The University of the Free State (UFS) has decided to upgrade its computer network, expanding it from 3 000 to 7 500 network ports to accommodate up to 27 000 students who will be given shared access to the infrastructure. Currently fewer than 5 000 students can link to the network.
The university has selected Duxbury Networking as its partner in the project. The company has been working with the university on the design of the network for the past three years, the final 12 months of which were dedicated to choosing a network products vendor and proof-of-concept trials.
According to Henry Joubert, manager of operating systems at the university, Enterasys Networks was selected because of the vendor`s emphasis on security and its product`s ability to scale and incorporate wireless solutions into the overall solution.
"As part of our upgrade, emphasis will be placed on e-learning and distance learning opportunities, giving students the ability to connect to the network anywhere at anytime," says Joubert.
"In terms of our new mandate - which now incorporates the Universities of QuaQua and Vista - we will be looking to address more students in informal locations both on and off campus."
According to Joubert, this will increase the focus on wireless networking and the provision of hotspots to give students easy access to the Internet, e-mail and the soon-to-be-launched distance learning applications.
"The solutions proposed by Duxbury and Enterasys will assist us to meet these challenges, at the same time providing the security, scalability and performance enhancing benefits - such as wide area network [WAN] bandwidth optimisation mechanisms - we are looking for.
"Importantly, the network will be insured against malfunction by Enterasys` `Lancare for Life` scheme," says Joubert.
The new infrastructure, which will incorporate a high-speed (1Gb, scalable to 10Gb) backbone architecture is scheduled for completion in late 2004.
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