Campus networks, as a digital network connecting buildings and infrastructure within a specific geographic area, provide great ease of communication between digital devices, users and services within a region. Due to its design efficiency, flexibility and seamless interconnection characteristics, it is smaller and faster than WANs or MANs and plays a key role in maintaining enterprise connectivity and productivity in various industries. This article explores the dilemmas faced by campus networks and gives recommendations based on them, with the aim of helping users to create a reliable and secure campus network.

What is a Campus Network

A traditional campus network is generally a local area network (LAN) that is interconnected in a contiguous, limited geographic area, with networks in non-contiguous areas being treated as different campus networks. Many enterprises and campuses have multiple campuses, which are connected to each other via WAN technology.

Campus networks usually have only one manager. Multiple networks covering the same area with multiple managers are usually considered multiple campus networks; if they are all managed by a single manager, we will treat these multiple networks as multiple subnets of a single campus network.

Classification of Campus Networks

Classifying campus networks is crucial for optimising their design and management. By understanding different types, we can better address the unique needs of users and enhance overall network performance.

Enterprise Campus Network

Enterprise campus network generally refers to the enterprise office network formed based on Ethernet switching equipment. Around the production and office of the enterprise, the campus network needs to consider how to ensure the reliability and advancement of architecture, continue to improve the office experience of employees, and ensure the efficiency and quality of production.

Educational Network

Campuses can be categorized into general education campuses and higher education campuses based on their educational targets. General education campuses serve primary and secondary school students and teachers. Their internal networks resemble enterprise campus networks in structure and function. In contrast, higher education campuses cater to university and college students and teachers. These networks include parallel teaching and research networks, student networks, and operational dormitory networks, which require advanced deployment and management.

Campus networks must not only handle data transmission but also monitor student online behaviour to prevent inappropriate actions. Additionally, they need to support research and teaching functions, leading schools to place high demands on the technological capabilities of campus networks.

Government Campus Network

Usually refers to the internal network of government-related organisations. The security requirements of governmental campus network are extremely high, and the internal network and external network are usually segregated to ensure the absolute security of classified information.

Business Park Network

Usually refers to the networks of various commercial organisations and business venues, such as shopping malls, supermarkets, hotels, museums, parks and so on. A business park network will contain a closed subnet that serves the internal office, but mainly serves the consumers, such as the customers of shopping malls and supermarkets, and the residents of hotels. A business park network not only provides network services, but also builds corresponding business intelligence systems to enhance customer experience, reduce operating costs, improve business efficiency and realise value transfer through network systems.

Challenges Facing Campus Networks

In the context of digital transformation, the campus network is no longer able to meet the needs of digital transformation, exposing many problems:

Poor WiFi Signal

Common WiFi issues include weak signals, inability to connect, and slow speeds. These problems negatively impact user experience. Unlike wired networks, wireless networks rely on competition for airwave resources, which limits stability due to factors like networking, bandwidth, and interference. Additionally, WiFi operates on a half-duplex system, meaning uplink and downlink share the same spectrum. This setup causes a significant drop in overall throughput and individual bandwidth when multiple users are connected.

For example, weak signals may arise from coverage gaps or obstructions. Users may encounter connection issues due to high concurrent access. Slow speeds can result from multiple users competing for large-bandwidth services. Other factors include interference from co-frequency or neighboring frequencies, leading to inconsistent performance, unprotected mobile roaming that interrupts service, and slow fault repair due to challenges in replicating or identifying issues.

Operation and Maintenance Complexity

The digital transformation of enterprises has increased the number of terminals and expanded network size. Business models have also become more varied and complex. However, the resources and manpower for network operation and maintenance have not kept pace. Traditional ‘device-centric’ approaches fail to capture user and business experiences. As a result, they can only respond passively to faults, making it hard to meet user demands and ensure a positive business experience during digital transformation. Traditional campus network operation and maintenance now face several challenges.

Large-Scale Network Growth, Operation and Maintenance Difficulties Greatly Increased

First, the park’s wireless access has expanded significantly, leading to an exponential increase in wireless users. The wireless environment is complex, with inherent vulnerabilities and uncertainties. External interference can disrupt the network, often occurring suddenly. The operation and maintenance team, lacking professional tools, can only respond passively to issues like poor wireless signals, slow internet access, and roaming problems. They rely on on-site visits for troubleshooting, resulting in long fault recovery times.

Secondly, as the network scales, the number of wired network ports has surged. The network’s complexity now far exceeds what manual operations can handle. Traditional reactive maintenance, driven by complaints and reliant on increasing personnel, struggles to ensure network quality.

Cloud Management of Equipment can not Obtain Real-Time Equipment KPIs, and Application SLAs are Difficult to Guarantee

The Park cloud network integrates all network equipment for cloud management and operations. Maintenance personnel cannot see or touch the hardware. Traditionally, network management relies on SNMP and minute polling to gather KPI (Key Performance Indicator) data. This method uses a fixed data structure, requiring multiple requests for effective data collection. As a result, it struggles to support real-time KPI monitoring and timely issue resolution during application failures. Consequently, ensuring the application of SLA (Service Level Agreement) becomes challenging.

Development Direction of Campus Network Optimisation

In order to cope with the above challenges, it is necessary to systematically reconfigure the campus network to create a cloud campus network with all wireless access, one global network, all cloud-based management, and all intelligent operation and maintenance.

Construct WiFi Continuous Network

To address WiFi network experience issues, the primary goal is to create a continuous network. This involves three key factors: signal continuity, bandwidth continuity, and roaming continuity. During the planning stage, it’s essential to assess the height and location of access points (APs) against potential obstacles. Using 3D signal simulation and walking mode, planners can visualize coverage effects in all directions, addressing coverage gaps or weak signals from the outset.

In the construction phase, smart antennas help ensure continuous signal coverage and strength, particularly in edge areas. BSS (Basic Service Set) Coloring technology allows for same-frequency transmission, enhancing spectrum efficiency through unified resource scheduling. This significantly boosts multi-user throughput and enables seamless WiFi roaming, minimizing switching time between APs to milliseconds. As a result, there is zero packet loss during roaming, preventing interruptions in audio and video communication.

During maintenance and optimization, artificial intelligence facilitates intelligent network tuning and quick fault detection. This reduces overall network interference by more than half and allows for minute-level identification of over 85% of faults. Intelligent wireless RF tuning using neural networks enhances network performance. Real-time diagnostics and intelligent problem analysis help assess the overall user experience and guide network optimization.

Create Intelligent Operation and Maintenance System

Cloud Park Network utilizes AI technology for intelligent tuning, which detects real-time changes in thousands of access terminals and services. This system identifies potential faults and risks in the wireless network, allowing for precise minute-by-minute adjustments. The new data collection technology enables real-time monitoring and, when paired with multi-dimensional big data analysis, provides a clear view of business operations.

Users receive a 360-degree network profile based on their timeline, highlighting experiences such as authentication, latency, packet loss, and signal strength. From a broader perspective, the overall regional network performance can be assessed, including access success rates, access times, roaming compliance, coverage, and capacity compliance. This comprehensive view helps guide informed operational and maintenance decisions.

Building Active Security Defences

Traditional border security measures are no longer effective. Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) attacks and encrypted traffic exfiltration can swiftly breach an organization’s intranet, jeopardizing endpoints and data security. Administrators often spend hours or even days addressing these attacks. Therefore, new security solutions must be implemented in campus networks.

First, adopting a zero-trust security architecture is crucial, making internal network components like switches the first line of defense, closely integrated with security features. Second, collaboration among network elements, local security analyzers, network controllers, and cloud intelligence centres is necessary to establish a proactive, comprehensive security defence.

FS Campus Network Solutions Lead the Way

Facing the wave of campus network upgrades, FS provides reliable campus network solutions to ensure seamless, efficient and secure network performance.

High – Performance WiFi Coverage

FS Campus Network Solutions utilise wireless products such as Access Points (APs) and Access Controllers (ACs) to provide extensive wireless coverage throughout the campus. This comprehensive wireless coverage meets the needs of mobile users and IoT devices, providing a solid foundation for modern campus environments.

The AP-N755 utilises the new Wi-Fi 7 technology to deliver an industry-leading performance environment. Available in the 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz and 6 GHz bands, the service supports a total of 16 spatial streams with device rates up to 24.436 Gbps. The AP-N755 delivers extremely fast speeds, low latency, and increased capacity to meet the growing customer demand for auditoriums, conference centres, healthcare facilities and other high-traffic indoor spaces.

Simplified Network Management

FS adopts PicOS® switches and AmpCon™ unified management platform to build a typical three-tier network architecture, constructing a high-bandwidth, stable, easy-to-manage, and secure enterprise network, which dramatically improves user experience and enhances enterprise productivity.

PicOS® eliminates reliance on a single vendor for critical network infrastructure and delivers a more resilient, programmable and scalable Network Operating System (NOS) with a lower TCO. AmpCon™ enables data centre operators to efficiently configure, monitor, manage, preventively troubleshoot and maintain their data centre fabrics with a unified approach to configuring, monitoring and maintaining their networks, thus eliminating costly downtime and time-consuming manual tasks.

Comprehensive Network Security

The FS PicOS® switch is equipped with comprehensive security features including SSH, ACL, AAA and NAC, which provide strong protection against unauthorised access and potential threats. Meanwhile, the WiFi 7 AP supports WPA3, Wireless Intrusion Detection System (WIDS), RF jamming tracking and Pre-Shared Key (PPSK) authentication. These advanced security features work together to create a strong security barrier to defend against all types of attacks and enhance data encryption. By integrating these measures, the campus solution secures sensitive data and maintains network integrity, providing peace of mind for both users and administrators.

Conclusion

As the digital transformation of enterprises continues, more and more scenarios are being digitised, for example, a large number of intelligent video devices are being adopted by the campus, and in industrial scenarios, an endless stream of new devices demands higher network performance, and the upgrading and transformation of the campus network is imminent.FS has always been committed to solving the unique challenges faced by large and medium-sized enterprises.

By providing innovative solutions that prioritise stability, reliability and scalability, FS ensures that campus networks can meet the growing demands of the modern business environment. As business continues to evolve, FS solutions will adapt to future needs, ensuring that enterprise networks remain efficient, secure and future-proof.

In network architecture, switch is an important device that is used to connect computers, servers and other network devices. With the needs of different areas, there are various types of switches. This article will detail the differences between data centre switches and campus switches, including their principles and usage scenarios.

What is a Data Centre Switch

Data centre switches are switches designed for large data centre environments. Data centres are used to store and manage large numbers of computers and servers, and to process massive amounts of data, providing high-performance computing and cloud services.

Principle

High performance and low latency: Data centre switches feature high-speed data transfer and low latency to meet data centre demands for high-performance computing and big data processing. They typically use high-speed Ethernet technologies such as Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) or 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE).

Large capacity and scalability: Data centre switches typically have a large number of ports and a highly scalable design to support the connection of large numbers of servers and network devices. They can be stacked or modularly expanded to accommodate growing data centre needs.

High reliability and redundancy: Data centre switches typically feature redundant power supplies, redundant fans and hot-swappable modules to provide high availability and fault recovery. This is because data centre continuity is critical for proper business operations.

Multi-layered network management: Data centre switches support advanced network management features such as virtual local area networks (VLANs), load balancing and flow control. These features enable better network segmentation and resource optimisation, improving data centre efficiency and manageability.

What is a Campus Switch

Campus switches are switches used in small network environments such as campuses or office buildings. They primarily connect office equipment such as computers, phones and printers.

Principle

Moderate performance and latency: Campus switches have relatively low performance and latency requirements because they are primarily used to connect office equipment and for general network communications. Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) technology is typically used.

Moderate capacity and scalability: Campus switches have a relatively small number of ports and are generally adapted to the size of a campus or office building. They can accommodate the need to connect office equipment and scale appropriately as needed.

Reliability and redundancy: Campus switches typically have basic reliability and redundancy features to ensure continuity of the office network. This includes some basic failure recovery mechanisms such as link aggregation and redundant links.

Simplified Network Management: Campus switches typically have simplified network management features to reduce maintenance and configuration complexity. They provide basic network management features such as port management, flow control and basic virtual local area network (VLAN) support.

Data Centre Switches VS. Campus Switches

Two common types—data centre switches and campus switches—are tailored for distinct operational environments. While they both serve to route and manage network traffic, their purposes, designs, and functionalities differ based on the specific needs of the environments in which they operate.

Primary Function and Use Cases

The main distinction between data centre switches and campus switches lies in their intended use cases and the nature of the network environments they serve.

Data Centre Switches are designed for high-performance environments where large volumes of data traffic need to be managed efficiently. These switches are typically found in data centres, which host servers, storage systems, and large-scale applications, often supporting cloud services, large databases, and virtualised environments. Their primary purpose is to ensure high-speed connectivity between servers and storage devices with minimal latency. They are designed to support east-west traffic—data moving between servers within the data centre.

However, Campus Switches are deployed in enterprise campus environments, such as universities, corporate offices, and hospitals. These switches handle a mix of data, voice, and video traffic, catering to end-user devices like PCs, laptops, phones, and wireless access points. Campus switches focus on north-south traffic, which involves data flow between end devices and a central data centre or cloud services.

Network Traffic Patterns

As mentioned earlier, the traffic patterns between data centres and campus networks vary significantly.

Data Centre Switches prioritise east-west traffic, where data moves laterally between servers and storage systems within the same network. This lateral traffic flow is critical in data centres, especially in environments that rely heavily on virtual machines and cloud infrastructure. To accommodate such traffic, data centre switches are built for high throughput, low latency, and massive bandwidth availability, ensuring minimal delays in data processing and communication.

Campus Switches, on the other hand, handle north-south traffic. This type of traffic moves between end-user devices and core data centres or external networks. The data flow in campus networks typically involves accessing cloud applications, web services, or shared resources, such as printers and file servers. As a result, campus switches are more focused on delivering reliable connectivity and broad coverage rather than ultra-low latency.

Port Density and Scalability

Port Density: the number of ports available on a switch—is may be another differentiating factor.

Data Centre Switches typically feature higher port density. In a data centre environment, numerous servers, storage devices, and networking components must be interconnected. To manage this, data centre switches are equipped with a high number of 10G, 25G, 40G, and even 100G ports. This allows for the aggregation of multiple high-speed connections in a compact and scalable form factor. Additionally, data centre switches are designed to support seamless scaling, allowing network administrators to add more switches and expand their network infrastructure as needed without disrupting service.

Campus Switches, conversely, tend to have fewer high-speed ports but often support a mix of 1G and 10G connections, as these speeds are more suited for end-user devices. While campus networks can scale, the focus is more on broad coverage rather than massive throughput per port. The scalability of campus switches lies in their ability to handle large numbers of devices across multiple locations, such as multiple buildings on a university campus or a corporate campus with several office blocks.

Latency Requirements

Data Centre Switches are engineered for performance, prioritising low latency and high throughput. In a data centre, applications such as big data processing, and virtualisation demand near-instantaneous communication between servers. Even a small delay can have a significant impact on performance and user experience.

But campus switches are more focused on maintaining stable and reliable performance across a large number of devices. While low latency is still important, the performance requirements in a campus environment are less stringent compared to a data centre.

Redundancy and Reliability

Both data centre and campus networks require high levels of reliability, but the approaches differ slightly.

Data Centre Switches often come with advanced redundancy features, such as hot-swappable components, dual power supplies, and multiple fan trays. These features ensure that if one part of the system fails, the switch can continue to operate without affecting overall network performance. Given the critical nature of data center operations, any downtime can result in significant financial losses, making redundancy a key priority.

In contrast, Campus Switches are built with reliability in mind, but the focus is often on ensuring uptime across a wide area, rather than redundancy within a single device. Campus switches may have failover features, but they are less likely to include the same level of component redundancy found in data centre switches. Instead, redundancy in campus networks is often achieved through network design, with backup paths and alternate routes available in case of a failure.

Future Development Trends of Switches

Along with the emergence of SDN and NFV technologies, cloud computing, cloud native and other cloud technologies are developing rapidly, and the network is beginning to converge with the cloud to provide faster iteration rates, more open control capabilities, and more flexible service deployment capabilities. White box switch breaks through the integration design of traditional switch hardware and software, adopts open device architecture, decouples the underlying network hardware and the upper layer network functions or protocols, supports rapid iteration of demand, and provides more flexible, programmable and high-performance network solutions for enterprises and data centres.

Many large enterprises and cloud service providers, including Google, Microsoft, and Facebook, are increasingly adopting white box switches in their large-scale data centres. These organizations require high-performance, programmable, and customizable network devices to support complex architectures and evolving business needs. The openness and flexibility of white box switches make them well-suited for these requirements.

PicOS® is an open network operating system developed by Pic8, compatible with a wide range of open network switches. FS and Pic8 have partnered to offer a line of switches that work seamlessly with PicOS®, encompassing both enterprise and data centre switches. These switches excel in various applications, including high-performance computing (HPC), data centres, enterprise networks, and telecom networks.

The switches feature a diverse array of ports—1/10/25/40/100/400GbE—and support advanced networking functionalities such as voice VLANs, MLAG, OpenFlow, and NETCONF, ensuring exceptional performance and versatility. Together with PicOS® and the compatible AmpCon™, FS PicOS® switches enable more resilient, programmable, and scalable networks with lower total cost of ownership (TCO), making them ideal for industries like ISPs, sports/media, retail, and more.

Conclusion

In summary, while both data centre switches and campus switches play crucial roles in network infrastructure, their designs and functionalities cater to distinct environments. Data centre switches prioritise high performance, low latency, and scalability, making them essential for environments with demanding workloads. Campus switches, on the other hand, focus on broad coverage, reliability, and ease of management, ensuring that users can access the resources they need across large enterprise networks. Understanding these differences is key to selecting the right switch for your specific networking needs.

FS carefully crafts standardised products and solutions to meet changing market needs. In addition, FS offers comprehensive testing services including software, hardware, performance and proof-of-concept (POC) testing, proving the reliability of FS products and solutions. Visit the FS website today for customised solutions.

In today’s rapidly evolving digital environment, campus networks are faced with a growing need for agility, scalability and security. As educational institutions, healthcare organisations and large enterprises expand their network infrastructures, traditional networking approaches struggle to keep up. This is where software-defined networking (SDN) comes into play as a transformative solution for modern campus networks, providing more dynamic and efficient control over network resources.

Challenges Facing Traditional Campus Networks

As campus networks continue to expand in both scale and complexity, traditional network architectures struggle to meet modern demands for scalability, security, and efficient management, leaving campus network management in a challenging position.

Network Virtualisation Requirements

In traditional campus networks, with the diversification of service requirements, users are forced to build multiple independent physical networks, and tightly-coupled chimney architecture has obvious drawbacks and causes great waste of network equipment resources.

User Experience Upgrade Demand

As the scale of the campus grows larger, and with the emergence of multi-party conference, mobile office and real-time collaboration scenarios, it is necessary for the campus network to have an end-to-end service protection capability, so as to prevent the deployment of complex Internet access policies, inconsistent Internet access experience in different locations accessing the company’s network, and frequent disconnections.

Demand for Upgrading Management and Control Efficiency

Switch fat mode deployment, decentralised control is inconvenient; network problems need to be dealt with one by one, lacking unified management, control and collaboration capabilities; network management interface adopts command line mode, which is complex and inefficient, and unable to support rapid on-line and flexible expansion. All of the above issues are problems we encountered in the past that affected control efficiency, and with the continuous expansion of the network scale, there is an urgent need to upgrade the control efficiency of the network.

Intranet Security Protection Requirements

With the popularity of BYOD devices, the types of terminal devices and business needs are constantly enriched, the deployment of internal network security policies has become extremely complex, and at the same time, it also brings the risk of intranet security.

What is SDN?

SDN is a network architecture that separates the network control plane from the data plane, allowing for centralised management and automation. By allowing network administrators to programmatically control and manage network traffic through software, SDN increases flexibility and responsiveness.

How does SDN work?

The SDN architecture consists of three layers: the application layer, the control layer, and the infrastructure layer.

Forwarding Layer: Mainly forwarding devices that perform forwarding functions, such as data centre switches.

Control layer: consists of SDN control software that can communicate with forwarding devices through standardised protocols to achieve control of the infrastructure layer.

Application layer: Commonly, there are cloud platforms based on OpenStack architecture. Alternatively, a user’s own cloud management platform can be built based on OpenStack.SDN uses northbound and southbound application programming interfaces (APIs) for layer-to-layer communication, which are divided into northbound APIs and southbound APIs. northbound APIs are responsible for communication between the application layer and the control layer, and southbound APIs are responsible for communication between the infrastructure layer and the control layer.

Key Benefits of SDN in Campus Networks

The emergence of SDN has resolved numerous challenges by significantly enhancing scalability, improving security, and simplifying management, transforming campus networks.

Centralised Management

One of the main challenges of managing a campus network is dealing with the complexity and distributed nature of network devices across multiple buildings, departments, or campuses.SDN simplifies this process through centralised management, enabling administrators to manage all network components from a single platform. This significantly reduces the time and effort required to configure devices individually.

Scalability

As device connectivity, IoT integration, and data traffic continue to grow, scalability has become a must for campus networks.SDN allows administrators to dynamically adjust network capacity, easily deploying or removing virtual network components without modifying the physical infrastructure. This is critical for environments such as universities or large enterprises, where network demand fluctuates seasonally or with specific events.

Enhanced Network Security

Campus networks often face challenges in protecting sensitive data between distributed devices and users.SDN enhances security by providing real-time visibility and control over network traffic. Administrators can implement zero-trust security policies, create secure network segments, and automatically enforce security measures with programmable policies for faster response to threats.

Cost Efficiency

Traditional networks typically require significant investment in hardware upgrades and manual configuration. By virtualising network resources, SDN reduces the need for physical hardware upgrades. It also makes better use of existing resources, resulting in significant cost savings for maintaining and expanding campus networks.

Network Automation

One of the most important benefits of SDN in campus networks is its ability to automate routine tasks such as configuration updates, traffic monitoring, and fault detection. With SDN, administrators can create automated workflows that allow the network to adapt to changing traffic conditions or correct problems without human intervention.

Optimise bandwidth management

SDN’s ability to dynamically route network traffic to ensure optimal bandwidth utilisation is particularly beneficial in educational and enterprise environments where high traffic loads may occur intermittently.SDN can prioritise critical applications such as virtual learning environments or video conferencing, while effectively managing less critical traffic.

How SDN Supports Modern Campus Network Use Cases

SDN provides centralised control, automated configuration, and flexible resource allocation to support diverse application scenarios in modern campus networks, helping organisations enhance efficiency, security, and ease of management while driving digital innovation.

IoT Integration

Modern campus networks must support a growing number of IoT devices, such as security cameras, smart lighting systems, and access control devices.SDN enables seamless IoT integration by dynamically managing network traffic to these devices and ensuring that they do not compromise network security or performance.

Wi-Fi 6 and 7 Compatibility

As campuses transition to Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 7, the need for intelligent traffic management becomes paramount. SDN allows network administrators to balance the load between access points to ensure reliable, high-speed connectivity for thousands of wireless devices.

Edge Computing

With the rise of edge computing in campus environments, SDN can optimise data processing by managing traffic between the central data centre and local edge devices. This reduces latency and enhances the user experience for applications that require real-time data processing.

FS Campus Switches

By adopting SDN, organisations and enterprises can build powerful, scalable and secure campus networks, and SDN switches are one of the typical products of this technology. SDN switches using protocols such as OpenFlow are well suited to meet the needs of network virtualisation in open network environments.

FS and Pica8 have partnered to launch the PicOS® Campus Switch, which has a built-in Broadcom chip that ensures performance, and standard protocols (Layer 2 protocol standards IEEE, RFC, and routing protocols FRR Open Source Architecture) to ensure that it is compatible with third parties (Cisco, Juniper, Arista, etc.) and can be used in the campus network. Cisco, Juniper, Arista, etc.) through standard protocols (IEEE, RFC, Layer 2; FRR open source architecture for routing protocols). PicOS® Campus Switches enable you to build higher performance networks in your campus.

Conclusion

Incorporating software-defined networking (SDN) into modern campus networks provides unprecedented flexibility, scalability and control, enabling organisations to meet the demands of a rapidly changing digital world. As education, healthcare and enterprise campuses continue to evolve, SDN will remain a key component in managing network complexity and ensuring future-proof, secure and efficient operations.

FS, a leading communications solutions provider, offers complete SDN deployment and network upgrade solutions. Visit the FS website today to customise your own solution for rapid campus network upgrades.