Supporting Academic Excellence at Technical University of Moldova

The Technical University of Moldova, established in 1964 as the Polytechnic Institute of Chișinău (UTM), has evolved from an institution with five foundational faculties and approximately 5,140 students into the only state-accredited technical university in Moldova. As a cornerstone of engineering education in the country, UTM maintains a strong academic portfolio supported by dynamic research activities and well-established international collaborations. Its legacy of innovation includes milestones such as launching Moldova’s first satellite, reinforcing its role as a leader in applied science and technological advancement.

To sustain its position and meet the increasing demands of the ICT sector, the institute continues to invest in both digital and physical infrastructure, aligning its capabilities with European standards and modern educational requirements.

Powering Campus-Wide Digital Excellence Through Intelligent Connectivity

The Technical University of Moldova defined a set of key ICT requirements to support its digital transformation objectives and strengthen its role in higher education by improving the quality and continuity of teaching, learning, and research activities. These requirements were aligned with the need to build a reliable and scalable digital foundation capable of supporting modern academic delivery and innovation across disciplines. A primary requirement was the modernization of the university’s core and access network systems to ensure stable access to digital learning resources, research platforms, and collaborative academic tools across the campus environment.

Additionally, the institution aimed to deploy a high-bandwidth wireless network providing full coverage across the entire student campus, including teaching and connecting areas, all managed through a centralized platform to ensure consistent connectivity for educational activities, while sought to reduce operational costs by improving overall service reliability. A critical component of this initiative was the ability to deliver visualized, user-centric network analytics, enabling more efficient monitoring, management, and optimization of network resources, thereby contributing to a more seamless, accessible, and effective educational experience for students, faculty, and researchers.

Transforming Legacy Infrastructure to Meet Evolving Campus Demands

With the continuous growth and development of the Technical University of Moldova over the years, the existing network infrastructure gradually faced increasing demands that exceeded its original design capacity, making modernization a critical step forward.

The wired network environment, built over time through incremental expansions, included devices of different models and software versions. This resulted in specific bandwidth availability, a more complex architecture, and challenges in ensuring consistent reliability at scale. Similarly, the Wi-Fi network, originally deployed to meet earlier campus needs, encountered challenges in delivering a stable and high-quality user experience across all areas.

As a result, enhancing network performance and ensuring a consistent, high-quality experience—particularly for faculty members and researchers—became a key priority aligned with the university’s continued expansion.

A Next-Generation, AI-Driven Campus Network

To address these challenges, a comprehensive, future-ready network solution was implemented, significantly enhancing capacity, coverage, and operational intelligence.

A high-performance backbone was deployed using CloudEngine S12700E core switches with 100GE capabilities, complemented by CloudEngine S6730-H aggregation switches with 10GE uplinks, ensuring scalable and efficient traffic distribution.

To enable seamless connectivity, full campus-wide wireless coverage was achieved. Indoor environments were equipped with Wi-Fi 6 access points (AirEngine 5760-51 and 5762-13W), while in 2025 the network was further expanded with Wi-Fi 7 (AirEngine 5773-23W) in new buildings. Outdoor areas were covered using rugged, IP68-rated AirEngine 5761R-11E access points to ensure reliable performance in challenging conditions.

In parallel, an intelligent operations and maintenance (O&M) framework was implemented through iMaster NCE-Campus enabling AI-powered network visualization, proactive fault detection, and user experience monitoring.

From an architectural perspective, VXLAN virtualization was implemented to logically segment the physical network and efficiently support multiple services within a unified infrastructure. Centralized management significantly reduced manual effort and improved operational control.

Measurable Efficiency, Reliability, and User Experience Improvement

The implemented solution delivered a fully Wi-Fi 6/7 capable environment, significantly improving teaching quality, office productivity, and enabling new campus-wide digital capabilities. VXLAN-based virtualization introduced efficient service isolation across the physical network, optimizing resource utilization and reducing construction costs while supporting multi-service scalability within a unified architecture. In numbers:

• Faster service deployment and simplified network management helped reduced network operational expenditure (OPEX) by 63%.

• A fully visualized network environment with user journey experience monitoring and proactive VIP user care reduced user complaints by 90%.

Overall, the modernized infrastructure delivered a more resilient, efficient, and user-centric digital environment, strengthens the university’s ability to support teaching, learning, and research in a continuously evolving digital landscape, while fostering an ecosystem where students and faculty can engage with technology in a more meaningful way.