Case Study   Daegu Polytechnic College, Korea   3Com® Secure, Converged 10-Gigabit Network is Digital Win for Korean Technical College Organization: Daegu Polytechnic College Location: Daegu, South Korea Employees: 2,900 students Market Segment: Education Applications: Student information system, one-stop student account management, multimedia instructional programs, file sharing, web mail, Internet The Challenge In 1998, Daegu Polytechnic College launched a 10-year plan to position itself as one of South Korea's top-10 technical colleges. One significant step toward this goal is the school's "Digital Win-Win" campaign — an aggressive push to provide cutting-edge electronic resources to both its campus and the greater public in South Korea's third largest city. Once the initiative is complete, Daegu Polytechnic will be able to offer its 2,900 students advanced educational applications, develop joint programs with local high schools and businesses, and streamline administrative functions for maximum efficiency. To achieve its ambitions, however, Daegu Polytechnic needed a data infrastructure capable of sustaining them. Its legacy ATM network was no longer supported by the vendor, forcing the IT staff to improvise repairs and making maintenance costly and difficult. In addition, it was far slower than the Gigabit Ethernet networks used by its competitors, a significant strategic disadvantage. Most importantly, Daegu Polytechnic's bandwidth needs had quadrupled in just six years, with no sign of slowing, and the legacy network had reached capacity. Data bottlenecks interfered with classroom work and research, hindered the staff's day-to-day administrative duties, and prevented the school from offering its students the training they need to join the 21st century workforce. To overcome these barriers, Daegu Polytechnic College wanted a reliable campus-wide data infrastructure with the speed and power to vault it into the top ranks of South Korea's technical colleges. Why 3Com Daegu Polytechnic needed a solution that would serve its growing needs well into the future. As a result, it opted to deploy one of the most high-bandwidth solutions: a 10-Gigabit Ethernet campus backbone, with Gigabit connectivity all the way to the desktop in each of its nine buildings. After comparing Alcatel, Nortel, Extreme, Foundry, and Cisco as well as 3Com, the college chose a secure, converged network from 3Com for its superior business value, scalability and standards-based architecture. The school was also impressed with 3Com's reputation for ongoing technical support. "We wanted to work with a company we can count on for innovative solutions to problems as they arise, not just when we make the purchase," said Kwang-jin Jeon of Daegu Polytechnic College. "3Com earned our trust with its proven reliability and technical capabilities." Drawing from 3Com's broad portfolio of high-speed switching solutions, Daegu Polytechnic chose the following 3Com® solution: 3Com Switch 8800 Read more here 3Com Switch 7700 Read more here 3Com SuperStack 3 Switch 4900 Family Read more here 3Com SuperStack 3 Switch 3800 Family Read more here 3Com SuperStack® 3 Switch 3200 Family Read more here Deployed in February 2005 at Daegu Polytechnic's data center, Switch 8800 core switches form a resilient 10-Gigabit Ethernet campus backbone. These switches are dual-homed with fiber to Switch 7700 core switches, which serve as Gigabit aggregation points in the dormitory, the computer information building, and seven other buildings. SuperStack 3 Switch 3226, 4950, and 3870 Gigabit switches in turn provide high-speed connectivity all the way to the desktop, providing seamless network access to servers, PCs, and other networked devices. The standards-based 3Com systems interoperate smoothly with the school's legacy routers, enabling it to leverage prior technology investments while planning for additional upgrades. "3Com delivered a powerful, reliable solution that can easily accommodate our highest demands for bandwidth — and upgrade still further, to Terabit Ethernet, simply and affordably," said Kwang-jin Jeon, IT Manager, Daegu Polytechnic College. "Thanks to 3Com, we're well on our way to building the digital campus of the 21st century." The Benefits With 3Com solutions powering its ultra-fast campus network, Daegu Polytechnic now speeds data among its classrooms, lecture halls, offices, and dorm rooms with complete reliability. Thriving using 10-Gigabit campus backbone and Gigabit to desktops, the college operates more efficiently and effectively than ever before. Students can now access an integrated student information system to register for classes, pay tuition and fees, check grades, and monitor their progress toward graduation. Faculty, staff, and students easily upload important data to storage servers and retrieve it on demand from any location without delay. Complex software packages used in courses like computer-aided design or electronics repair operate smoothly. Every member of the campus community now has faster, more dependable access to online databases, the Internet, e-mail, and other networked resources vital to the business of learning. Most importantly, Daegu Polytechnic now has ample bandwidth to fulfill its "Digital Win-Win" objectives. With data bottlenecks eliminated, departments can now share administrative applications and standardize tasks college-wide, eliminating costly redundancies. The school also has the capacity to launch an adult education program, including literacy and job training courses for welfare recipients, as well as a distance learning program allowing students at technical high schools to earn college credits. Along with dramatically increased bandwidth, the 3Com solution provides full redundancy at the network core. Traffic management and load-sharing features built into the Switch 8800 and 7700 ensure optimal performance even under high-traffic conditions. The core switches and building aggregation points are also dual-homed to each other and include internal switching fabric with sub-second failover for further protection against network outages. "Our data infrastructure is absolutely basic to our operation, from research and education to recruitment, and we cannot afford to lose connectivity for even an hour," said Kwang-jin Jeon. "By deploying 3Com core switches designed for maximum redundancy, we're confident our network won't let us down." For additional reliability, the Switch 8800 also protects Daegu Polytechnic's network from viruses, denial of service attacks, and other security issues. Built-in hierarchical user management and password protection, IEEE 802.1X Network Login, and RADIUS let legitimate users access files and applications from any location while barring unauthorized access. Virtual LANs (VLANs) segregate traffic to ensure users connect only to authorized servers, providing safeguards for school data against internal attack, while packet authentication and multi-layer Access Control Lists (ACL) further limit, prioritize, or block traffic based on predefined rules. "Choosing 3Com products is truly a digital win-win for our entire college community," Kwang-jin Jeon concluded. "With our new secure, converged communications infrastructure in place, we're prepared to deliver the most sophisticated industrial education possible — and take our place among Korea's top-ranked technical colleges."