New campus, new vision - Guangzhou No. 6 Middle School creates a new highland of smart education with Ethernet color light

Guangzhou No. 6 Middle School is a famous key middle school with a history of 85 years. It is also one of the first-class first-class schools in Guangdong Province and a national model high school. As one of the first smart campus construction demonstration units in Guangzhou, Guangzhou No. 6 Middle School "breaks the old and builds the new" in the construction of smart campuses in Conghua and Huadu, allowing advanced Ethernet all-optical technology to resonate with the construction of the school's new campus, and constantly actively explores and innovates the road of informatization in the development of our school's education group.

Today, as information technology continues to update and smart education is booming, as one of the first schools with characteristics of youth science education in Guangdong Province, one of the top ten schools for national science and technology innovation, a national demonstration base for science and technology invention, and a national demonstration base for youth artificial intelligence education, our school is actively promoting the comprehensive upgrade of information construction, and jointly with the Conghua campus and Huadu campus, which will be completed in 2023, to build a smart, interconnected, integrated, and innovative digital campus system, and become a national leading and exemplary smart campus group demonstration school.

In order to promote the balanced allocation of high-quality educational resources in the central urban area of ​​Guangzhou to the entire city, export advanced educational concepts, management experience and campus culture to the periphery, and form a new model of basic education with the same origin, consistent cultural context and coordinated development among regions, our school plans to build two new campuses in Conghua and Huadu respectively.

The Conghua campus will enroll 367 first-year junior high school students in September 2023, and will enroll 400 first-year senior high school students and 400 second-year junior high school students in September 2024. The campus has built a teaching complex, student dormitory, gymnasium, library, performing arts center and other venues, which can provide 3,000 places and meet the accommodation needs of all staff. The Huadu campus project officially started construction in February this year. The project is currently progressing smoothly and is expected to be completed this year.

Thinking : Avoiding the “old pitfalls” in building new campuses

The network construction plan for the new campus has been put on the agenda. We need to build an efficient and stable network based on the actual situation of current network construction and the specific needs of the smart campus in the new era to support future teaching activities.

As one of the pioneers of smart campus construction in Guangzhou, our school has accumulated certain network construction experience in the past few years. Since 2016, the school has adopted traditional Ethernet for comprehensive network transformation, and in 2019, it achieved wireless coverage in scenes including classrooms, offices, conference rooms and playgrounds. At the same time, it has established a number of important information management systems including campus OA office system, academic affairs management system, dormitory management attendance system, moral education system, IoT smart management and control system, etc.

However, with the rapid development of new technologies, the existing network system of the school headquarters has gradually revealed some limitations. In the subsequent operation and maintenance process, we mainly face the following two major problems:

• Campus network wiring is chaotic and network expansion is limited

The original network cabling design was unable to cope with the new business. Taking the teaching building as an example, the campus network built in 2016 used optical fiber from the main computer room to the branch computer room in the building, and then pulled two network cables to each classroom to support the networking of the podium and the use of multimedia equipment. With the continuous introduction of new services, such as broadcasting, monitoring, and smart classroom teaching, the original wiring method can no longer meet the needs. Every time a new service is added, it is necessary to add an independent switch to the small cabinet on the floor and rewire it. PVC pipes are used for wiring along the wall, one pipe at a time, and the weak current wiring is like a "spider web". The corridors from the floor computer room to the department are also wired layer by layer, which greatly increases the workload and cost.

In the face of new business needs, the horizontal bridge is now full of cables, and new cables cannot be laid, and the wall space cannot accommodate more lines . This situation not only affects the scalability of the campus network, but also brings considerable challenges to daily operation and maintenance work.

Floor switch cabinet

PVC pipe wiring outside the corridor

• The space in the weak current room is limited, maintenance is difficult and the cost is rising

The weak current room of the school headquarters has limited space. There are two weak current rooms on each floor of the school headquarters. The weak current room is small, only 2 square meters. The small weak current room carries an increasing number of switches and supporting equipment . Considering that there are many active devices in the weak current room, in order to prevent power outages from causing equipment failures, we have added small UPS and air conditioners to ensure the stable operation of the equipment .

However, this move not only failed to completely solve the problem, but also introduced new problems. The maintenance cost of a single weak current room doubled: the air conditioning system runs 24 hours a day, and it is inevitable that failures will occur, and it needs to be replaced or maintained regularly, which increases the maintenance cost; at the same time, due to the large depth of the weak current room design on the early floors, the water generated by air conditioning and refrigeration cannot be directly discharged into the corridor. The risk of equipment flooding due to drainage design defects further increases the complexity and cost of maintenance. Moreover, if the drainage backflow causes equipment flooding or short circuit due to moisture, it is often too late to detect it in time, and the troubleshooting and maintenance cycle is long , which will also affect normal office and teaching.

In view of this, at the beginning of planning the network construction of the new campuses in Conghua and Huadu, we need to deeply learn from the experience and lessons of the school headquarters network construction, design the network architecture in a forward-looking manner, and strive to fundamentally avoid the above two "historical problems". Ensure that the new campus network can not only meet the current teaching and management needs, but also flexibly respond to the challenges of rapid development of future technologies and business expansion, and lay a solid foundation for the continued prosperity of the smart campus.

Selection: Experience the IPL and choose the IPL

In order to enable the new campus business to flourish and accurately avoid the existing shortcomings in the network operations of the headquarters, we actively seek to adopt more advanced technical solutions and strive to "break the old and establish the new."

In the process of carefully selecting technical solutions, we not only widely listened to and evaluated multiple overall solutions of partners, but also adhered to the principle of "seeing is believing" and went deep into local key sister colleges of the same type to conduct field investigations and exchanges on the actual implementation results of relevant technical solutions. During this trip, we focused on the actual effectiveness and operation and maintenance status of technical solutions, and strived to make every decision based on solid facts.

During the field visit, we paid special attention to Ruijie Network's Aurora solution in view of the pain points exposed by the headquarters network, especially its actual deployment and remarkable results in fiber access to rooms, passive convergence of weak current rooms, and efficient management platforms. After witnessing it with our own eyes, we found that Ruijie's minimalist Ethernet color optical network solution met the needs of our new campus network construction.

First, optical fiber is directly connected to the classroom, which fundamentally solves the complex challenges of expanding teaching information points and bridge design; second, the weak-current room adopts a passive management-free mode, which effectively resolves the problems of cramped space, dense equipment, flood risks and cost control in the weak-current room.

At the same time, the Ethernet color light solution relies on transparent convergence technology to ensure a 1:1 splitting ratio and achieve gigabit exclusive bandwidth for indoor use, leaving ample space for the rapid development of educational informatization in the future. Its strong compatibility, no brand restrictions, and compliance with standard Ethernet protocols make it possible to unify the management of wired and wireless networks across the entire network. SDN compatibility allows plug-and-play devices, and visual management of optical links makes it more convenient.

After comprehensive evaluation and on-site inspection, we finally selected Ruijie Networks' Ethernet color light solution, officially kicking off the construction of smart campus networks for Conghua and Huadu campuses. By deploying this solution, we have initially built an intelligent network environment covering all scenarios such as teaching, dormitories, offices, and restaurants, laying a solid foundation for the development of the new campus.

Results: Construction management points "double praise"

After the new campus network was fully deployed and put into operation, not only did teachers and students directly experience the improvement of the teaching and learning environment, but the logistics management department also felt the significant improvement in operation and maintenance efficiency. From the two core dimensions of promoting efficient construction of new services and optimizing network management and operation, Ruijie Network's Ethernet color light solution has undoubtedly brought us a comprehensive application experience upgrade.

• Fiber-optic cables are brought into the home, greatly improving service deployment efficiency

In the two new campuses of Conghua and Huadu, various applications in the classrooms have been fully deployed, including all-in-one machines, front and rear cameras, broadcasting systems, wireless networks, etc., and in the future, cutting-edge technologies such as electronic class signs, recording and broadcasting equipment, and facial recognition systems in college entrance examination examination rooms will be seamlessly integrated.

Compared with the difficulties that the main campus has frequently encountered in the past when deploying new services - saturated cable troughs, insufficient cabinet space requiring frequent replacement, and PVC pipe laying and construction debugging that took several days to put new services online, the new campus network relies on fiber-optic access technology to achieve the flexibility of expanding information points. New information points only need to be deployed nearby by pulling cables indoors.

Nowadays, teachers in the information center can easily complete indoor capacity expansion and business launch in just 30 minutes, which greatly accelerates business deployment efficiency and paves the fast lane for innovation in education and teaching applications.

• Passive design and intelligent management improve operation and maintenance efficiency and network intelligence

The introduction of Ethernet color light technology has freed the campus network of the new campuses of Conghua and Huadu from the historical problems of cumbersome maintenance and high construction costs of the weak current room of the school headquarters network. The passive weak current room design adopted by this solution not only eliminates the construction costs of additional equipment such as UPS and air conditioners, but also reduces long-term maintenance costs at the source.

At the same time, through the matching SDN management platform, the two new campuses successfully avoided the challenges of the school headquarters network in terms of full network monitoring and troubleshooting, and achieved zero-configuration online and replacement of equipment in minutes. The visual management of optical links makes operation and maintenance work intuitive and efficient. This series of changes not only simplifies the operation and maintenance process, but also makes network management easier and smarter than ever before.

Conclusion

The introduction of Ethernet color light technology is a solid step we have taken in the construction of the new campus. It directly solves practical problems such as complex network wiring and difficult management of weak current rooms, improves the overall performance and operation and maintenance efficiency of the campus network, and strongly supports various innovative applications such as smart teaching, smart management, and smart services.

In the future, with the completion of the Conghua campus and the Huadu campus, Guangzhou No. 6 Middle School will meet the challenges and opportunities of future education with a more open, intelligent and efficient attitude, creating a more personalized and interactive learning environment for students, providing teachers with more convenient and intelligent teaching tools, and providing managers with more accurate and efficient data support.