Case studies: Telford College of Arts and Technology

Peformance increase via VPN upgrade and rollout

"We looked at three companies before deciding upon Cisilion to supply and support our VPN solution. The support we have had from Cisilion whilst implementing our VPN has been second to none. Their technical staff know the product 'inside-out' and have resolved all of our minor problems, whilst the very well informed sales team have kept me up-to-date of future products and Cisilion and Cisco events".

Adrian Beckett - Computer Services Manager.

The customer

Telford College of Arts and Technology was established originally over 100 years ago and has a national reputation for providing excellent service with quality education and training.

It has over 16,000 students - 1200 full-time, 15,000 part-time
Widest range of vocational courses in the area
The portfolio of courses includes NVQs, professional, preparatory degree and tailor-made programmes
Courses combine practical skills with theoretical studies

Through the enthusiasm, commitment and dedication of the staff, the college has thrived as a local resource providing for all sectors of the community. TCAT has received a broad array of nationally recognised awards for excellence including more Beacon Awards than any other college in the UK, confirming its status as a nationally praised college.

The challenge

The Telford College campus consists of 9 remote sites with ISDN connections back to the main computer centre and 4 remote offices with leased line connections back to the college. The College already used Cisco 1720 routers for leased line connectivity and Cisco 801 routers for the ISDN links and were looking to improve the performance and security of the network by using a VPN solution for every site.

Solution snapshot

Cisco 837 ADSL routers

Cisco 3005 VPN Concentrator

3DES encryption

The solution

Cisilion’s proposal for a VPN solution for Telford College utilised Cisco ADSL routers at each remote site and a Cisco 3005 VPN concentrator installed in the main computer centre. The VPN concentrator is located on the inside interface of the existing firewall and is used to terminate the VPN connections and provide a secure interface for each remote site.

Cisilion recommended the Cisco 837 router to provide the ADSL interface for Internet access at each remote site. Each remote site required a DSL line installed to allow internet connectivity. The Cisco 837 routers replaced each of the 801 routers at the 9 sites currently using ISDN.

Cisilion upgraded the IOS version of the Cisco 1720 routers at each of the 4 leased line sites to support ADSL/Firewall which allowed them to connect to the main site over a VPN connection.

The new IOS on the routers allowed the creation of a secure VPN tunnel to the College and provided access through the tunnels to the servers and services for all the remote users. 3DES encryption is used to protect traffic passing through the VPN tunnel.

Authentication of remote VPN users is controlled using a server in the computer centre running Active Directory. This provides authentication and authorisation services for remote users before they are allowed access to the main office