Logicalis reaps £4m from University of Southampton

University to benefit from new core infrastructure in two-year contract

The six campuses and halls of residence at the University of Southampton are set to benefit from a £4m, two-year datacentre and core network infrastructure deal with Logicalis.

The SI has been working on the project since the summer, which includes wireless access. Mark Starkey, managing director of Logicalis UK, said Logicalis understands that data - and the capacity, agility, resilience and collaboration that goes hand in hand with it - is critical for a leading research institution.

"We worked in close collaboration with the university to design, build and deliver an agile environment that will deliver both short and long-term business objectives. While the project enables critical high performance computing (HPC) initiatives, the introduction of innovative services for the increasingly tech-demanding student and staff base is also key," Starkey said.

"We look forward to more collaboration on these fronts in the future."

Planning work, designs and site surveys for the network equipment at the edge and wireless installation have now been completed.

As a strategic partner, Logicalis is also working with the University of Southampton on other projects that integrate with the central design, such as a planned move to a 10G fibre network in 2014 and further expansion of the network into new student residences.

Dave Key, a programme and project manager at the University of Southampton, said the design work was critical. To date, Logicalis designed and implemented a core Cisco network across the university's campuses and integrated that with its new datacentre in time for this academic year.

"Logicalis implemented Cisco Nexus switches, migrating the core network, as well as moving the DHCP services for the whole university to an Infoblox platform," Key said.

Infoblox was implemented to provide increased visibility and control with a view to improving the efficiency and effectiveness of network management by the IT team, according to Logicalis. A phased rollout across all campuses and halls has now begun.