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NUST SDN Project Kickoff event was focused on technology-based advancement specifically in Software Defined Network (SDN) project deployment in National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) Pakistan which will be started officially from 2nd Week of July powered by Huawei. The main goal is to deliver digital transformation in Education Sector of Pakistan. NUST is first university of Pakistan to opt for SDN solution both for datacenter and campus networks. NUST SDN project was adopted through a comprehensive evaluation criteria and detailed technical working of NUST. Key features of the solution include but not limited to high speed 40 gbps backbone extendable to 100 gbps, dual-stack IPv4/ IPv6 networking, virtual segregation of networks, NMS, bandwidth control and security features, e.g., IPS, anti-malware, cloud-aware networking, network access control and virtual private networks.
The event was attended by key representatives from NUST, CNSe & Huawei. It started with the news that how Huawei solutions are adding value to education sector in Pakistan during tough pandemic situation presented by Mr. Aurangzaib Murad (Assistant Director Huawei Education Vertical). Huawei is continuously evolving technology to cater future needs and requirements for its customer. Director ICT (NUST) Mr. Khawaja Rizwan and Deputy Director Cybersecurity (NUST) Mr. Kaleem Siddiqui were briefed about Huawei education ecosystem E2E solutions which included smart class room, Intent Driven Networks (IDN), Wifi 6 & Gauss DB.
CNS Engineering is a globally recognized ICT service and supplier company; offering modern Infrastructure solutions on turnkey basis for all kind of projects in the field of IT and telecommunication. Mr. Agha Gul (Regional Sales Manager CNSe) & Mr. Shahbaz Akhtar (Senior Manager Technical CNSe) discussed with NUST officials regarding NUST SDN project deployment strategy, plan and end goals along with technical roadmap & responsibility matrix to achieve key deployment milestones successfully with support of Huawei.
Deputy Director Cybersecurity (NUST) Mr. Kaleem Siddiqui, leading a techno-commercial role in strategic projects of education sector, is hopeful to see Huawei SDN fully integrated with his latest projects of private cloud, computer-based testing, datacenter and Security Operations Center (SOC). He expressed his motivation to present a working model of the technology, which would provide ease of use, automation, monitoring and analytics having cybersecurity controls at each level. He is working on digital transformation and smart education projects to promote education, innovation and collaboration. Mr Kaleem commented while addressing the challenges, “Major issue in this project was prevailing pandemic situation with lockdown. On the technical side, we wanted to verify if all the quoted solutions are fully functional and comply to various use-cases; while on the procurement part, we wanted to speed up the process to avoid expected dollar inflation. Online meetings, work from home, online presentations and live demonstrations helped a lot during evaluation phase under such stressful conditions.”
Director ICT (NUST) Mr. Khawaja Rizwan mentioned, “NUST SDN project shall be a benchmark for education sector in Pakistan. Our operations & maintenance overhead shall be reduced remarkably through Huawei based SDN solution. The solution shall be extended to all NUST schools in near future”.
The event ended with cake cutting and shield distribution ceremony naming CNSe NUST SDN Project Kick-off. In the end, Mr. Imran Baig (Vice President CNSe) presented memorandum shields to Director ICT (NUST) Mr. Khawaja Rizwan, Deputy Director Cybersecurity (NUST) Mr. Kaleem Siddiqui and Mr. Agha Gul (RSM CNSe) for their successful participation in the project.
