Tender for
Network Upgrade Approved
By
C. Y. Kwok
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Recently,
tenders have been invited for a total network upgrade solution
which includes a comprehensive network upgrade plan, plus the
supply, installation, testing and commissioning of all the networking
hardware and software required for the upgrade. After careful
consideration, the tender finally went to the PCCW with the employment
of Cisco products. Within the next 6 to 36 months, the CityU campus
network will undergo a tremendous upgrade and soon all end users
will be able to enjoy a new advanced network with high performance,
resilience, flexibility and scalability.
The network
upgrade is targeted to replace the existing ATM network switches
(both at the core and the edge), and to merge the 2 backbones
into a single new one which will deploy various state-of-the-art
network technologies such as gigabit networking, multiplayer switching,
end-to-end QoS (quality of service), traffic policing, and IP
multicast support. We expect the new network will not only have
sufficient capacity to meet the network bandwidth requirements
of all users for at least the next 5 years, but also feature high
performance, availability, reliability, and manageability. Furthermore,
the upgrade will provide 10/100 Mbps desktop connectivity for
over 4,000 computer systems as well as multiple Gigabit Ethernet
uplinks for each of the 60+ wiring closets.
The network
upgrade consists of the following 3 phases: