This refreshing "star map" is the AP distribution map of the campus WLAN of Tsinghua University. In addition to its shocking complexity, there is an unforgettable story behind it.

AP distribution map of the campus WLAN of Tsinghua University

Doubts One Year Ago
The story can be traced back to April 2014. In the partner conference, Ruijie demonstrated the newly released Newton 18000 core switch. This product can access about 170,000 STAs and accomplish the authentication of 1,000 STAs in one second. A lot of university users personally witnessed the powerful concurrency performance of the device at that time. After demonstration, many teachers raised the question: The capacity and performance of this switch are really amazing and Ruijie technologies leave a deep impression on people. But, what does that mean? In other words, what are the pragmatic application values of the product? The answer to this question is found in Tsinghua University soon.

Founded in 1911, Tsinghua University is a super-premium comprehensive higher education university in China. Its information-based network building is always in the leading position among colleges and universities in China. WLAN emerged as early as 1998 in Tsinghua University. However, the WLAN was not implemented on a large scale due to the high cost of wireless devices and immature technologies. Nevertheless, WLAN rooted and sprouted in the campus of Tsinghua University. Up to today, after years of development, the wireless network of Tsinghua University is as complex as densely distributed stars in the Milky Way. In this campus network "star map" of Tsinghua University, you may fail to count the AP number. In this network, more than 30,000 users go online and offline frequently and simultaneously, including about 10,000 IPv6 users and more than 25,000 IPv4 users. In addition, there are uncountable, intentional or unintentional network attacks hidden in many latest network applications used by wireless users.

To make the wireless campus network available and easy to use, Tsinghua University once selected the most famous vendor in the industry to provide services and the most advanced devices as the core and authentication gateways to the network. However, when these devices were used as authentication gateways, various problems occurred, and the user experience deteriorated sharply because the users frequently lost connection to the network. When Ruijie Networks desired to help Tsinghua University solve these problems, a teacher said "When you want to do business with Tsinghua University, your brand will take off if you succeed. Otherwise, it might be the beginning of your nightmare. So please think carefully!"

Ruijie "Newton" Proves Its Super Capability
Ruijie Networks uses the most capable "Newton" as the most core authentication gateways to the wireless campus network of Tsinghua University. With the superb access capability and availability, Newton 18000 gets rid of the complex structure in the infrastructure, and adapts to the super network composed of mass mobile terminals indeed. The customized "802.1X+Portal" mobile terminal authentication technology, in combination with the overall delivery capability enhancement and Web noise reduction technology, improves the authentication efficiency of "Newton" by 100 times in comparison with conventional platforms, and delivers the comprehensive authentication capability 50 times the average level of the industry. All the amazing data was obtained at the test site. In other words, the data is only an impressive "CV". Then, how does "Newton" behave in the authentic and complex network environment of Tsinghua University?

Ruijie completed the verification of wireless application scenarios for Tsinghua University in July 2014. Services are cut over to Newton 18000s and the Newton 18000s are put into service. In the next five months, Newton 18000s have delivered a satisfactory performance with their strength to Tsinghua University.

After Ruijie Newton 18000 core switches are deployed, Newton 18000s that serve as authentication gateways run perfectly. The data of 20,000 to 30,000 online IPv4 users had been carried concurrently as of October 2014. The data of about 10,000 IPv6 users had been switched as of November 2014. Users do not lose connection to the network unexpectedly after switching, and user satisfaction is raised greatly. Now, in the wireless campus network of Tsinghua University, more than 30,000 users can all go online within 30 seconds, and the CPU usage of the devices is less than 10% in this process. Newton 18000 can accomplish its task with ease in this harsh environment. Another "awesome event" of the Newton 18000 is that, thanks to the flattened architecture, only one hour is taken to switch the data of about 10,000 IPv6 users from the original core devices to the Newton 18000s.

In one visit of users from multiple universities to Tsinghua University, the preceding teacher once in doubt gave very high praise to Newton 18000. He said "For the gateway, we have actually tested high-end devices of several brands in the network, including overseas and domestic brands, but the effect is unsatisfactory until we use 'Newton 18000'. We have commissioned the Newton 18000s several times since July and enabled many features. But there has never been a problem or even a restart. Newton 18000 greatly surpasses my expectations!"