Juniper’s network infrastructure to support Ashoka University in a tenfold growth

NEW DELHI: Juniper Networks, a network solutions provider, has announced that Ashoka University has selected Juniper Networks to provide the network infrastructure to support its goal of growing tenfold in the next five years.

In keeping with its vision, Ashoka University is building world-class facilities at its 10-hectare campus at the Rajiv Gandhi Education City in Sonipat, 20 kilometers from Delhi.

The new, privately-endowed institution deployed a complete campus network infrastructure running on Juniper Networks Junos operating system. The combination of Juniper’s switching, routing and security platforms, integrated under the same management system, will simplify the task of scaling the campus network over multiple phases as Ashoka University goes through its planned tenfold growth in students over the next five years.

Juniper Networks’ enterprise network architecture will enable Ashoka University to increase network throughput and security capacity in tandem, without increasing its management overhead.

Juniper Networks QFX5100 switches currently provide the core network with EX4550 switches deployed in the server room and the EX3300 switches providing campus network access, all supporting Juniper Networks Virtual Chassis technology. This enables up to 10 interconnected switches to operate as a single, logical device, which simplifies management of the Ashoka University network while increasing resiliency and delivering low-latency server connectivity.

The university currently utilizes 10 Gigabit per second Ethernet (GbE) links between its access layer switches and the core network, but plans to upgrade this to 40 GbE with the deployment of more core switches from Juniper Networks and redeployment of the QFX5100s as a distribution layer supporting expanded campus access.

Juniper Networks SRX550 Services Gateways in high-availability configuration have been deployed to provide next-generation firewall security, remote network access support and unified threat management control – including intrusion detection and prevention, application security and web filtering – as part of a policy-driven security environment. In the future, Ashoka University plans to harness network function virtualization, enabled through software-defined networking, to provide security capacity on demand.

“The opening of Ashoka University represents a very exciting development in the field of tertiary education in India, and Juniper Networks is very proud to be a part of it. This is a showcase for the capabilities of our campus network architecture, delivering non-stop performance with end-to-end security that can be scaled to support the high-bandwidth demands of thousands of students and faculty, on- and off-campus. I believe this project sets a new benchmark for university networking in India,” said Amajit Gupta, Country Manager, India, Juniper Networks.