HP ProCurve Networking - Customer stories

	Leading Swiss University, ETH Zurich saves $70,000 USD with HP ProCurve wireless access technology
	“The flexibility of HP ProCurve wireless access points means we can just grow with the technology and our rate of change is much quicker because we do not have to buy new controllers. This saves a lot of work and will also save us $70,000 USD in capital expenditure costs.” Derk Valenkamp, team leader for ITS data and voice communication, ETH Zurich

Objective:
Leading science and technology university, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) wanted to provide its 19,000 students and staff with the convenience of easily accessible and secure wireless networking.

Approach:

• ETH Zurich installed 1,150 HP ProCurve wireless access points around its 164 buildings.
• Configured a large number of Virtual Local Area Networks (VLANs) using HP ProCurve MSM422 Access Points and HP ProCurve MSM750 Access Controllers.

IT Improvements:

• Centrally managed access points with local traffic-forwarding, eliminate the need to replace controllers when new access points become available.
• Over 250 VLANs have been created which allow users to be automatically connected to their home VLANs for greater convenience and security.
• HP ProCurve MSM422 Access Points support faster throughout and higher bandwidth.

Business outcomes:

• The ablility to remove controllers from the data path reduces capital expenditure costs for hardware upgrades by $70,000 USD.
• Mobile computing enables students and staff to work wherever they are, increasing productivity and efficiency.
• The HP ProCurve comprehensive Lifetime Warranty♦ eliminates unexpected capital costs and supports more effective budgeting.

With 12,000 students and 7,000 staff, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) is an internationally renowned science and technology university with an outstanding research record. Twenty-one Nobel Prize Laureates have studied, taught or carried out their research at ETH Zurich, which has 16 departments where 370 professors teach subjects including engineering, sciences, architecture and mathematics.

Founded in 1855, ETH Zurich is based on two main campuses in Zurich, comprising 164 buildings both on its principal sites and at other smaller locations. The main buildings are interconnected with fibre links and smaller satellite offices have ADSL connectivity.

Vital security
To meet the mobile computing needs of so many students and staff spread over so many sites, ETH Zurich needed to implement a flexible wireless network that would combine ease of access, security and scalability. Another requirement was the scope to carry huge amounts of traffic which can include terabytes of research data, large Computer Aided Design (CAD) files and big projects or designs which students need to send to the print servers.

To ensure a future-proof environment, ETH Zurich formulated a strategy for next generation networks, known as NetNG. Based on 802.1x authentication, it featured Cisco wired network technology and the university wanted to recreate that same flexibility and increased security in a new wireless set-up.

“We had changed our wired network to implement Virtual Routing and Forwarding (VRF) in the backbone. Now, every institute at ETH Zurich has its own VRF with its own firewall and security settings and we wanted to extend these same access rights to our wireless infrastructure,” says Derk Valenkamp, team leader for ITS data and voice communication at ETH Zurich. “Previously we had just one VLAN for wireless with Cisco access points so the students and staff members shared the same security settings, which was not what we wanted.

“With the new wireless solution we wanted to make a large number of VLANs accessible from the wireless access points and we realised that this was a challenge with Cisco but not a problem with HP ProCurve. We also wanted to keep all the traffic out at the access points so all wireless traffic would not go through a controller. This would make it easier for us to migrate to the new high performance 802.11n wireless connectivity standard because we could just change the access points without having to change controllers.”

10 Gigabit connectivity
ETH Zurich has now installed 1,150 HP ProCurve wireless access points. Its initial rollout involved the HP ProCurve Multi-service Mobility (MSM)320 WW Access Points, however, ETH Zurich is now migrating to the new HP ProCurve MSM422 WW Access Points. Backed by the HP ProCurve Lifetime Warranty♦ these solutions bring intelligence to the network edge and for ETH Zurich, a main benefit is their ability to be autonomously controlled. With high bandwidth, 10 Gigabit connections between the Cisco core routers, the access switches have either a dual 1 or 10 Gigabit connection to a core router. The MSM320 WW Access Points have 100 Megabit connections while the new HP ProCurve MSM422 WW Access Points have one Gigabit connectivity.

The university is currently dynamically assigning more than 250 VLANs. This will create unified access so students and staff are automatically connected to their home VLAN with individual firewalls and secure access parameters, regardless of whether they are using the wired or wireless network. ETH Zurich has created a special landing page so visitors can be authenticated to use the networks and group accounts can also be created for seminars or other events that may be taking place within the university.

Increased throughput
“The main technical benefit of using HP ProCurve wireless access points is that the traffic is kept local so data is not tunnelled to a controller,” adds Valenkamp. “This flexibility means that our rate of change from the HP ProCurve MSM320 to the MSM422 is quicker because no matter whether the access point is connected to a one Gigabit or a 100 Megabit switch port, we can just grow with the technology. Not having to replace controllers saves days of work and will also save us $70,000 USD because there is no need to buy new controllers.

“This solution also enables us to manage a large number of VLANs which gives us greater flexibility and makes life much easier for students and staff. Being able to dynamically assign VLANs is particularly useful for our staff who can benefit from more access rights than was previously possible when they had to connect via the student networks. Because we now have a lot of access points, everyone can connect to the network in a controlled and authenticated way from almost anywhere on the ETH Zurich campus.”

ETH Zurich now has more than 150 MSM422 WW Access Points up and running, with another 150 planned for implementation in the near future. “We get a lot more throughput from our new ProCurve access points, which is good in areas where there are a lot of students wanting to share bandwidth,” concludes Valenkamp.