Tuttlingen council finds 3Com XRN plus Gigabit switches add up to high performance future at minimal cost

The city council of Tuttlingen, Germany, has found a way in which it can harness the latest communication technologies to satisfy increasing demand for accessible and efficient services by local citizens without breaking its carefully controlled budget.

Tuttlingen city council has replaced its antiquated network with a powerful, reliable and cost-effective infrastructure based on 3Com high- performance Gigabit Ethernet switches. The city council also plans to use 3Com XRN (eXpandable Resilient Networking) technology in the future primarily to enhance resilience at the network core.

Tuttlingen city council has purchased two 3Com Switch 4060s, one of which is currently in use providing the network core. The 3Com Switch 4060 controls the Gigabit backbone and is linked to the 30 new 3Com SuperStack 3 Switch 4400 24-port switches and the server farm. The council plans to use the 3Com XRNT (eXpandable Resilient Networking) Interconnect Kit to link the two 3Com Switch 4060s into a unified, high-performance, high-availability network core. The clustered core will have a single IP-address that will radically simplify network management.

The council is already part way through a three-stage installation process. Markus Sp"atling, IT manager at Tuttlingen city council, is pleased with the results so far: "Performance across the entire network has improved by more than 100%, stability is much better and management is vastly easier, thanks to the 3Com Network Supervisor monitoring software."

According to Sp"atling: "When we compared supplier proposals, it was soon clear that 3Com had the best offering. 3Com not only offered an attractive price and high-quality switching products, but also a well thought-out management system that will allow us to run the network at minimal cost. But, in the end, the decisive factor was XRN technology, which will enable us to set up a crash-proof network at little cost."

Sp"atling wanted a solution that would not only meet current requirements, but would also be flexible and sufficiently sophisticated to cope with future needs. However, the long-term investment implications had to be considered as Tuttlingen city council strives to offer its citizens the best level of service at the lowest possible cost.

"Of course, when you`re in a recession, the first thing you consider is the expense. But this only makes sense in the short-term. What`s the use of the latest infrastructure if it can`t keep pace with growing demands, and soon has to be replaced?" he explained.

Prior to installing the new 3Com solution, the city council`s network had been allowed to "evolve" into a mixed bag of hubs, routers and switches. An already confused situation was exacerbated by the simultaneous operation of two network topologies - token ring and Ethernet. As a consequence, both performance and stability were unsatisfactory. Further, whenever there was a fault on the network, staff had to spend an enormous amount of time tracking down the source of the error.

"We had reached a point where we could no longer run the network at reasonable cost, and were forced to look for an alternative solution," recalled Sp"atling.

Sp"atling concluded: "If we had chosen another supplier, we would have been forced to replace network components whenever we wanted to improve the system. With 3Com XRN technology and its inherent `pay-as-you-grow` approach, we can upgrade the network anytime we want in a cost-effective way. That`s what I call future-proof!"

Located in Baden-W"urttemberg, southern Germany, Tuttlingen city council provides services for over 35 000 local people. The council is enthusiastic about new technology, and is particularly keen on making technologies like the Internet available to local people. There is an Internet terminal in the entrance hall of the city council building, which visitors can use free of charge.