ProductsChina: Olympic Preparations - H3C Upgrades the Network of Tiandu Hotel
Background
Tiandu Hotel in Langfang, Hebei Province, is appointed by Hebei Province as one of the rated hotels for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Tiandu Hotel is the first modern four-star hotel in Langfang with comprehensive services and functions catering to foreign tourists. To meet the requirements for high quality reception of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Tiandu Hotel should be reconstructed to become a five-star hotel. As a business oriented hotel, Tiandu Hotel hopes to achieve the goal of five-star upgrade and build an infrastructure platform as the foundation to become a first-rate premium business hotel oriented to the Olympic Games.
The hotel industry is now operating in the broadband era and facing the proposition of intelligent business hotel. As competition is shifting from hardware to service, hotels are striving to improve the consciousness and performance of service. Tiandu Hotel deployed H3C products to construct its internal office network. Currently, stable and reliable application of the network helps the hotel to attract more clients. The network provides a solid foundation for the hotel in gearing up efforts to become a five-star hotel.
Challenge
To satisfy the high requirements of a five-star hotel, the network reconstruction needs to integrate the most advanced intelligent building technologies and hotel functions. Intelligent capability should be implemented in all major aspects, including hotel management, catering management, booking, and business conference. The hotel services undergo a qualitative change and are upgraded to a higher level of personalization and intelligence. The ultimate goal is to build a future oriented intelligent digital hotel.
Specifically, the information requirement of the hotel has changed from a pure Internet access to higher network-based integrated requirements. To serve the positioning as a five-star premium business hotel and orientation to the 2008 Olympic Games, the network solution should be designed and planned to offer high performance, high reliability, high security, multimedia application, support of multiple services, and ease of management.
Technical Solution
The network design gives full consideration to high bandwidth, link redundancy, all-round security, data center integration and the requirement of full radio coverage. The overall design is as follows.
According to the construction goals of the hotel and the layered network design, the broadband network is having 2 layers with core and access. The network adopts an architecture of Gigabit backbone core and 100M L3 to the desktop. The information center of the hotel, which is the network core, adopts two S8505 (H3C S9505) routing switches to construct the high-performance reliable core in dual-system hot standby. The two S8505 (H3C S9505) systems interconnect with each other through two high-speed gigabit bundled cables. The interconnection of the two systems supports the upgrade to 10GE backbone connection. Concerning the deployment mode of floor access, the S3928P (H3C S3600-28P) security intelligent switch is adopted. It connects in the uplink direction to the S8505 (H3C S9505) dual systems separately with two gigabit optical fibers.
To ensure the information security of the hotel and consider the requirement of initial investment protection, the hotel configures a firewall service board with eight gigabit optical interfaces and a SecBlade security service plug-in card based on the high-performance NP technology on both core backbone switches S8505 (H3C S9505). In that way, the requirements on security service guarantee and protection of the user are satisfied.
Meanwhile, H3C adopts a high-capacity highly reliable IX1000 storage system. It fully satisfies the storage requirements of hotel video on demand, digitalized monitoring, financial and HR affair information, and the forthcoming Olympic Games matches.
More and more clients, especially business clients, intend to access to the Internet fast and conveniently for information query and sending/receiving emails during their stay in the hotel. Considering this requirement, the hotel implements radio coverage in the lobby, guest rooms, conference rooms, and cafes. In the solution, 42 radio access point AP2750 systems are adopted to connect to the PoE switch S1024P of H3C. Radio switch WX4400 is configured on the network core to implement networkwide unified control and management of the APs. The specialized radio network management system software is applied to manage the radio network coverage and deploy centralized policies on the WX4400. The policies are then issued to each 2750AP system.
The security authentication and accounting of the hotel adopts the CAMS authentication and accounting system. For the Internet access of the hotel guest rooms and office network, effective authentication and access control are performed by adopting the Portal and the 802.1x authentication on the access switch S3528P (H3C S3600-28P-HI). The fault, performance, and other aspects of the networkwide equipment and servers are managed through the Quidview network management system.
Characteristics of Network Construction
The planning and construction solution of the network has following characteristics:
High speed and high expansibility: The business oriented large-scale hotel needs to provide network based video on demand and videoconference in conference room and business talk room. Meanwhile, it is a trend that the hotel should provide online network games to the clients in the future. The integration of the said high bandwidth service forms, the high-speed Internet access requirements, and the PMS management of the hotel requires that the hotel construct a high bandwidth, non-blocking network communication platform. Currently, the engine configured in the core backbone switch S8505 (H3C S9505) of H3C can provide 300G switching capacity. In the future, 600G switching capacity can be provided through changing the engine. At the same time, the S8505 (H3C S9505) can be upgraded by optionally purchasing the 4-port gigabit service boards to achieve the gigabit upgrade.
L3 to the desktop: The network access layer adopts the all L3 security intelligent switch S3528P (H3C S3600-28P-HI). It truthfully implements the design of L3 to desktop. By so doing, the pressure on the core switch is reduced, and at the meantime, the impact of virus spreading on the core layer can be eliminated. The all L3 switch provides powerful VLAN control, traffic switching, and ideal user management capability. The intelligent characteristics are extremely suitable for hotel network that is highly concerned about QoS guarantee, service management control, and network security guarantee capability.
Reliable network: The normal operation of the IT system of the hotel is the basic guarantee for the normal operation of the hotel. The infrastructure network of the hotel should provide services to the clients in the first place. In addition, it should guarantee non-stop 24-hour service provisioning. In the H3C solution, the whole network adopts the design of a full redundant architecture with dual cores and dual links. Additionally assisted with the unique dynamic LACP technology of H3C, IRF technology, the engine power redundancy of the core equipment, VRRP, and other patented technologies, the H3C solution guarantees the reliability of the network platform.
Radio coverage: Considering the characteristics of discrete APs and high security of radio networking, the hotel adopts the FIT AP radio networking scheme of H3C. The radio switch WX4400 is configured to perform networkwide security control and management of the APs. The user terminals are authenticated in the 802.1x mode. The specialized radio network management system 3WXM is applied to deploy the radio network coverage management and centralized policies on the WX4400. The coverage management and the centralized policies are then issued to each 2750AP. The FIT AP networking scheme implements the zero configuration of the networkwide APs, the L2/L3 seamless roaming of the users, and the enhanced security authentication and the centralized management functions.
Multimedia integration: The future multimedia services of the hotel require that the network have good QoS guarantee technology and multicast support capability. It is the prerequisite of deploying VOD and IP voice service for the hotel. In the solution, all network equipment from the network core to the access layer has good service priority differentiating capability. It can truthfully implement end-to-end QoS, and guarantee that the user can achieve maximum satisfaction in videoconference, VOD, and other multimedia applications.
Security network: Position to become a five-star premium business hotel, Tiandu Hotel needs to provide a secure private network communication environment to the clients. In that regard, the solution gives full consideration to the network security of the hotel. All infrastructure equipment supports VLAN, and guarantees the security of Internet communication of the clients with the high-performance NP firewall service card.
High-performance storage: The deployment of multimedia applications and digitalized monitoring of the hotel need high-performance highly expandable specialized storage equipment. The Neocean IX1000 features high performance, multiple functions, ease of management, and plug and play. It is highly suitable for the current applications and future development needs of the hotel.
All-round management: The CAMS authentication and accounting system can help the hotel to effectively control multiple Internet accesses. The network management system of H3C assists the management staff of the hotel to conveniently troubleshoot the faults of networkwide equipment and servers, and manage their performance.
Benefits
The information construction provides reliable technical means and guarantee to Tiandu Hotel in strengthening the internal management and providing quality services. With the help of H3C, the reception check-in and check-out of the clients as well as the financial management system, HR affair management system, purchase management system, and warehouse management system in the background are all connected with the intelligent management system. In that way, a complete hotel information system is formed.
As a full-service solution supplier, H3C makes all efforts to offer an ideal solution to Tiandu Hotel. The solution provides a high-performance, highly practical network platform. It effectively uplifts the information management performance of the hotel, and reduces the OPEX. At the same time, H3C also provides multimedia services in diverse forms and content to the hotel. It builds a good foundation for the upgrade of the digitalized monitoring system of the hotel. In the end, the network reconstruction helps the hotel to achieve a higher check-in rate and profit rate. In addition, it assists the hotel in fulfilling the win-win goal of profits of the hotel and customer satisfaction. It completes the upgrade of the hotel to a five-star hotel, and tamps a solid base of the hotel in its transition towards a premium business hotel that will cater to the guests and athletes of the 2008 Olympic Games.
The outstanding performance of H3C gains the high regard of the senior director of Tiandu Hotel. He said, "In the phase two construction of the hotel, we will go on with the cooperation with H3C. The future integration of IP voice, video system and the existing infrastructure platform will help the hotel to stand in a better position to welcome the forthcoming 2008 Olympic Games".
