Modernization of the Network Infrastructures of all bodies of the country’s Academic and Research community.
The National Technology and Research Infrastructure Network (EDYTE S.A. – GRNET), an agency of the Ministry of Digital Governance, with the “Hephaestus” operation, proceeded with the targeted upgrade of the network equipment of University Institutions in order to ensure the uninterrupted conduct of their research and academic activities in the long term.
The project includes:
Upgrading the institutions’ internal networks in their buildings and wider area (campus) and their access to the EDYTE network
Supply and installation of wireless access equipment in the institutions’ premises
Installation and configuration of over 2,000 Routers and Access Switches Nationwide
Modernisation of network communication services of institutions
Automation in the management and operation of advanced infrastructures and services
Project challenges
The main challenges in the project were its size and complexity:
1. The large number of equipment, almost 2900 network devices
2. The large number of academic institutions and buildings, and their dispersion throughout Greece
3. The different network architectures in each academic institution
4. The old equipment, of various types and various suppliers, that had to be studied in order to configure the new equipment offered.
The Cosmos Business Systems solution Cosmos Business Systems proceeded with the procurement of network equipment and the implementation of the network upgrade. The team of specialized engineers of Cosmos Business Systems studied, configured & installed more than 2100 switches and routers in the Institutions and their 71 Management Systems, in more than 800 different installation points in 41 cities in Greece. The Cosmos Business Systems solution includes network equipment from Huawei, the selection of which was based on the proven interoperability with the main existing equipment of the Institutions, the support of high access speeds (1GE-10GE) and distribution/backbone (10GE-40GE-100GE), the reliability, scalability and Cosmos’ experience from the installed base of Huawei equipment in its large customers. For this specific project, the following were offered:
• 2572 Access Switches
• 245 Distribution/Trunk Switches
• 82 Routers, 40 DWDM systems and HUAWEI Enterprise Partner Gold
• 78 NMS management systems.
In addition, large-scale fiber optic cabling projects were carried out. Specifically, 140 kilometers of fiber optic cabling were constructed and certified.
Benefits and Advantages
The project was crowned with great success and brought multiple benefits to Academic Institutions and hundreds of thousands of users in the country’s academic and research community.
1. Interconnection of Academic Institution buildings and floors within buildings with high-speed optical fibers
2. Optimization of the network architecture of the institutions based on the studies carried out for each Academic Institution separately
3. Enhancement of available ports for users while increasing their typical speed from 100Mbps to 1 Gbps for a large percentage of carriers 4. Increase trunk distribution speeds from 1Gbps to 10Gbps/40Gbps
5. Use of the new infrastructure as a basis for other projects such as wireless network extensions and IP telephony for GRNET
6. High availability and redundancy
7. Easy monitoring, support and maintenance through the installations of Network Management software to all Operators
8. Possibility of immediate upgrade of Internet feed from 1Gb to 10Gb from GRNET