Background
The Osaka International School (OIS) is the only English language based, pre K-12 coeducational college-preparatory school in Japan's second largest city, Osaka. OIS is accredited to teach all three curriculum programs of the International Baccalaureate Organization - Primary Years Program for students from kindergarten to grade 5, Middle Years Program for grades 6 to 10 and the IB Diploma for grades 11 and 12. The school's students develop skills they need to contribute to a global community, and then achieve success in business, education, diplomacy, and the arts.

OIS decided its aging LAN infrastructure needed an upgrade to achieve the school's goal of better integrating computer technology into the classroom environment. As an education leader in applying technology to learning, OIS required a next generation network with improved performance and lower cost network capabilities that could support wireless and other future services. Important factors in selecting the right vendor included high quality, interoperability, security and trustworthiness of the vendor.

Huawei-3Com partners, Mitsubishi and Net One Systems, recommended Huawei-3Com's switches based on their demonstrated professionalism, high quality and cost-effective products and good understanding of OIS' expectations and requirements.

Technology Solution
To meet OIS' needs, Huawei-3Com and its partners designed a 1-Gigabit optical network built on S5600 core switches allowing for a better performing, highly available campus-wide wireless LAN. S5600 offers OIS high quality, interoperability and more functionality with better scalability at a low cost.

Why Huawei-3Com?
Huawei-3Com is a trusted partner of many systems integrators, with products that offer reliability, security, scalability and performance at a reasonable price and backed by Huawei-3Com's excellent service and support at all stages of deployment.

Huawei-3Com's switches and support services have helped OIS realize its goal of establishing an always-on, anywhere computer-driven educational environment for its students. The implementation of the OIS network went smoothly due to the professionalism and technical skill of Huawei-3Com and its partners' technicians and support staff.

The Benefits
By deploying Huawei-3Com switches at the core, Mitsubishi and Net One Systems have realized a wireless school-grounds LAN for OIS' Osaka campus that provides excellent cost for performance, stability and extendibility.

Through the quality and performance of Huawei-3Com's switches, OIS can teach their students the computer skills mastery they will need to succeed in the future by using PCs as a study tool in a campus-wide wireless environment from an early age. Huawei-3Com's solution provides interoperability that supports OIS' legacy systems and dramatically reduces the total-cost-of-ownership for its systems while providing improved stability and speed, as well as laying out a future upgrade pathway.

Customer Comment
"The network was seamlessly upgraded with no interruptions on the user end. Huawei-3Com and its partners successfully helped us implement our vision by providing us with a complete but cost-effective solution. Our students have appreciated the benefits of being more technologically empowered in a short time and we have a firm groundwork for future expansion of the program," said Mr. Steven Lewis, Technology and Information Service Director of Osaka International School.