Introduction

Budapest Polytechnic was established on 1st January 2000 with integration of Kandó Kálmán Polytechnic, Bánki Donát Polytechnic and Polytechnic of Light industries. The college has more than 12.000 students now; they study at three different departments – at Óbuda, Józsefváros and Székesfehérvár. The college is aimed to operate on the standards of top technologies and constantly develop the education level according to technological and economic trends regarding to European requirements.

I. The Challenge

Neumann János IT department has been established by integration of three colleges and based on their traditions, however needed a new building. Regarding to the placement of the departments of Óbuda, the new building was planned to be in their neighborhood. After the plan of investment, construction started at a great pace and the first questions emerged: what modern IT structure can meet the requirements of college? Anyway institution needed a secured and convenient network. Administrators should control local servers in local server room or establish a centralized server farm including all the servers? How do alternatives appear regarding to the expenditures and operating costs?

András Révész, the leader of IT department defined and controlled the IT-investment. During construction a rapid planning started to verify the structure cabling and define the placement and the function of technical rooms. During construction they had to find also the solution for emerged problems. Connection of remote servers and the secured access were the most important requirements and it was also needed to control every server room with one console to eliminate the heat generated by the consoles placed at every server.

In this case only the installation and usage of KVM switches seemed to be a suitable solution.

II. The Solution

András Révész has invited DAXON Electronics Ltd. to cooperate and work out the optimal solution. DAXON's professional competence was guaranteed by ten-year engineering experience in KVM switches. The planning of the IT structure at BMF was also started with the review of ATEN product portfolio.

The plan of matrix structure was on the desk of András Révész, when the engineer of DAXON saw a new KVM switch on ATEN website, KM0432 Matrix KVM Switch, which is a part of ALTUSEN line of enterprise KVM solutions from ATEN, is an 4-console, 32-port KVM switch that allows four users to directly manage up to 32 servers.

KM0432 supports PS/2, USB, Sun and Serial platforms, and allows cross-platform control by using the customized CPU and console modules. It also allows a diversity of consoles to independently and simultaneously access and control servers with different platforms or operating systems. In addition, KM0432 has flexibility expanding up to thousands of servers by using cascade and daisy chain connections, and it makes KM0432 an ideal solution for server room expansion.

Using Cat 5 cabling, the KM0432 can minimize data center equipment and reduce space in the server room. The KM0432 is 1U of rack in size, and features detachable front panel, which allows users to mount the body of the KVM near the rear of the rack, for the ease of cable management. The KM0432 also has an additional local console port on front panel for easy system management.

An ATEN CS1200L Slideaway Console has been also built in the server room into a rack to provide the administrator to work on the server farm with a LCD monitor console. In that case if the administrator has to manage the servers from a remote console, ATEN's CN6000 KVM on the NET can distribute the access to a remote computer with IP connection and the administrator can control the servers remotely outside of the server room. By connecting CN6000 to the KVM Switch, IT administrators can manage their servers from anywhere, at anytime.

From the formal opening of the new building and the server room in May 2005, the students and the employees can resort the centralized, convenient and cost-efficient system. The security is guaranteed by multi access level, access can be shared on the level of users and the central and department services can be separated.

III. Benefits

"It was a great satisfaction for us to find a solution meet the new requirements generated by the integration, and in some points reach further. The administrators can manage the server farms from one place without any movements. As ATEN introduced its new innovations we could improve our conceptions, and as we recognized new alternative our appetite has grown to innovate our system. Furthermore the reliability and the bridge of distances providing matrix was an extra advantage, and towered our every ideas. We are glad to recognize that problems have not emerged since the installation." said András Révész, the leader of the IT department of the Budapest Polytechnic.

About BMF
The Budapest Polytechnic was established on the 1st January 2000 with the integration of Kandó Kálmán Polytechnic, Bánki Donát Polytechnic and the Polytechnic of Light industries. The college has more than 12.000 students now; they study at three different departments. The college has a leader position in the Hungarian education, One of the most popular and appreciated institutions, and educate technological and engineering knowledge on a high level. The Neumann János IT department is the only department has a full IT profile in Hungary. The college is also reowned about its high-quality and extensive IT structure and also focuses ont he education of foreign languages.