Huawei Campus OptiX Solution: Upgrading Next-Gen Smart Campus Networks

[Shenzhen, China, July 8, 2021] The Huawei Global Intelligent Education Summit 2021— themed Accelerating the Digital Journey of Education: New Value Together — was held online from July 7 to 8. During the summit, Huawei launched the Campus OptiX Solution geared towards education industry, which has been designed to help the education sector cope with the growing scale of campus network applications driven by the development of intelligent education, and to facilitate the upgrade smart campus infrastructure networks.

In today's digital era, campuses around the world are adopting networked, digital, personalized, and life-long education through the "Internet + education" strategy, which has become an important feature of modern education development. In addition, the application of emerging technologies such as AR/VR, cloud computing, and IoT on campus networks is continuously optimized to implement ubiquitous, shared, and open learning, addressing such bottlenecks as unfair or unbalanced education development and driving the advancement of education. However, campus network O&M personnel are now faced with a major challenge: developing network infrastructure featuring ultra-large bandwidth, low latency, full coverage, and refined O&M to accelerate the integration and innovation of emerging technologies.

"To meet the demands of intelligent education, Huawei Campus OptiX Solution leverages the evolution of transmission media and innovative network architecture to achieve a comprehensive upgrade of campus network infrastructure, deliver advantages such as 10GE access, converged transport, and efficient O&M, and build a next-gen smart campus offering industry-leading technologies." Explained by Mr. Zhou Tao, Director of Optical Product Marketing & Solutions Sales Dept., Enterprise BG, Huawei. Compared with traditional network solutions, Huawei's Campus OptiX Solution significantly simplifies the network architecture and introduces the following changes and benefits to campus networks:

Ultra-broadband Access for Teaching Innovation

The Campus OptiX Solution replaces network cables with optical fibers and implements "fiber to the equipment" and "fiber to the desktop", achieving 10G access capabilities for campus network services and improving energy efficiency. It also features unlimited distances and a longer lifecycle, which are irreplaceable advantages when it comes to access bandwidth, deployment scope, and long-term operations. Once deployed, the cables can operate for 30 years without replacement. In addition, Huawei's OptiXstar Series ONTs are applicable to optical access across all scenarios, including classrooms, dormitories, administrative offices, and public areas, and satisfy the bandwidth and latency requirements of teaching innovation, resource sharing, and scientific research.

Unified Campus Network for New Ubiquitous Experience

Based on POL architecture, Huawei's Campus OptiX Solution uses passive optical splitters to replace active switches at the network aggregation layer, implementing an innovative two-layer flattened network. Optical fibers can be flexibly extended over long distances, and optical terminals support multiple service interfaces. Converged transport of computer, voice, TV, and Wi-Fi services enables full coverage of all campus application scenarios, conserves 80% more space in equipment rooms, reduces network-wide power consumption by 30%, improves deployment efficiency by 50%, and ensures zero blind spot in campus network coverage. Finally, it has become possible to learn anytime, anywhere.

Role-based Rights for Refined and Efficient Management and Maintenance

Following the trend of integrated smart campus operations, Huawei's Campus OptiX Solution supports centralized control of optical terminals, device plug-and-play, configuration-free rollout, and service provisioning within one minute. The network platform supports multiple functions on a single network, and can be divided into slices based on device cards and ports to isolate and independently plan network resources in different scenarios, such as teaching, office, IoT, and social life. The back-end network management platform — NCE-Campus — implements visualized and efficient O&M based on permissions and geographical locations. This solution meets the requirements for refined campus operations and reduces total network investment.

In addition, Huawei's Campus OptiX Solution leverages industry-leading technologies to enable the construction of next-gen smart campus networks. First, photoelectric composite cables provide a flexible power supply across 800 meters for Wi-Fi APs within large areas, such as campus playgrounds and stadiums. Compared with common POE power supplies, the amount of cabinets and maintenance nodes are reduced by 50% and 80%, respectively. In addition, thanks to high integration, the cable size is reduced by 40% when compared with current industry best practices. Second, Quick ODN technology uses prefabricated optical components and supports plug-and-play, avoiding fiber splicing. This reduces the seven professional steps required for fiber splicing to one routine operation, improving deployment efficiency by 80% and achieving quick delivery in scenarios such as dormitories and classrooms. Third, Huawei's unique 40G POL commercial capability provides 4 x 10GE ultra-large access bandwidth, which has been designed to deliver the ultimate network experience in high-density Wi-Fi 6 access scenarios, such as libraries and auditoriums. Based on such technological innovations, the network performance, environmental protection, and user experience of education campuses are continuously improved.

At the summit, Mr. Zha Guiting, Director of the Informatization Development Center of Nanjing Agricultural University, shared information regarding the school's exploration and implementation of education informatization based on Huawei's espectively. In addition Solution. Nanjing Agricultural University and Huawei worked together to build a solid campus network foundation based on the Campus OptiX Solution — one capable of addressing such problems as poor transmission performance and insufficient scalability, meeting the requirements of high-speed, stable, and reliable smart campus networks in the mobile Internet era, and effectively supporting the smooth delivery of online courses during the ongoing pandemic.

Currently, Huawei's Campus OptiX Solution has helped more than 150 customers across the education industry deploy high-quality campus networks , starting an exciting new chapter of intelligent education. Huawei will remain focused on basic research and technological innovation relating to the optical domain, and leverage innovative technologies such as intelligence, optical communications, and IT to address the challenges of digital upgrade in the education industry while implementing ubiquitous education services.

About the Global Intelligent Education Summit

First held in 2015, the Huawei Global Education Summit is a global ICT event organized by Huawei. Huawei Global Intelligent Education Summit 2021 is broadcast live globally from July 7 to 8, aiming to "Accelerate the Digital Education Journey: New Value Together". Joined by education scholars, administrators, teachers, and ecosystem partners, Huawei explores how to accelerate the digital transformation of education and create new value together from three perspectives: industry, university, and research.