The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) has invested £500,000 in network technology as part of a major five year capital investment programme to support research, teaching and training activities.

The School, which focuses on improving health around the globe, has completed its network infrastructure refresh using Foundry Networks' technology at its main Keppel Street campus in London's Bloomsbury.

The project, which was completed by Matrix Communications, saw the network infrastructure installed in two key phases.

The initial phase focused on provisioning new switches for a seven-story building extension while phase two created a new data centre and oversaw the complete replacement of old network technology with two BigIron RX-16 backbone switches, linked for resilience, along with 18 FastIron SuperX edge switches.

The SuperX switches are Power over Ethernet-ready (PoE) - necessary for expanding the School’s Mitel VoIP technology, rolling out wireless access points, and CCTV cameras in some buildings, without having to buy extra switches or external power supplies.

Sheena Wakefield, LSHTM’s head of IT services, said: ‘In-built PoE gives us the potential for cost savings. In addition the BigIron RX and FastIron SuperX series switches provide us with much needed flexibility and capacity, as well as including flow traffic analysis technology. This allows us to drill down really quickly to monitor traffic patterns on the network and respond rapidly to any abnormal issues.’

As well as installing all the hardware, phase two of the project entailed a move from Layer 2 to Layer 3 switching and the creation of virtual LANs throughout the school in a new network design that will ensure traffic is routed efficiently.

The 10-Gigabit switches can cope with growth over the next five years and will support a further extension to the Keppel Street site due for completion next summer.

New ways of working include the installation of a virtual learning environment, and some lectures are now filmed with content accessible later.

LSHTM now has ‘a stable and secure network, one which will support the School in the long-term,’ said Wakefield.