A leading Victorian girls’ school has successfully completed a beta trial of expandable resilient networking (XRN) technology in what is claimed to be the first such implementation in Australia. Methodist Ladies College, located in the Melbourne suburb of Kew, was a 3Com selection to beta test its XRN equipment. “MLC needed a fail-safe environment so we can effectively deliver fast and reliable access to the network for Internet, e-mail, file and print services, and most importantly, for online curriculum to all students via myMLC.net, the MLC intranet,” Peter Grasso, the school’s network services manager, said. “We looked at the big vendors, and for XRN the timing was perfect. To date we have been dissatisfied with the lack of a good Layer 3 Gigabit fail-over solution that didn’t require an on-site engineer to implement. We have a large investment in 3Com equipment, so the choice was logical for us.” Janet Smith, director of technology at MLC, said technology is integral to the curriculum and learning at the college, which it is claimed was the first school in the world to introduce notebook computers for students in years five to 12. “MLC values technology very highly and sets the global benchmark for the integration of technology in curriculum,” Smith said. “Downtime is simply not acceptable. The reliability of our network connectivity is paramount, even though it is transparent to the user.” For a school, MLC’s network infrastructure looks impressive. The main campus consists of multi-mode fibre links connecting each floor of the school’s buildings back to a central server room. There are more than 2000 switched 10/100MB Ethernet sockets scattered around the campus for staff and students. Each building has one patch panel per floor, consisting of 3Com Superstack II 3300s with a fibre module and a matrix module, and a couple of 3300XMs. In total there are more than 90 3Com 3300 series switches in the campus. At the receiving end of all these switches and fibre links are a Corebuilder 9000, a 4900 and 4060 Layer 3 switch, connected via XRN. A remote campus connected via ISDN and the Internet connection is via a 1Mbit Optus HDSL link. “I can’t think of anything simpler [than XRN],” Grasso said. “You configure up your first switch with VLANs, routes, and the like, and then connect in the other Layer 3 switch (It needs to be one of 3Com’s 4000 series) with a special matrix cable. When the devices are powered up they are both managed from the same IP address like a traditional superstack. “What this means for our students and teachers is that our network system is constantly available. Having a resilient routing core certainly gives us more peace of mind!” Grasso said 90 per cent of XRN configuration can be done via the Web-based GUI and a command prompt is available for the rest. “If you need a cost effective, redundant, Layer 3 Gigabit solution, it’s a technology well worth investigating,” he said. “The current version of XRN only supports two devices; larger enterprises may need more than that for their environments. Having said that, upcoming versions of XRN will be able to connect more switches together.” Related content feature The mobile, distributed, future of work Michael Covington, Jamf's vice president for product strategy, has some thoughts on the complex changing workplace. By Jonny Evans May 16, 2024 8 mins iMac Remote Work Apple news analysis The brilliant Android breakthrough you didn’t hear about at Google I/O This Android innovation has nothing to do with Android 15, Gemini, or anything connected to AI. But it may be the most exciting and potential-packed news coming out of Google all week. By JR Raphael May 16, 2024 10 mins Chromebooks Laptops Google news Visa leverages AI to help retailers access more customer data Payment tokenization removed customers’ personal information from the payment data flow; now Visa is asking them to put it back in. By Prasanth Aby Thomas May 16, 2024 3 mins Payment Systems Data Privacy Generative AI feature Windows 11 Insider Previews: What’s in the latest build? Get the latest info on new preview builds of Windows 11 as they roll out to Windows Insiders. Now updated for Build 26217 for the Canary Channel, released on May 15, 2024. By Preston Gralla May 15, 2024 256 mins Small and Medium Business Microsoft Windows 11 Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe