The challenge
At the very heart of the University of Law’s requirement was the need to support tutors and students with always-on, performance optimised inter-site connectivity and Internet access. The speed of the network should facilitate, not restrict, the growing collaborative needs of the students and as a globally visible institution, the reputation of the university should be protected from embarrassing service outages.
We worked closely with the university to understand its current needs as well as its long-term aims. To meet these requirements, we delivered a VPLS solution, a high bandwidth network offering an initial 500Mb to every site, and an Internet service that rapidly scales to meet growing international demand for the university’s courses.
One of the main reasons that Neos Networks was selected – in addition to the trust we had earned as network service provider for the university for the previous five years, was the recent investment made by Neos Networks in “Project Edge” – a programme designed to greatly increase the service reach, capacity and service feature set for its VPLS Ethernet platform, cementing the position of the firm as the high bandwidth service provider of choice for the UK’s leading businesses and institutions. The design of the service, its in-built flexibility, and the service levels offered around this were also crucial to the University of Law during its rigorous selection process.
As the face of modern education continues to change, our five year relationship with the university will see us provide a personalised service, offering ongoing advice and technical expertise to ensure that its staff and students are getting the very best from the solution.
The outcome
We worked with the University of Law to deliver a completely new Ethernet networking solution that would support researchers, students and lecturers at its sites in Birmingham, Bristol, Chester, Guildford, London Bloomsbury, London Moorgate, Manchester and York. Our Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS), Ethernet wide area networking service and flexible Internet access enables the University’s staff and students to communicate as though they were all on the same campus – an essential requirement for the world’s leading professional law school.
We provided a VPLS solution, delivering high bandwidth, high availability connectivity between all eight sites, allowing students and lecturers to collaborate and learn together, wherever they might be based. The new Internet access services support the collaborative nature of the law school’s approach, facilitating learning partnerships with leading law firms across the globe. The agility of our solution was also important to the university as it is relocating its site in York to Leeds in 2014, in order to be at the centre of the thriving legal community in the city. Our flexible, high bandwidth VPLS network topology will seamlessly accommodate the transition of students and staff from one location to the other during the move and well into the future.
“As the world’s leading professional law school, trusted by members of the legal profession for over 100 years, we had high expectations from the outset. We required a high bandwidth, high availability connectivity solution that would allow us to connect our facilities across the UK, ensuring that all staff and students had access to essential resources and information around the clock, without fail. As a result, we needed a solution that was scalable enough to support the sometimes unpredictable and rapidly growing demand for our services from collaborators across the globe. The flexibility of Neos Networks’ solution provides us with the confidence that our needs are not only met now, but also in the future, which will be crucial for us as we re-locate from York to Leeds.”
Paul Day, Acting CIO at The University of Law
About The University of Law
For law students and legal service providers across the globe, The University of Law is the leading international professional law school.
For over 100 years, the University of Law – formerly the College of Law – has been helping lawyers achieve their professional ambitions. The world’s leading professional law school’s proven learning approach and international connections deliver client-focused lawyers, ready to meet the needs of today’s fast-paced, global legal services market.
The University of Law is the destination of choice for current and future lawyers who want to maximise their career prospects.
