Faced with a growing array of bandwidth-intensive business applications and the need to ensure high-availability for critical networked business processes, the city of Schiedam decided to replace its existing Gigabit network infrastructure with a new enterprise network built on a 3Com® Switch 5500G infrastructure. With redundant 10-Gigabit modules providing 20-Gigabit performance at the core and network-wide Gigabit connectivity to the edge, the 3Com solution easily copes with current and future needs. The stackable XRN®-enabled switch offers easy, centralized management on the basis of a single IP address, and with its 3Com Voice Ready technology will ease deployment of the city's planned converged network.

CHALLENGES

Schiedam has a history that dates back to 1250 when a commercial settlement was established by raising a dam in the River Schie. From the seventeenth to mid-nineteenth century, the city's distilleries exported jenever (gin) all over the world. This period in the city's history is still marked by the world's five tallest grain mills that crown the city center and the merchant houses and warehouses that border its centuries-old canals. Today, Schiedam is home to a balanced variety of new industries that have made it a lively and thriving community.

With the city's prosperity came the need for increased municipal services supported by increasingly large and bandwidth-demanding applications. IT staff lacked the real-time information to ensure fast handling of data requests, prevent duplicated effort and human error, and combat fraud. Services required cross checking information stored in a variety of database locations. For example, when a person applied for a rent subsidy, staff had to verify that the person was registered at the provided address, whether he or she was receiving benefits, etc. Complex, time-consuming procedures taxed both personnel and network resources.

Keeping the records databases current, consistent and available created significant stress on the city's network that was further overwhelmed by the requirements of a new document management environment. A faster network was needed to handle the daily scanning, digitizing and OCR-processing of tens of thousands of paper documents to enable online searches of their content. The imaging and OCR activities placed a particularly heavy load on the network core, where a special server had been configured to handle these tasks. Also on the verge of a large-scale implementation of Voice over IP (VoIP) services, the municipality needed to ensure deployment of a voice-ready network—with robust, high-speed switching, advanced Class of Service (CoS)/Quality of Service (QoS) features and support for Power over Ethernet (PoE). With a successful pilot project completed, Schiedam needed to leverage infrastructure cost and operational benefits as it added voice traffic to its data network.

WHY 3COM

When investigating the options for a new network infrastructure, Kai-Michael Kowitz, Technical Infrastructure Advisor in the Schiedam IT department, and his team soon decided that a 10G backbone was essential to meet current needs and accommodate anticipated future requirements. He summarized their thinking: "We had been closely following developments in the switching market and knew that 3Com was to introduce 10G modules for its new 5500G switches. As this would provide us with a single platform to standardize on across our entire infrastructure, it was the solution we were looking for. Other vendors simply couldn't rival this concept of a single-box solution. In addition, in its class, the 5500G switch is by far the fastest and most advanced on the market, a fact that is supported by several independent tests."

KEY BENEFITS

HIGH-VALUE NETWORK OFFERS BOTH POWER AND MANAGEABILITY
According to Kowitz, "The 3Com 5500G platform offers the speed, functionality, resilience and security we were looking for—all in a single box. It is a uniquely powerful and complete solution that comes at an affordable price." Though it is possible to consolidate multiple 1-Gigabit switching fabrics to establish a multi-gigabit core, it is neither an economical nor an efficient option. By deploying the 5500G switches, however, Schiedam was able to optimize its IT resources by simplifying network management and stretch its budget with a single, full-featured and high-performance platform.

VOICE READY NETWORK MAKES CONVERGED SERVICES PRACTICAL AND AFFORDABLE
With the city about to implement IP telephony, Schiedam can confidently create its converged network based on its new 5500G switches. Their ability to shape and prioritize traffic helps ensure reliable, high quality voice services. Their PoE support simplifies installation of powered equipment such as IP phones, further reducing costs by eliminating the expense of additional wiring, decreasing deployment effort and increasing location flexibility.

LOOKING AHEAD

Its new 3Com Switch 5500G voice-ready infrastructure allows Schiedam to effectively and economically deliver existing and future municipal services—eliminating prior network access, performance and management issues. Based on its 3Com solution and the initial success of the city's VoIP pilot project, Schiedam is planning to extend IP telephony services to all its facilities. And, because of the proven high-value of the 3Com network, the city is piloting a wireless network implementation based on a 3Com Wireless LAN Switch WX1200 solution. Kowitz notes that city councillors are looking forward to wireless connectivity. With untethered use of their local area network, they will have real-time access to networked information, even during council meetings.

"Our network infrastructure will keep evolving as new applications and services are introduced in response to new demands," said Kowitz. "I know that 3Com's solution portfolio will cover all our needs."

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