By Hans Lewis, TMCnet Contributor
Tennessee Tech University will have its own next generation education network built by Extreme Networks (News – Alert), which has been working closely with integrator Excalibur Integrated Systems, to deliver a high performance, secure and reliable campus network that features increased performance and support of converged IP video, technology that will extend to benefit surrounding communities.
Jerry Boyd, Assistant Director of Network Services for Tennessee Tech said, “Tennessee Tech is working with Extreme Networks and Excalibur Integrated Systems to migrate to a digitally connected world of higher education, putting in place an expertly designed network infrastructure and services foundation to support distance learning and flawless connectivity and communications. Support from our new network of external programs in the community, including collaboration and IP communications between surrounding educational facilities and rural healthcare facilities, results in many benefits to the community and the local area, making this an investment for the future.”
Paul Hooper, Chief Marketing Officer for Extreme Networks said, “The high performance infrastructure being put in place for Tennessee Tech is truly innovative, combining the latest in convergence, networking and the Internet to push education and interactive learning towards tomorrow. By keeping management simple and establishing high speed network connections that are intelligent and capable of supporting mixed media, highlighted by high resolution video, students, staff and the surrounding community benefit from a superior and immersive learning environment.”
Tennessee Tech, voted one of the nation’s 50 “Best Value” universities by the Princeton Review in 2010, supports more than 10,000 students and staff on its campus and has a goal to provide network resources to surrounding community colleges, rural health facilities and local high schools. With its impressive and diverse curriculum, featuring its schools of engineering, sciences, healthcare and computing, the university is eyeing the future with the establishment of a robust network that readily embraces high resolution video for learning in real-time, and the support of bandwidth-intensive applications across multiple campus facilities, labs and auditoriums.
A next generation network from Extreme Networks, with special capabilities for resiliency, redundancy and high availability, can facilitate distance learning and related collaborative applications well into the future.
To achieve its goals, Tennessee Tech applied an extensive RFQ process in 2009, evaluating network vendors on the basis of scalable technology, integrated management and convergence features. Added to that, the vendor had to work closely with integrator Excalibur Integrated Systems, to deliver customized design and support.
Extreme Networks Summit family of fixed switches, including the Summit X450 Gigabit switch and Summit X650 10 Gigabit switch, the BlackDiamond 8800 series modular switches and the ExtremeXOS operating system were selected ahead of competing solutions. Extreme Networks next-generation operating system features cross-platform stacking between Summit X450/ X650 switches and automation technologies that reduce the time and costs associated with managing the network.
Extreme Networks BlackDiamond 8800 series switches connect the core network and the university will implement Extreme Networks resiliency protocol EAPS throughout its ring design, providing sub50 millisecond recovery of IP services should a connection be cut or damaged.
In another Education Featured Article, read here about how five programs covering the K-12 curriculum from Pearson are finalists in the six categories of the 2010 Distinguished Achievement Awards of the Association of Educational Publishers. The power of technology has been combined with the well established instructional strategies that can improve learning.
Hans Lewis is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Kelly McGuire
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