenge
Working for the public good is more than a mission at Wonkwang University of South Korea, it's a daily practice rooted in the altruistic teachings of Won Buddhism. From fine arts to information sciences, Wonkwang instructs its 20,000 students to apply their knowledge with the highest moral standards. This spirit extends to Wonkwang's renowned medical school, its highly regarded center for educational reform, and its law school—all of which are geared to prepare students to advance Korean society.
To continue moving its students and country forward, however, Wonkwang University needed to replace its previous data infrastructure. The Extreme core switches powering its Gigabit Ethernet campus backbone were prone to failure, disconnecting students and faculty from local resources and the Internet for hours and even days at a time. Unreliable connectivity obstructed research, hindered communications both on campus and with the outside world, and significantly delayed business-critical administrative tasks like registration and billing. In addition, the university discovered its security solution was inadequate when a series of "worm" viruses penetrated its firewall, further compromising network operations and jeopardizing school records.
To resolve these issues and prepare for its anticipated future growth, Wonkwang University needed a secure campus-wide data infrastructure with the bandwidth, and reliability to streamline its research, administration, and access to network resources.
Why 3Com
Wonkwang University specifically required a powerful solution that would perform securely and dependably for years to come. For its campus backbone, it examined products from Cisco, but found that vendor's products were too costly and would lock the university into proprietary systems. For network security, it ruled out standalone systems to address specific needs, such as virus protection and intrusion detection, as too difficult to manage, requiring hours of IT staff time to install and configure multiple systems.
Guided by its value-added reseller, Reputer, Wonkwang University then turned to 3Com Network Health Check to analyze its network troubles and needs. During a 30-day evaluation, the Network Health Check team diagnosed a software bug in one of the core switches and found that a high percentage of network traffic was infected with the MS-03-049-051 virus, among other issues. The team advised the university to obtain a core switch that would provide wirespeed Gigabit connections and a 10-Gigabit module. It suggested Wonkwang obtain a single security switch with firewall support, content and spam filters, antivirus scanners, IDS, and intrusion prevention systems (IPS) . It also recommended a high availability, fully redundant architecture that would scale up to many thousands of users, enabling the network to serve the school for many years.
Drawing from 3Com's broad portfolio of network convergence systems, Wonkwang University selected the following 3Com® solution:
Deployed in February 2005 at Wonkwang University's data center by 3Com Global Services, which also designed and maintains the network, the secure, converged 3Com solution is based on multiple-homed Switch 8800 and Switch 7700 core switches, which provide a fully redundant Terabit Ethernet campus backbone. Additionally, a 3Com Security Switch 7280 sits between the network core and the Switch 8800 linking the university to the Internet, screening all traffic traveling to and from the campus-wide network. The standards-based 3Com systems interoperate seamlessly with the school's Cisco router.
"3Com delivered a secure, affordable, easily managed infrastructure that provides the highest level of power and security," said Minsu Jeong, IT manager, Wonkwang University. "Instead of struggling with an unreliable network, our faculty, staff, and students are now confident in their ability to work efficiently and productively at all times."
The Benefits
Choosing 3Com solutions allows Wonkwang University to enjoy one of the most advanced data networks in the world, delivering data to classrooms and offices in 25 buildings with unparalleled speed and security.
With four resilient Switch 8800s powering its Terabit backbone, the university now has ample network capacity for hundreds of applications. The administrative system that manages student information, web-based distance learning courses, and complex software packages used in medicine, engineering, and the hard sciences all operate smoothly, without delays or bottlenecks. Faculty, staff, and students alike now rapidly retrieve research data, e-mail colleagues, update administrative information, and work collaboratively, allowing the university to maintain its reputation as one of South Korea's most prestigious institutions of higher learning.
Built-in traffic management and load-sharing features ensure the network continues to operate at peak efficiency, even if every employee and student logs on simultaneously. Moreover, sub-second failover in the switching fabric protects the school from disruptive downtime in the rare event of an outage.
"High availability is absolutely critical at an institution whose students expect to have access to the highest quality resources," Jeong said. "Our new 3Com infrastructure combines extraordinary throughput with complete stability, which more than meets their most rigorous requirements."
Additionally, the Switch 8800 includes security features that enable the university to limit network access only to members of the campus community. IEEE 802.1X Network Login, RADIUS, and hierarchical user management and password protection block unauthorized network access while allowing legitimate users to access files and applications from any location. Packet authentication and multi-layer Access Control Lists (ACL) identify traffic at the core and subject it to predefined rules, limiting, prioritizing, or blocking it based on traffic type. Virtual LANs (VLANs) segregate traffic by department, application, or location, ensuring that even authorized users connect only to appropriate servers.
The 3Com Security Switch 7280 further safeguards the network, providing corporate-class virus protection, intrusion detection, access controls, firewall, and content filters on a single centrally managed platform. Filling all these functions at a fraction of the cost of purchasing them individually, the security switch delivers wire-speed security processing at up to 8-Gigabit throughput, for swift, transparent protection against spyware, hackers, and other external hazards. Instead of spending their time repairing damage caused by worms and other viruses, Wonkwang University's IT staff can now focus on deploying new devices and applications for the school community.
Two interconnected Switch 7700 switches drive the university's server farms, further bolstering network performance, while a fifth Switch 8800 powers the university's high-speed Internet connection, ensuring near-instant access to outside resources even when hundreds of users log in simultaneously. A Switch 4070 serves as a building aggregation point in the data center, guaranteeing Gigabit connectivity for the university's IT staff.
"Thanks to our secure, converged 3Com network, we're confident of meeting our bandwidth and security needs well into the next decade," Jeong concluded. "Instead of wasting resources propping up a failing infrastructure, we now have a rock-solid network that will support all our demands—which in turn makes us even more attractive to South Korea's best students and will enable Wonkwang to continue to contribute to the betterment of our society."
