EDGE NETWORK SWITCHES UPGRADE

The Royal College of Music (RCM) wishes to purchase Aruba enterprise network switches to replace their existing older models some of which are 12 years old. The RCM has recently upgraded their core switches from Extreme to Aruba and are now seeking to upgrade their edge switches in order to provide more reliability and stability at the network edge level for their users.

The RCM currently has 46 enterprise managed switches (Aruba and HP) which provide connectivity from core, distribution and through to edge access. With the college expanding with the Courtyard, Museum and more recently the Wolfson Research Centre, the demand on the network infrastructure has significantly increased and a need to replace older network equipment has risen. The current network infrastructure services Mitel IP phones, desktop computers, servers, HP printers, IP cameras, door access control devices, Panopto lecture capture equipment, and Ruckus wireless access points.

The RCM aims to replace these older devices with newer and more suitable Aruba models with 10GB connectivity between Core to Distribution, Core to Edge and likewise between Distribution and Edge. The majority of current edge switches have dual links connecting back to either a Distribution switch or the Core switches in which case throughput of connectivity should be increased to 20GB with link aggregation.