- Space Type: Multi-Building Interconnected Campus Network
- Industry Focus: Higher Education & Mass Scale Enterprise
The Infrastructure Challenge
A large institutional campus or university environment functions essentially like a mini-city. It requires a massive network that connects dozens of independent buildings—such as lecture halls, research labs, administrative offices, and student housing—back to a central data hub.
The network must accommodate tens of thousands of simultaneous wireless devices. It needs to seamlessly handle everything from high-volume public web traffic to sensitive financial administrative systems and massive scientific computing datasets, all while preserving rapid speeds and maintaining absolute security.
The Emerald City IT Architecture
Our engineering team builds campus infrastructures around a resilient, high-capacity single-mode fiber optic ring. We lay underground fiber connections that link every building on campus back to a central Main Distribution Frame (MDF).
Each individual building houses its own dedicated intermediate distribution closet. These are equipped with high-throughput enterprise routing switches capable of managing massive internal network speeds.
To keep campus traffic running smoothly and securely, we implement highly segmented, automated network architectures:
- The Academic/Research VLAN: Deploys massive data lanes designed for university labs and computer clusters, allowing researchers to transfer massive datasets without slowing down the rest of the campus.
- The Administrative VLAN: Encrypts and isolates sensitive corporate files, payroll processing, and student record databases behind strict security walls.
- The Open Campus VLAN: Manages public access for thousands of transient guest devices, using automated rate-limiting to prevent any single user from hogging available bandwidth.
The campus perimeter is fortified by a cluster of synchronized WatchGuard Firewalls. These appliances process incoming traffic at lightning speeds, scanning for digital threats in real time before they can reach the interior network.
Working closely with Revolutionary Technology guidelines, all connected campus computers and endpoints are deployed with ESET security software to stop malware in its tracks.
Emerald City IT's 24-hour network operations center utilizes TeamViewer enterprise modules to manage this massive footprint. This system allows our certified engineers to monitor the health of every switch port and access point across the entire campus, push crucial overnight security patches, and isolate malfunctioning devices instantly to ensure uninterrupted connectivity for thousands of users.