Preparing for a better future

 

The latest phase of an ambitious expansion plan at the University of York is up and running smoothly thanks to a cost-effective networking solution from IT provider XMA, delivered according to the University’s exact requirements.

An ambitious ongoing expansion plan at the University of York has seen the organisation face some important IT decisions. With the £750 million pound project to build a new campus, called Heslington East, expected to last for at least a decade, staff have been keen to implement effective IT strategies along the way.

According to Peter Turnbull, the University’s IT services network manager, in-house staff successfully completed phase one to build residential college, Goodricke College, but decided they needed extra help for a second phase. Mr Turnbull said: “The University installed network connections in study bedrooms and in the main buildings for office and support staff. We also introduced Voice over IP telephony for the telephone systems and state-of-the-art building management systems such as access controlled door locks, CCTV cameras, environmental monitoring and energy management.”

“As a result of doing that - which was in 600 study bedrooms and associated offices for support staff - we realized the next phase, which was even larger, would be more than we could manage while still doing the day job.”

“In the next phase, there were about 7,000 network outlets, spread over four buildings, and we worked out it would take about a month of a member of staff’s time working on that – and on nothing else. Instead we decided to find a partner who could configure all the switches for us, deliver them to the site and install them. We chose XMA because we viewed them as offering the best opportunity for creating a partnership rather than just selling us some boxes.”

 

Building a resilient network

During the project, which spanned July to early October, XMA supplied and installed 150 switches along with 15 routing switches. The switches were at the heart of a resilient network, centred on an OSPF mesh. Mr Turnbull said: “All of the buildings were interconnected in a spider’s web arrangement so if any one device failed the others would carry on running.

Obviously that means we can have absolute confidence in our IT services, which cover office PCs, network access in study bedrooms, CCTV, and controlled door locks - any conceivable service the network powers basically. As we have a dedicated PABX for VoIP, we’ve also run some dedicated phone lines to each building, so if there is a fire or a power loss then a call can still be made to security or emergency services.”

Cost and time

According to Mr Turnbull, cost and time were key considerations for the University. He said: “We bore in mind the cost of us of doing the job when we were evaluating tenders. We knew XMA were already set up with a number of engineers based in Nottingham, where they could configure the switches before bringing them to us, ready to go”.

“It was a huge benefit because the number of switches involved would have filled a large room. However, XMA obtained all the equipment ahead of time and stored it in their secure storage. They were able to unpack it all, set it up with our bespoke configurations, test it and bring it to the site piecemeal as was required. Even if we had had the staff available to do it ourselves it would have cost us more in staff time than we ended up paying.”

He adds: “A major time constraint was that everything had to be working for the start of term, part-way through October, and that was delivered. We had always felt confident XMA would meet our tight timescales as they had demonstrated it through other projects. There are now a number of academic departments, some with very high-tech networking requirements, relying on XMA’s work. With the company’s help, they were all up and running on time.”


A flexible partner
The XMA account manager provided a single point of contact, which also worked well before and during the project. Mr Turnbull says: “XMA appointed a project manager to work in partnership with us which was very helpful. They came to see us on several occasions before we got started and remained in constant touch.”

As the project progressed, Mr Turnbull says the flexibility shown by XMA staff was a great advantage, particularly as the network had to be in place before the buildings could be handed over by contractors. That was because CCTV and door locks, which relied on the network, had to be working before the University could take charge of the campus. And, the door locks were also linked to fire alarms which had to be signed off by fire officers before the building was deemed fit for use.

Mr Turnbull says: “XMA had a pretty tight timescale to bring staff along to set up our network the day we could get access to do it. They turned out to be remarkably flexible. As with any building project there were delays and changes. The IT project had to be carefully fitted around key site access dates as the campus was a building site with heavy machinery moving around. They were a number of changes to the schedule but XMA staff got everything done at short notice. All in all, they were very cooperative, flexible and responsive.”