SOLUTION BLUEPRINT
GOVERNMENT
Wireless LAN Campus Solution
Industry
Government (Education)
Business Challenge
Implementing a campus Wireless Solution can help
improve the way Universities and Businesses provide
services and connectivity to their students and staff.
Technology Solution
This Solution delivers a complete Wireless Campus
Infrastructure and added services.
Enterprise Hardware Platform
802.x Wireless LAN and Mobile Intel® Pentium® 4
Processor – M
Client Processor Power
Intel® CentrinoTM and Mobile Intel® Pentium® 4
Processor – M-based solution
SOLUTION ARCHITECTS
MEETING NEW MARKET DEMANDS
More and more Universities are looking for ways to enhance their value to prospective
students. Throughout the Industry there is more and more adoption of Wireless LAN
technology.
Many governments are creating initiatives to help drive the use of mobile technology in
Education.
The Portuguese Government is a leading example of this as they have created an initiative
called the e-U project to drive the use of technology in education. This approach includes
the implementation of WLAN throughout campuses as well as partnership with a bank
and hardware provider to enable all students the ability to purchase laptops at preferable
rates.
The e-U (Electronic University) project (www.e-u.pt), virtual campus, was designed for
the creation of university services online, the production and sharing of academic contents
and the setting up of university communities.
Students will have access to classes, R&D articles, student papers, grades, bookshops and
academic administrative services online, as well as access to the internet through a
broadband wireless LAN.
Demands like these are coming together and education establishments are now looking at
how they can make their campuses wireless enabled. This enables them to:
• Offer Wireless Access to all students and teachers in the University Campus
• Implement a complete server infra-structure to support the wireless access
• Create preferential conditions to facilitate the student's acquisition of laptops with
wireless LAN capability.
THE BUSINESS CHALLENGE
There is fierce competition between public and private universities and many look for
value added services to help them attract new students. University population has the need
to have better access to information. Allows the university to reduce costs, both internal
(less admin personnel) and students (less photocopies needed)
There are 3 main areas of the University campus that drive the requirements of this type
of solution; these are Students, Teachers and University Services.
Students require the ability to have:
• Full access to university services – 24x7
• Easy methods for exchange of information
• Constants access to research and organisational tools
• Access to e-Books and other electronic information
• Buy online books at lower prices
• e-Learning
• Computers acquisition accessible to all students with special payment conditions
Teachers require the ability to:
• Full access to university services – 24x7 (online inscriptions, etc.);
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• Exchange of information ;
• Research and organisational tools;
• Provide “e-Books”;
• Buy online books at lower prices;
• “e-Learning”;
• ICT training avoiding the technological gap.
University Services need:
• Optimise resources and efficiency – services 24x7;
• Knowledge and information exchange;
• Management tools;
• Information and transactions for teachers and students;
• Interaction with the Ministry of Science and Higher Education;
• “e-Learning”.
THE SOLUTION OVERVIEW
This solution provides infrastructure support for the University to deliver the following
application services:
• Mail Server
• Application Server
• SQL Server
• Intranet & Extranet Web Servers
• Internet Server, Proxy Server
• Security, Authentication and Remote Access
Two types of information are considered:
• Internal administration information, with restricted access to internal staff, and with
access protection via VPN. Administrative information and Management of the
University Students.
• Scientific Information made available via teachers and students, and via all the
information library and online scientific magazines subscription.
Each student, teacher or university employee has a single unique access code (login and
password) and VPN identification. Once logged on they will have access to those services
that their status and login ID is enabled for.
LIBRARY: Using the university portal it is possible to make a search in all the scientific
information produced by the university (studies, information about the departments,
articles, etc), information created and make available by teachers and students.
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VIRTUAL UNIVERSITY: Is a set of interconnected information between the university
and the students and teachers, like schedules, curricular plans, financial information, will
be available, making possible to free the students and teachers from the normal working
time of these services.
E LEARNING: This will make possible that the student have the possibility to choose his
own plan, schedule, and can access to the university independently of their geographic
location.
E-MAIL / WEB MAIL – The student will have one e-mail account that can be used to
communicate with the teachers and other students. Associated to this system, one SMS
system will allow fast information change between teachers and students for schedule
time changes, and other urgent questions.
STORAGE AREA: Each student will have their own personal data area, in the file server,
with security and backup of the information. This area can be used for the student to
archive information that is necessary for their studies.
PORTAL: A portal where the teachers and students will publish their own web pages will
be available. In this portal the teachers will publish information about the contents of the
classes, references and bibliography.
TECHNOLOGY
This solution is based on the implementation of several different technologies.
Hardware
The switched network infrastructure is based on:
Cisco Catalyst 2900 and 3500 series products
Server platforms based on Fujitsu Siemens Primergy range:
Primergy P250 with 2-way Intel® XeonTM Processors
Primergy R450 with 4-way Intel Xeon Processor MP
Software
Operating system: Microsoft Windows 2000 server
Database: Microsoft SQL Server
Email: Microsoft Exchange Server
Internet/ Intranet: Microsoft Information Server
Backup: CA Arcserve
WHO THE SOLUTION BENEFITS
Whilst this solution has been primarily developed for University establishments it is a
horizontal solution that could be implemented in any institution or company wishing to
provide wireless access to contents, e-mail and internet services.
The architecture has been designed for organisations that are either campus based or have
multiple buildings. So this therefore applies to Business parks and large company building
complexes.
There are several benefits to people within different organisation types:
Education
Students/Teachers/Lecturers and staff benefit from easier access to information and
applications.
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Business
Staff productivity can increase due to their increased ability to access information
throughout the complex. Much more flexibility in where staff can work whilst connected
to their systems.
IT Departments
IT department benefits through easier infrastructure implementation in the reduction of
physical cabling required. This also simplifies moves and changes significantly.
CASE STUDY / PROOF POINTS
Universidade Lusiada
The “Universidade Lusíada” has three Universities in Portugal, sited
in the cities of Lisbon, Oporto and Vila Nova de Famalicão, and three
more Universities in the Popular Republic of Angola, in the cities of
Luanda, Cabinda and Lobito (Benguela), with a total of about 16.000
students attending courses of undergraduate, postgraduate, Master
Degrees and Doctor (Phd) Studies, with about 1.500 teachers.
With such a large number of students and teachers, and with
campuses scattered amongst several buildings and other spaces, the “Universidade
Lusíada” was facing the urgent need of finding a way to give access useful information –
and in a timely fashion – to its users, in a fast, economic and efficient way altogether.
The solution we found was the installation, in the past year (2002), of a wireless network
that covers up all of the Lusíada’s campuses, allowing students, teachers and other staff an
efficient and intelligent access from anywhere inside the campus (about 60 buildings,
gardens and other spaces) to the Internet and, through a web interface, to services and
information that the University gives access throughout a set of new technologic
applications. In this manner, we allow a wider set of chances to those who want to be more
creative in the use of such technology, whether it’s in research, or it’s in teaching.
The installation of these wireless networks is part of the project “e-Lusíada”, in the ambit
of which was created the “SLICE – Sistema Lusíada de Informação e Comunicação
Electrónica” (Lusíada’s Electronic Information and Communication System), that has as
major goals to give access to already produced information and increase the relationship
amongst the several parts, looking forward a more pro-active attitude and a less reactive
one.
SLICE focuses itself in people’s mobility, allowing students and teachers to have an
efficient and clever access to services and contents that the University gives out. In this
way, all of the University services are being virtually duplicated in order to build a virtual
University which allows its users the fulfil all of their needs.
The solution is drawn in a way that the access to the information and to the services will
be possible under any circumstance, by having a high degree of redundancy in the level
of components and in the level of hardware and communications.
Facing that, the web technology was found to be the most adequate tool to build the
platform that aggregates the several system components.
In this interface there are informatics resources of several natures and accessibilities, from
html files to full databases
With the offer of wireless ready notebooks to students and teachers, and the installations
of access points, the access conditions which allow users to interact among themselves
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and to the University services were created. The students now have a powerful work tool
that can be used to queries, researches, university projects and several other activities. As
bigger is the use of these equipments from the students, more will be their degree of
freedom and work capability.
To teachers, the notebook is a high interest working tool because it allows them to have a
unique workstation, whether they are in the campus, whether they are at home, and where
they can keep all of their work and presentations.
The computerisation of our teaching staff is a “Universidade Lusíada” competitive
advantage, since it creates an extremely dynamic and flexible work environment, allowing
teachers to act in a more efficient way to the school year evolution, and, mainly to be in a
permanent contact and interaction with their students, which is the fundamental basis to
the e-learning project.
For being equipped with wireless network the campuses of our several Universities have
the following advantages:
1. Interaction among students and teachers
2. The low implementation cost, when compared to the process of laying a physical
network, knowing that the major costs would be always derived from the
workmanship, the project to do so, and making changes in the buildings structure
(gutters, ditches, cabling, and so on). The maintenance and administration of a
wireless network it’s more easy and effective than a physical one which relieves
some of the existing overload in our Computer Centre.
The main functions/applications that have been deployed in the wireless network are:
a. Digital Library
b. Publisher and virtual Bookstore
c. Virtual teacher’s administrative services
d. Virtual student’s administrative services
e. Web-mail
f.
E-learning
This entire project has being developed in phases, according with the following slogan:
“Think big, start small and scale fast”
SOLUTION BENEFITS
With an anytime, anywhere access to one’s personal and private information, as well as a
permanent contact with one’s fellow colleagues or teachers and to internal and external
databases furnished by the University’s Documentation and Information Service (without
the need to be physically present in that service), the mobile users achieve a great degree
of freedom and at the same time have the possibility of permanently access those contents.
Permanent and immediate access (24h x 365 days) from anywhere in our University
campuses to the information that the University gives out with its consequent:
i.
Mobility
ii.
Flexibility
iii. Readiness
iv. Fastness
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v.
Bigger interaction among them
vi. Greater work capacity
vii. Greater proficiency of contents
viii. Services decentralisation
ix. Easier technology to set up and maintain, and, consequently more profitable
FUNCTIONAL BUSINESS CONCEPT
This solution has been implemented to enable more effective interaction and access to
University systems for University departments and staff as well as students. The following
diagram shows the high level business functions and how they can interact or utilise the
solution:
Access to information can
now be from anywhere
within the campus.
USER EXPERIENCE
This solution delivers a very different user experience in the Education campus. It enables
students to access information and study no matter where they are in the campus and no
matter what time it is.
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S O F T WA R E A R C H I T E C T U R E
The software architecture in this solution is based on various components from the client
to backend servers.
Client
Each client has installed on it VPN software used to link to the VPN server to establish
encrypted connection to the system. This enables secure information connectivity across
either the internet or wireless LAN infrastructure. The authentication is achieved via the
VPN client and also through Microsoft network login authentication.
VPN/Authentication Server
Within the University network there is boundary security in the form of Firewall, VPN and
Authentication servers. These establish the connectivity between the mobile clients and the
University network.
Content/Application Servers
Once given access to the network the users can then access the systems they have
permission to use.
Intranet/Extranet: This is a Portal used to create personalised access to information for
users based on their role/focus. (e.g. Engineering student or Course Administrator).
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Applications/Database: This is the main University applications and data used by the
University staff.
Internet Proxy: This provides a link out to the Internet for users.
SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE
There are two main parts to the infrastructure of this solution the first is the underlying
network architecture that enables campus wide wireless access. The following diagram
represents a network architecture that was deployed in University Lusiada:
1 GB FC optical
Cisco Catalyst 3550
Backbone Servers
RJ45 100Mbits
Cisco Catalyst 3550
Backbone Com
Switch Catalyst
2950T-24
Ed. G
1 GB FC optical
1 GB FC optical
Switch Catalyst
2950T-24
Ed. Air Liquide
HUB 10/100
HUB 10/100
IGate 11M
IGate 11M
RJ45 100Mbits
1 GB FC optical
IGate 11M
IGate 11M
IGate 11M
IGate 11M
IGate 11M
IGate 11M
IGate 11M
IGate 11M
IGate 11M
IGate 11M
IGate 11M
IGate 11M
IGate 11M
HUB 10/100
IGate 11M
Switch Catalyst
2950T-24
Ed. M
1 GB FC optical
RJ45 100Mbits
HUB 10/100
Switch Catalyst
2950T-24
Ed. A
Switch Catalyst
2950T-24
Ed. J
IGate 11M
IGate 11M
Switch Catalyst
2950T-24
Ed. B
1 GB FC optical
IGate 11M
IGate 11M
1 GB FC optical
IGate 11M
HUB 10/100
IGate 11M
IGate 11M
1 GB FC optical
Switch Catalyst
2950T-24
Auditorios
IGate 11M
IGate 11M
IGate 11M
HUB 10/100
Ed. E
HUB 10/100
HUB 10/100
24 Ports
HUB 10/100
12 Ports
IGate 11M
IGate 11M
IGate 11M
IGate 11M
IGate 11M
IGate 11M
IGate 11M
IGate 11M
IGate 11M
IGate 11M
IGate 11M
IGate 11M
IGate 11M
IGate 11M
IGate 11M
IGate 11M
Once the network infrastructure is in place there is then a server architecture installed to
deliver the services and content of the Solution. The following is an example of what
would be installed for an implementation of the scale of University Lusiada:
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Lusiada - Estrutura Interna
Server processing power
based on Intel Xeon and
Intel Xeon processor MP
Primergy P250
Active Directory,
DHCP,
Backup
Fibercat CX400
20 Discos de 73 Gbytes
Primergy P250
SQL Adm
Primergy P250
FS Adm
Switch F.O. 16 Portas
Primergy R450
Extranet & Intranet
Switch F.O. 16 Portas
Router F.O. / SCSI
Primergy N400
R450
Mail
Cluster FS Alunos
Primergy's R450
Robot de Tapes
Scalar 100 1,8 Tbytes
PROCESSING POWER
Wireless and mobile connectivity enhances the productivity, efficiency and
flexibility of the corporate employees by enabling communication and
access to corporate information and resources from any place at any time.
In this solution, wireless connectivity is provided for users of devices such
as the following:
• Mobile laptops—Intel-based client devices include laptops/tablet
PCs based on Intel Pentium® M Processors, Intel® Centrino mobile
technology. The extended battery life of Intel Centrino technology
offers users and organisations valuable productivity gains and
improved business efficiency.
SUMMARY
More and more Universities are looking for ways to attract students and many
Governments are focused on driving the use of technology as an integral part of Education
to ensure that future workforces are IT literate. These factors are helping to drive the need
for wireless based education infrastructures.
This solution delivers wireless access to a campus environment. The initial focus and
deployments are based around University campus in Portugal. This enables a revolution in
the way students and teachers can learn and teach.
Fujitsu Siemens have developed a flexible infrastructure Solution for the wireless
Campus. They also offer many of they key server and client products to enable the full
benefits of this type of infrastructure.
L E A R N M O R E A B O U T T H I S I N N O VAT I V E S O L U T I O N
For general information about the products described in this solution blueprint, visit:
www.fujitsu-siemens.pt
www.intel.com/go/solutionblueprints
If you have specific questions about implementing this solution within your organisation,
contact your Intel representative or e-mail us at: solutionblueprints@intel.com.
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Copyright ©2003 Fujitsu Siemens Computers. All Rights Reserved.
Intel, the Intel and Intel Inside logos, Pentium, Centrino and Xeon are trademarks or registered trademarks of the Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other
countries.
Copyright ©2003 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
*Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others. Information regarding third party products is provided solely for educational purposes. Intel is not responsible for
the performance or support of third party products and does not make any representations or warranties whatsoever regarding quality, reliability, functionality, or compatibility of these
devices or products.
Part Number:BP17-2003/E