Hong Kong: H3C Provides Mission Critical Network for Hong Kong WTO Conference

Background

Hosting a WTO ministerial meeting is never an easy task, but in today’s always on, real-time collaborative world, the difficulties are multiplied. During the ministerial conference, the Host Government representatives, WTO Secretariat, WTO delegates, VIPs, media and visitors required reliable, fast connections that guarded against the possibility of both internal and external security breaches. H3C delivered a mission critical solution by providing the entire Gigabit Ethernet network built using its market-leading networking gear, including Core Gigabit Switches, Edge Switches, Internet Gateways, Firewalls and Network Management Systems. The network exceeded the stringent requirements for scalability, reliability, security and ease-of-management resulting in smooth and trouble-free communications.  

The Challenge

During the Ministerial Conference, the various trade delegates needed to communicate and transfer data and information back to their headquarters in their home countries in real-time with no risk of downtime or malfunction. Added to this, the connection had to be completely secure from hacker intrusions, internal carelessness and possible malicious tampering from within to provide the level of confidence that the WTO required. The network also had to be interoperable with any brand of networking equipment in Hong Kong and abroad without non-line blocking or single point of failure.

Technology Solution

To meet this challenge, the HK Government asked various network providers to deliver a comprehensive Gigabit Ethernet network that would allow high reliability, scalability, maximum security, easy management, accessibility and interoperability.

Following a very successful ‘go-live’ test, H3C was eventually selected as the provider of the Conference’s Gigabit Ethernet network. The network diagram enclosed details the solution provided to the WTO Ministerial Conference.

H3C’s networking products and solutions provided carrier-class reliability to empower the WTO Ministerial Conference as though it were a globally distributed corporate network. With distributed device management, resilient routing and other features, users of the network had the ability to communicate over a truly scalable and secure network that met and exceeded the most stringent demands that might be placed on it during the conference. 

Why H3C?

Security

Network security was a crucial element of developing and maintaining the network. H3C implemented a three-tier approach to protect the core network focusing on the routers, firewalls and core switches.   

As part of the three-tiered approach, H3C employed a variety of methods to maintain integrity. At the internet gateway, the internal addresses of WTO departments were translated into public addresses in case any sensitive internal address was accidentally disclosed to outsiders. The firewalls were configured to only allow access requests, which were defined as legal, to pass through, while other requests that were defined as hostile or undefined were all blocked. The security mechanism on the core switch made the different user groups invisible to each other, so that any hostile activities from one department would not affect other user groups.   To further limit breaches, VIP seats were isolated from others on the network to prevent any unauthorized access.

Reliability

During the conference, the network was used by over 20,000 participants in a stable and secure environment around the clock and supported high traffic communications during peak and off-peak periods without failure. In addition to the tremendous manpower support provided for effective implementation, an extra full set of hardware was also available onsite as a safety measure in case of possible equipment failure.  Comparable to carrier grade service, a 99.99% availability was offered by H3C.

Conclusion

Since The Sixth WTO Ministerial Conference was the largest of its kind hosted in Hong Kong in recent years, there were multiple challenges facing the project management team not least of which was the provision of a safe and secure network within a very short space of time. Despite all these challenges, H3C successfully achieved its mission to build an extensive and efficient large-scale IT network infrastructure; one of the most complex ever created for such an international conference anywhere in the world.