Keeping ahead of the curve

Louise Durack

One of Australia’s leading educational institutions, Melbourne’s RMIT University, is currently laying the foundation for a $10 million dollar, campus-wide Unified Communications and multi-media network to serve more than 5000 staff and 60,000 students using an innovative education technology solution from networks provider Nortel.

The investment – a project being rolled out over 30 months – includes upgrading the network infrastructure and telephony system as well as other related services.

The new network will be built around Nortel’s flagship Communication Server (CS) 1000 IP PBX, serving 7000 endpoints and 5000 Nortel 1140e IP handsets.

The CS 1000s will be installed across RMIT University’s three main campuses.

Other components will include Nortel’s MCS 5100 for multimedia conferencing and Nortel Contact Center 6.0 for an IP-based help desk infrastructure.

Nortel will also provide maintenance, integration and network optimisation from the Nortel Global Services portfolio.

“Our aim with this project is to keep the university well ahead of the curve for the new generation of technology- savvy students and to support innovation in teaching, learning and research,” said Allan Morris, executive director, IT services for RMIT.

Early benefits to RMIT University include phone number portability to keep staff connected, regardless of location on campus; integration with desktop ‘soft phones’ to make communication possible without physical handsets and ‘anytime, anywhere’ voice and video conferencing from desktop and laptop computers.

The implementation consists of two major aspects.

A crucial challenge to be overcome in the first instance concerned the aging telephony system the university had in place.
“For the past 20 years we had been using an old Siemens phone system consisting of 5000 handsets across 12 PBX systems. It was becoming increasingly hard to obtain end-of-life parts for the system and a major refresh was very much in need,” Morris said.

These old phones are now being replaced with new Nortel IP telephone handsets, with the roll-out having already been extended to the university’s faculty and administration staff.

“Two years ago we very much felt that IP technology was too immature to go ahead with a full-scale implementation at the university, particularly with the large amount of handsets that we had,” said Morris.

But after a thorough evaluation of the offerings available in the market, RMIT made the decision to go with Nortel in implementing IP phones, as well as a total refresh of its network.”

However, with some 12,500 PCs and about 500 servers running off one network over multiple sites, this was always going to be a big project, Morris said.

A big challenge for the implementation, he said, is the need for a robust solution which can cope with a university campus scattered over multiple sites.

With the main campus located in the Melbourne CBD and another 150 sites spread across other areas, it was agreed at the outset that the project could present logistical issues.

“Added to this,” said Morris, “is the fact that several of our buildings are heritage-listed and can therefore be difficult to work with in terms of physically implementing the network infrastructure.
Unlike new buildings which are set up to deal with this aspect, old-style buildings can be harder to work with. However this has all been anticipated and will be something that will just be dealt with.”

A large contract for 943 switches is also in place through the vendor, to allow built-in ‘power over ethernet’ technology through the phone system and which can run off the new network.

A major driver for the project has been the ever-increasing demands from technology-savvy users, said Morris, and students certainly fall into this category! “Bandwidth intensity is forever needing to be increased so that we can keep on delivering to desktops and this has been one of our primary considerations.”

He refers to the increasing use of websites such as YouTube.com as a factor expanding their bandwidth demand.

“The importance of scalable bandwidth cannot be underestimated for an organisation such as ours and the same goes for VoIP telephony, so strong network capability is an absolute must.

Any uni that does not have that now, or within the next couple of years, will probably not be able to function.

“Anything from administration to our teaching, learning and research are all using Internet technologies now so a robust network such as ours that can reach right into lecture theatres is essential.”

Morris said RMIT can now extend its technology to recording lectures for student podcasts.

“If a student misses a lecture, through illness for example, then they are able to see the recorded lecture as a podcast within a couple of hours, by downloading it straight to their iPod.”

Remote lectures via high-definition video will also be made use of with the new bandwidth intensity providing further study aids for students.

“With regards to the network component of this upgrade, we were not just looking at this technology, but the application of the technology, especially how it can change the delivery model for teaching and research,” Morris said.

“For example, we’re currently trialing Nortel’s MCS Unified Communications product to determine the impact of click-to-call and instant desktop messaging on staff working across multiple decentralised campuses, and how it might change the way they work.

“Just like email changed behaviour in the workplace, we are keen to see the effects that collaboration, presence and other technologies can have on workplace behaviour and productivity and what new opportunities they present.”

In addition, said Morris, the uni is fast becoming a totally ‘self-service’ organisation which offers electronic enrolment, learning materials and other facilities online.

So far, approximately 35 percent of the technology implementation has been completed, with the first areas to be completed being those with high traffic, including cafeterias, libraries and main thoroughfares. Lecture theatres and administration buildings are next.

Regarding training requirements, Morris said that all university staff will need to have at least a couple of sessions to get them up to speed on the new phones.

“With 5000 staff over all campuses, this will be a significant job and one which Commander will help us out on. All phone features need to be properly understood if they are to be used as extensively as we hope.”

Nortel Platinum channel partner Commander Australia has been tailoring business communications and technology solutions to meet Australia’s business needs for more than 25 years, beginning with office telephone systems.

It has now broadened its expertise to provide complete business communications and technology solutions. Solutions span office and mobile telephony, IT hardware and software, Internet and network access, converged solutions, support and maintenance services and software licensing.

In 2006, Commander and Volante joined forces, introducing infrastructure solutions, software solutions, strategic consulting services and Volante Managed Services to the portfolio.

Group segment manager Liam Fraser admits the RMIT project is a very big task, but not one that Commander envisages any issues in handling.

With an established list of university clients, the company knows the territory well.

“This is a leading-edge organisation and one of the largest universities in the southern hemisphere, so we could clearly see from the outset this was to be a very complex project simply by virtue of its size, the multi-campus layout of the uni and the complete overhaul of technology required.

“Our aim is to ensure a completely hassle-free transition from the old telephony system to the new enterprise-standard IP technology platform, with communications to run smoothly during the whole process.”

The project is in its final planning stage, with the first IP phones currently being rolled out to users.

Fraser acknowledges that heritage-listed buildings present certain challenges when installing network infrastructure – “nothing unusual in Commander’s well-trodden path”.

“We have found that it’s often pretty standard to have restrictions placed on where you can and cannot drill through walls and sometimes design details of these buildings can alter things. Our standard on-site planning and investigations usually brings up all the details though, and we find the solutions.”

Fraser said the ongoing training needs for the university are quite unique. “Normally, as a systems integrator, we would provide the full technology training for the end-users. However, in this case, and because of the large scale of the project, we are working more innovatively with RMIT.

As a cost saving to them, they will be physically installing the handsets themselves over the roll-out period, with full support from us as required.

“Beyond that, we will support RMIT by running ‘train the trainer’ programs, covering how to get the most out of the functionality of the phone features; how users can log on to their own profile and how they can take advantage of Unified Communications and integration of voice into messaging services, email and video conferencing etc.”

He said RMIT staff and students across many areas will see great advantages in the way they work and collaborate with each other.

“Many RMIT academic staff, for example, often travel globally, therefore getting secure and reliable access to the RMIT network will be important. We’re aiming to ensure maximum uptime to this network and have designed the hardware of the IP telephony solution to provide a real-time link so if the connection goes down, there will be no drop in the communication.”