ICT supporting research and education

A new research and teaching centre, on the campus of one of Australia’s top universities, was designed to play a major role in fostering collaboration and multidisciplinary research — the hub in a research and education precinct with links to nearby medical research institutes and a hospital.

The state-of-the-art facility comprises a structure of six floors plus three basement levels on an area of approximately 49,500 square metres, or almost twice the size of the Sydney Cricket Ground.

During construction, Frame was engaged to design and implement the centre’s communications infrastructure. With work commencing in July 2013, the facility had to be fully operational for first semester 2014.

By working closely with the client during all phases of design and implementation, Frame:

• was able to minimise the time needed to have project artefacts reviewed and signed off
• ensured the solution fully met requirements
• enabled the 6 months of work to be completed on schedule and commissioned as planned.

Frame staged the equipment on our premises, so the client was able to be demonstrated a working subset of the network prior to us installing it, as well as avoid the complications of removing any faulty devices from the
construction site.

And because Frame based the design on the university’s network architecture, with equivalent equipment used elsewhere on the campus, there was no need to train staff in administering different technology. A walkthrough of the solution was all that was required.

Frame completed the design, off-site staging, deliveryand installation prior to construction being completed. This allowed the client to connect critical services such as building management and security.

Our role comprised project management; ICT infrastructure design; equipment staging, installation and testing; and acceptance into service. We were responsible for the data network, voice network and parts of the wireless network.

Frame is adept at implementing ICT infrastructure during construction projects and is experienced dealing with the multidisciplinary stakeholders involved. On this project, there were multiple vendors working with different aspects of the network. When an issue couldn’t be resolved, Frame took the lead and engaged the parties concerned. In fact, Frame provided on-site support to assist one vendor on the weekend prior to building handover.

We implemented two switches in a virtual switching system (VSS) pair for the multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) distribution layer, with 27 switches in 17 communications rooms as the access layer. Sixty-three smaller switches were distributed around the building in specialist teaching spaces, labs and lecterns. Just under 1000 IP handsets were also deployed.