Logicalis

Swinburne University refreshses multi-campus network

Logicalis was chosen by Swinburne to deploy one of the largest Internet Protocol networks in Australia for the university, with over with over 18,000 IP endpoints and 4,000 IP screen phones.

Challenge

"The University experiences a high level of organic growth each year and we were having to spend increasing amounts on upgrades to support this. We needed a new infrastructure that would allow plenty of room for growth," explained Richard Constantine, CIO and IT Director at Swinburne University.

Improving and maintaining Swinburne's existing outdated PABX infrastructure was driver for upgrading the infrastructure, with IP Telephony offering cost savings. "Swinburne was a pioneer in trialling IP telephony four years ago and we understand benefits that it can deliver" says Constantine.

Solution

Logicalis refreshed Swinburne's network in a project worth over $7 million and overhauled the communications infrastructure across the University's six Victorian campuses, deploying over 4,000 IP screen phones. The Cisco solution combined voice, data and video as well as Unified Messaging capability. It also included over 400 wireless base stations, with Swinburne having one of the largest Cisco Wireless Networks in Australia. Students and staff can access the Swinburne network for any location on any of the Victorian campuses at any time. Logicalis re-designed the network to increase security and deliver additional cost savings, efficiencies and improved capabilities. Logicalis also implemented Cisco Security Agent, which enables Swinburne to interrogate any device attempting to connect to the network, scan it for vulnerabilities and ensure that the most up to date anti-virus software and patches are installed before it is allowed to connect. "New security threats are emerging all the time. The new IP infrastructure will provide Swinburne with a highly secure network that is flexible enough to meet evolving security threats, is less susceptible to internal or external attacks and is resilient to viruses and worms," Justin Bock, Logicalis Sales Director, added.

Benefits

The infrastructure refresh delivers significant cost savings as well as additional security, improved flexibility over wired and wireless links, lower support costs and the ability to implement new productivity enhancing applications. Over $900,000 in cost savings was realized, reflecting lower maintenance costs and operational costs from implementing IP telephony. "We benefit from a more sophisticated communications platform, enhanced capabilities and simplified maintenance. With the IP solution and fully featured IP screen phones, we can retire our ageing PABX infrastructure and avoid the duplication of cost in supporting multiple systems," Constantine said. "We will also benefit from reduced costs in refurbishing old buildings or fitting out new ones through installing one cable as opposed to separate voice and data lines." The number of disruptions to students and staff is reduced as there is less downtime due to equipment failure or forced upgrades of the aging PABX system. The new IP infrastructure also plays an important role in enabling the University to undertake several new initiatives, such as implementing a new student administration system and participating in sophisticated research projects with outside partners that were not previously possible. It will also meet the University's growing bandwidth demands.