IIT Kharagpur to take Cisco’s help for network project

NEW DELHI: The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, in association

with networking giant Cisco, plan to link every hostel room, lab, classroom and

tutorial and set up a comprehensive e-learning platform. The venture will be the

first of its kind in India.

This project is part of Golden Jubilee Partnership Program, supported by the

US-based IIT Foundation, set up by the alumni of IIT Kharagpur. Under the

program, the IIT Foundation is expected to invest Rs 30 crore to establish and

upgrade the institute’s existing educational and research facilities.

IIT foundation professor, Prof MN Faruqui, said, "The reason for setting

a campus-wide network is to provide our students with facilities comparable to

those available in other global reputed technical institutes. It has been

acknowledged that we have the finest technical talent pool and it is our aim, at

IIT Kharagpur, to deliver the best technology to train and teach our students.

Cisco was the automatic choice for setting up such a network since they had an

entire range of networking solutions that we were keen to implement."

According to the proposal, all hostel rooms will be connected with an

Ethernet port. Every student will be provided with a PC at a highly subsidized

rate and will just need to plug in to access the high-speed 24x7 Internet

connection. Cisco in partnership with HCL Comnet is laying the fibre optic

cables across IIT Kharagpur to set up the network backbone on Gigabit Ethernet.

This network will be connected to the Internet gateway being set up by HCL

Comnet. This network will provide students access to streaming voice, video and

data access over the Web.

Moreover, IIT Kharagpur will enable a powerful e-learning platform based on

Cisco content delivery solutions. This solution will provide students the option

to learn, study and attend lectures at their own time. This will also help

students of other educational institutes to share and read lectures al from IIT

Kharagpur.

Further, Cisco is implementing an end-to-end Security and Intrusion Detection

System to secure the network. This apart, Cisco will also be investing in

setting up an Advanced Networking Research Lab to promote research on Cisco

Architecture for Voice, Video and Integrated Data (AVVID) based platform for

Convergence.

Apart from providing a chance to learn the latest developments in IP-based

communication technology, the lab will also provide students with hands-on

experience on Cisco’s latest cutting edge technology. Given the nature of the

project, Cisco has provided all the necessary equipment to the institute on a

special discount, while some equipment have been given free of cost.

Jangoo Dalal, VP Enterprise Sales, Cisco Systems said, "IIT Kharagpur's

initiative to network the campus is unarguably the first of its kind for an

Indian institution. Such an investment is crucial to bring the best talent in

the world in touch with the best technology to make sure that India stays

competitive in the global IT arena."