Arbeitsgemeinschaft Dresdner Studentennetz
Modern switches and Shortest Path Bridging provide a foundation for the high-performance campus network.
- Country: Germany
- Industry: Education
- Solution: Digital Age Networking
The Dresden Student Network Working Group (AG DSN) operates a campus network that connects all the students’ union residence halls with each other, with the Technical University Dresden network and with the internet. From planning, configuration and software development to financial management, all the work is done on a voluntary basis by approximately 50 active AG DSN members.
Challenges
AG DSN's campus network provides approximately 4,000 students living in Dresden's halls of residence, with connectivity to the university network and the internet. The existing network could no longer meet current requirements. In order to provide each student with their own Layer 2 domain, both on the wired connection and on the wireless LAN, a new network technology was needed, as the switches in use only supported classic Ethernet and the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP).
AG DSN decided to update the data transmission layer (Layer 2) of the network, based on modern switches that are more efficient and support Shortest Path Bridging (SPB). Unlike STP, SPB ensures a loop-free topology using the shortest paths between Layer 2 devices, as well as parallel path use. Even large networks can be easily configured, efficiently operated and flexibly scaled without issues.
Results
Technical benefits
- Modern, more efficient switches
- Shortest Path Bridging (SPB) makes the interconnection of the entire campus network possible with more than 4096 L2 domains
- Cross-building Layer 2 network
- Easy data transport of L2 domains across many devices
- Provision of transparent bidirectional L2 circuits using SPB and the Intermediate System to Intermediate System (IS-IS) protocol
- Unlike with STP, redundancies can now be used in operation
- Alcatel-Lucent Operating System (AOS) provides uniform software platform for all network components
Financial benefits
- Flexibly scalable infrastructure
- Future-proof, as potential future requirements are covered
- Investment protection with service guarantee up to five years after end of life
User experience benefits
- IT administration: Less effort due to easier handling of configuration and network management
- Users: Stable network, less downtime
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AG DSN Short Case Study
DownloadThis case study describes how the Dresden Student Network Working Group (AG DSN) has made its campus network more performant and flexible.
