Recently, the campus wide upgrading and renovation project of Huawei Ether Optical Access Network, which lasted nearly three months, has successfully passed completion acceptance inspection, and the brand new 10 gigabit all optical campus network has been officially launched. This innovative project advances on two fronts: infrastructure construction and practical talent cultivation. While building a forward looking, industry leading digital foundation for the smart campus, it has created a distinctive industry education integration model of “taking engineering projects as classrooms”, lifting the university’s application oriented talent training to a new level with dual digital intelligent highlights.

Back in early April this year, the university kicked off its campus wide network upgrade initiative. It independently completed the whole workflow including technical research, customized solution design, communication with original equipment manufacturer technicians, on site construction, full network commissioning and operation maintenance system establishment. To tackle pain points of traditional copper cable networks, such as insufficient bandwidth, complicated maintenance, limited power supply distance and poor support for AI assisted teaching and cloud based practical training, the Modern Educational Technology Service Center adopted Huawei’s cutting edge Ether Optical Access technology. A fiber to the room solution was tailor made to satisfy all scenario demands of teaching, scientific research and administration, bringing a thorough upgrade to the campus network architecture.

The biggest technical highlight of this upgrade lies in replacing traditional copper cables with optical fibers to deliver fiber connectivity directly to classrooms. A single time fiber cable deployment can serve stably for ten years. Built on a unified IP architecture, the network delivers dedicated 10 gigabit bandwidth to each room, with transmission rates flexibly configurable at 10/25/40/100 Gbps, enabling smooth evolution towards 100 Gbps. The supporting wireless system adopts new generation composite fiber power cables that support ultra long 300 meter POE++ power supply, far exceeding the 100 meter limit of conventional Category 6 cables. The complete solution boasts four core advantages: ultra high bandwidth to meet demands of smart classrooms and virtual simulation training; simplified architecture that greatly cuts equipment investment in computer rooms and daily maintenance costs; an intelligent operation maintenance platform that enables full network visibility and automatic fault recovery; and outstanding anti interference and cyber attack resistant performance of optical transmission, which reinforces campus cybersecurity. It fully supports digital oriented scenarios such as smart classrooms, AI empowered teaching, remote scientific research collaboration and cloud based practical training, making immersive, intelligent and cutting edge teaching a regular practice and lifting the university’s digital teaching hardware standards to the forefront among peer institutions.

Different from conventional campus network renovation projects, the most innovative highlight of this programme is breaking the boundary between classrooms and construction sites, and transforming this major campus digital infrastructure project into an on site practical training classroom. The School of Information and Control Engineering has implemented a talent cultivation model of “engineering projects as classrooms, construction work as practical training and projects as teaching materials”, and built a practical training system featuring “mentor apprentice guidance, on the job practice and project driven learning”. A dual tutor team consisting of faculty members and senior project engineers was set up, with all core technical positions open to students.

Students took part in the whole construction process as formal project members. Working in groups with assigned posts, they participated in a full range of commercial engineering workflows: network site surveying, optical fiber laying, computer room equipment installation, parameter configuration for all optical switches, full network pressure testing, fault troubleshooting, system optimization and operation maintenance document compilation. From blueprint design to official launch, students were immersed in the full project lifecycle. Outstanding students undertook advanced practical tasks independently, such as building level network debugging, regional bandwidth optimization and emergency fault disposal, strictly following industrial construction and maintenance standards. Moving beyond superficial observation based practice, the university delivers real project oriented hands on training with authentic posts and practical experience. It has formed a closed loop system linking classroom theories, engineering practice and industrial application, allowing students to accumulate front line engineering experience on campus and greatly improving their core competitiveness in the job market.

At present, the Huawei Ether Optical Access campus network has been fully put into use, delivering 10 gigabit optical fiber connectivity directly to every classroom. The intelligent, high speed and stable digital infrastructure fully empowers smart classrooms, cloud based practical training and scientific research. From blueprint design to final delivery, this self managed network renovation project has not only achieved leap forward upgrading of campus digital infrastructure, but also blazed a new trail for industry education integration characterized by “infrastructure empowering teaching and projects cultivating talents”.

In the future, the university will deepen allround strategic cooperation with leading enterprises including Huawei, continuously upgrade the hardware system of the all optical smart campus, improve its practical training mechanism of “mentor apprentice guidance, on the job practice and project driven learning”, and enrich real scene practical training carriers. Seizing opportunities brought by educational digital transformation and responding to talent demands of emerging industries, the university will further refine its training system for application oriented talents relying on cutting edge digital intelligent platforms. It will keep cultivating high quality graduates with solid theoretical knowledge and strong practical capabilities, and drive high quality development of education and teaching through digital intelligent reform.

Translated by Basic Courses Department