French Ministry of National Education Deploys Brocade ServerIron

The French Ministry of National Education has improved its network performance with Brocade ServerIron switches. The reliability of the network has been enhanced by deploying these switches. Apart from network performance, SSL capabilities and application availability have also been improved with the load-balancing solution delivered by the deployment of Brocade (News - Alert) ServerIron switches. An announcement in this regard has been made by the developer of extraordinary networking solutions, Brocade.

Application uptime, security and performance are maximized by the Brocade ServerIron family of application delivery switches. Highly advanced traffic management and security features are leveraged for the same. Reliable services are therefore provided by the Ministry to its 30 local education authorities.

The Ministry required that the network should be able to support the business applications used by the employees of the Ministry. The same network should also be able to support the classroom and distance learning applications used by the students. Brocade’s main challenge was to develop such a network. An in-depth analysis of the data exchanges at Layers 4 through 7 of the OSI model was required by these applications. The integrity of the sessions on the servers receiving the queries could therefore be identified and maintained. Web browsing data was also monitored by implementing conventional applications like cache server load sharing.

The Ministry of National Education first conducted a pilot study at a test site. The system was then put into full production. Brocade products were first implemented by the local authority, Nancy-Metz. Local systems integrator, Bull delivered the products. The Brocade hardware, with assistance from Bull technicians has been deployed by network engineers from the Ministry over a two-week period.

In a press release, Cédric Foll, education ISO at the Ministry of National Education, said, “We were particularly impressed with the technical expertise displayed by the teams at Brocade. Their fast response and dedication truly added value. Thanks to Brocade, all local authorities can now leverage the high-availability system. Furthermore, it did not take long to see a rise in performance."

Brocade ServerIron application delivery switches has been added to the catalogue of approved products by the Ministry of National Education after the pilot. Up to today, 50 devices have been deployed by 25 local education authorities.