User says | IPL helps medical experimental training to get on the fast track

Anhui Medical College is a public general college directly under the Anhui Provincial Health Commission. With the approval of the Anhui Provincial People's Government and the record of the Ministry of Education, the school was upgraded to a medical undergraduate college and included in the Anhui Province's "14th Five-Year Plan" for the establishment of higher education institutions. Considering that traditional networks cannot support the high-bandwidth services and application requirements brought about by the construction of smart campuses, the school chose Ruijie's minimalist Ethernet color optical network solution for the network construction of the Basic Medical College Building in the Xinqiao Campus, providing the school with an all-optical network based on Ethernet color optical technology, which well supports the high-bandwidth and easily scalable network requirements of the training classrooms.

The practical training of the School of Basic Medicine plays an important role in medical education. Since 2022, our school has been building a building for the School of Basic Medicine at the Xinqiao campus, aiming to achieve the integration of teaching and experimental training, which not only meets the current needs of specialized teaching, but also reserves space for future undergraduate education and scientific research development. Network construction plays a vital role in this process.

Experimental training rooms need a future-oriented "information superhighway"

In my opinion, the basic network is like a road, and various applications are like vehicles running on the road. Whether the vehicle can run smoothly depends largely on the quality and design of the road. Therefore, the basic network provides solid support for the application layer and management layer, and is the foundation of the entire information construction.

The Basic Medical College Building of Xinqiao Campus covers an area of ​​16,230 square meters, including the Life Science Museum, anatomy, physiology, pathology, morphology and other experimental training rooms and office areas. As a key place for medical education and skills training, the training classroom has special requirements for the network:

• High-speed Internet access : supports high-definition video instruction, online resource access, and remote collaboration;

• Stable network connection : to ensure the continuity of teaching activities, especially real-time demonstrations or remote guidance;

• Adequate bandwidth : to support multiple devices such as students’ and teachers’ computers, medical equipment, etc. to be online at the same time;

• Scalability : adapt to technological development and changes in teaching needs, and facilitate future upgrades and expansions;

Can the school's original network solution meet the construction needs of the training classroom? Obviously, the answer is no. The original network requires complex network bandwidth calculation and equipment replacement when multiple services or high-traffic services are launched, which is time-consuming and labor-intensive, and has poor scalability. When a network failure occurs, it needs to be checked one by one, which makes the operation and maintenance work complicated, and the fault location and recovery are slow, which affects the timeliness of operation and maintenance.

The training classroom needs a future-oriented network solution. So we turned our attention to "light". After in-depth research, we found that the minimalist Ethernet color optical network solution, which combines the maturity of Ethernet technology and the forward-looking nature of color optical networks, is exactly the "information highway" that the training classroom needs.

The "color light expressway" that carries the practical training classroom

What impressed me about the minimalist Ethernet color optical network solution at first was the "color optical technology". In fact, in layman's terms, optical fiber is like a highway, and optical signals of different wavelengths are like cars of different colors. Without the use of color optical technology, each car needs a separate lane to drive. In this way, if there are many cars on the road, many lanes are needed, which is both expensive and inefficient. But with color optical technology, it is like a multi-lane highway that allows cars of different colors to drive together, but they will not interfere with each other.

The School of Basic Medical Sciences has deployed transparent aggregation equipment using Ethernet color light technology on the side of the building, and matched it with flexible indoor switches to achieve 1:1 indoor exclusive 10G bandwidth, effectively supporting the development of practical training. Another point is that the transparent aggregation equipment is a passive design, does not require power supply, and is maintenance-free, reducing the "big trouble" of weak current room maintenance.

After the optical fiber reaches the classroom directly, the intelligent network teaching control system, teaching supervision and class inspection, multimedia teaching host, electronic class sign, network clock display system, wireless AP access point, and teaching terminal equipment in the smart classroom under the training classroom scenario are directly connected to the indoor switch through the network cable. There is no need to deploy cables from the weak current room. This not only simplifies the wiring, but also the subsequent new services only need to be expanded in the classroom.

I feel that color light technology is like the "magic" in fiber optic communication, which makes network transmission more powerful and efficient. In fact, not only in the training classroom, the color light solution also carries the business of the Life Science Museum and office area in the Basic Medical College Building. In particular, the Life Science Museum, as a high-tech education display platform, integrates multimedia interactive devices such as streamlined demonstration large screens, VR experience and digital interactive experience. The color light network, with its high bandwidth, high stability and low latency, ensures the real-time nature of user interaction and provides students and other visitors with an immersive learning and visiting experience.

Intelligent operation and maintenance of the "Color Light Expressway"

Our requirements for the network are not only the bandwidth itself, but also operation and maintenance management. We currently have only 9 teachers in our information center, and each teacher needs to handle different matters, such as network business, electronic education business, one-card business, and daily operation and maintenance and other related businesses. Each position is only set up with 1-2 people, and the personnel of each position are also scattered in different campuses. Most teachers have to take on multiple roles. It is conceivable that the pressure of operation and maintenance management is very high. Previously, the school network had a failure, and the troubleshooting and recovery work brought a lot of workload to everyone.

In the overall network construction of Xinqiao Campus this time, our operation and maintenance efficiency has been greatly improved. First of all, the transparent convergence is passive and operation-free, and more weak current well space can be freed up for other uses. Secondly, the indoor switch equipment is equipped with SDN controller, which supports plug-and-play and zero-configuration online. Not only that, the SDN controller also supports visual management of link, device, and loop faults, visual alarm of faulty nodes, and fault location and recovery from the original 2 hours to 2 minutes, which greatly improves the efficiency of our school's network operation and maintenance management. In previous years, we would receive a lot of feedback on network problems, but this year there are fewer, and our network service quality has also made great progress.

On the "color light fast track" to the future of medical education

The network construction of Xinqiao Campus is not only focused on the Basic Medical College Building. We cooperated with Ruijie to carry out the overall network construction of Xinqiao Campus. The construction of the "Color Light" network of Xinqiao Campus is just one of the links to explore and apply cutting-edge technologies and continuously optimize the network architecture. In addition, on the basis of the wired network, our school's wireless network adopts the 802.11ax technical standard, deploys APs, high-density APs, panel APs, and outdoor APs based on scene requirements, and ensures the quality of wireless network coverage. At the same time, it is equipped with the WIS wireless network optimization platform to greatly improve the wireless user access experience. Our school is also the first university in Anhui Province to adopt the new generation of 802.11ax wireless technology throughout the network.

The Internet is not only a medium for information transmission, but also a bridge for knowledge exchange. In network construction, exploring and applying cutting-edge technologies, continuously optimizing network architecture, and improving operation and maintenance efficiency have always been the constant pursuit of our network security people. With the successful completion of the network construction of the Basic Medical College Building on the Xinqiao Campus, we have not only witnessed the profound impact of technological innovation on education, but also realized the key role of efficient operation and maintenance management. From the construction of the "Color Light Expressway" to the practice of intelligent operation and maintenance, every step is a thoughtful and careful layout of the future medical education model.