Users say | "Double High Construction" improves the level of informatization: Etherlight helps Xi'an Railway Vocational and Technical College in its intelligent digital transformation

Introduction:

Xi'an Railway Vocational and Technical College was founded in 1956. It currently has four campuses: Port Campus (Headquarters), Ziqiang Campus, Lintong Campus, and Longshou Campus. It is a full-time general higher vocational college sponsored by the Xi'an Municipal People's Government, the first higher vocational college in Northwest China with a full range of rail transit operation majors, and a model higher vocational college in Shaanxi Province, a high-level higher vocational school construction unit of Shaanxi Province's "Double High Plan", and a smart campus demonstration school for higher education institutions. In order to thoroughly implement the requirements of the national education digitalization strategy, conform to the long-term development of education intelligence and informatization, and meet the ever-increasing and diverse teaching innovation scenarios, the school chose Ruijie Ethernet all-optical solution based on color light transmission technology, and took the lead in building a highly integrated, stable and reliable, flexible and adaptable, and extremely simple operation and maintenance all-optical network for the Port Campus, which provides a solid foundation for the construction and application of smart campuses, the deep integration of modern information technology and education and teaching, and the high-quality connotation development of schools.

Rapid development: higher demands on the digital campus "foundation"

Since the comprehensive launch of the construction of educational informatization in our school, the campus network has gone through a process from nothing to something, from small to large, from single to multiple, from construction to application, which has strongly supported various fields such as talent training, education and teaching, scientific research, and campus life of teachers and students, and played an important role in ensuring the development of the school. With the iterative advancement of informatization and digital campus, the expansion of smart business applications in teaching, scientific research, and management and the surge in network users, the substantial increase in the demand for applications with high real-time requirements such as online teaching and VR teaching, as well as the scenarios of large-scale data transmission such as campus payment, cloud applications, and high-definition video streaming, have put forward higher requirements for network stability and bandwidth. The original network can no longer meet the needs of more than 17,000 teachers and students for a good network experience and related business support.

Breaking through bottlenecks: the only way to achieve intelligent digital transformation

In order to further improve the performance of the campus network, ensure efficient data transmission and seamless application operation, and break the bottleneck of network infrastructure in the digital transformation of education and teaching, in 2023, our school launched the campus network infrastructure transformation project.

After preliminary technical research and repeated demonstrations by experts, looking forward to the development trend of digital education, and considering both network security and stable operation, we finally chose the 100G campus network with two-layer simplified network architecture that fully supports IPv6 and Ethernet all-optical as the technical core as the construction plan, and fully upgraded the network equipment and network links. This includes the core layer, aggregation layer and access layer network equipment of the Port Campus, and successfully realized the expansion and transformation of the teaching and office export from 1.2Gbps to 10.2Gbps, laying a solid foundation for the digital transformation of our school.

Schematic diagram of the all-optical network architecture of the Xi'an Railway Institute Port Campus

Network innovation: Ethernet color light technology leads long-term development

After the transformation, the core layer of the campus network runs stably, with a total export bandwidth of 40Gbps. The core backbone network bandwidth of the Port Campus can reach 100Gbps, 80Gbps to the building, 10Gbps to the desktop, and the bandwidth from the Port Campus to the other three campuses can reach 20Gbps.

Relying on the wavelength division multiplexing technology of the Ethernet color light solution, multiple optical signals of different wavelengths are transmitted through one optical fiber, and after passive transparent aggregation, they are connected through the access switch in the room to achieve exclusive bandwidth. This minimalist method not only optimizes the network architecture, but also meets the flexible access and security management of terminals, and improves the data transmission speed and fiber utilization efficiency, building a truly exclusive 10G network for the classroom. In addition, the color light module can be replaced in the later stage without the need to change the original link. These characteristics and advantages further improve the scalability and flexibility of our school network. Whether now or in the future, it can easily meet the various needs of innovation in education methods in colleges and universities, ensuring the long-term development of intelligent and digital education information.

Schematic diagram of passive wavelength division technology

Statistics of bandwidth usage of campus network telecommunications export after upgrading

Upgraded campus network big data log traffic audit diagram

Download speed test chart of the upgraded campus network

Stable and intelligent: a double leap in simplified operation and maintenance management

With the introduction of color light technology, traditional operation and maintenance has also achieved a subversive upgrade experience. Thanks to the minimalist large two-layer architecture, the aggregation layer uses passive transparent aggregation to replace the old aggregation switch, which does not require power supply or air conditioning cabinets, and moves the weak current room to the "stairwell", thus truly achieving maintenance-free.

On the other hand, the intelligent SDN system implements unified control over the entire network and intelligent perception of all-optical links. After testing, once a faulty node occurs, the system visualization + code scanning can quickly locate it, and the operation and maintenance efficiency is improved by at least 50%! Replacing new equipment is also very simple, supporting blind port insertion, and it can be online in about 3 minutes without complicated configuration. This not only simplifies the previous operation and maintenance process, but also greatly improves efficiency, and the impact on the business is also reduced to the minimum. Since its implementation, traffic scheduling has been running normally and no major failures have occurred.

Experience upgrade: significant improvement in multiple business scenarios within the school

The upgrade of the basic network has significantly enhanced the bandwidth and greatly improved the network quality of various teaching services. It has completely solved the congestion and packet loss problems caused by sudden traffic in wired networks, bringing unprecedented smooth experience to teachers and students, and providing strong support for digital education and teaching reforms and intelligent management service transformation.

• High-quality teaching in computer room/practical training : The high-speed and stable network environment not only meets the requirements of high efficiency and high standards for teaching and practical training, but also provides strong support for improving teaching quality, optimizing teaching experience, and enhancing students' professional course practical training and practical skills. This environment ensures the smoothness and practicality of the education process and provides a solid foundation for students' professional skills training and knowledge application.

• Live classroom/VR teaching is smooth and silky : Whether it is the real-time interaction of live classroom or the immersive experience and instant operation feedback in VR teaching, the high-speed network provides stable support for audio and video data transmission, ensuring the complete and efficient presentation of learning content. Now, students can enjoy a clearer and smoother learning experience.

• Campus news broadcasts no longer have lags: the significant increase in bandwidth has eliminated the previous lags, and the nightly news broadcasts are pushed centrally to ensure that teachers and students obtain complete information and are able to keep abreast of current affairs.

Solid Footprints: Milestones in Smart Education Informatization

The successful implementation of the new campus network infrastructure renovation project marks a solid step forward for our school on the road to digital transformation. The renovated campus network not only meets the ubiquitous learning needs of teachers and students "at all times, everywhere, and for everyone", but also lays a solid foundation for our school's smart teaching, smart scientific research, smart management, smart operations, smart services and other application expansions and for our efforts to create a benchmark school for vocational education informatization.

"Running a school does not deviate from the track, educating people does not deviate from the truth." Xi'an Railway Vocational and Technical College will continue to explore and move forward in information construction, providing more fertile soil for cultivating high-quality technical and skilled professionals!