Case Study

Alberta Ropes the Web with Gigabit over Copper

Customer Profile
Alberta Agriculture, Food and Rural Development
No. of Employees: 1,800
Location: Edmonton, Alberta
Founded: 1905
Subsidiary Locations: 90

The Problem
Since 1905, Edmonton-based Alberta Agriculture, Food and Rural Development Ministry (AAFRD) has supported the province's expansive farming community by providing essential information and services on topics ranging from marketing and engineering to crop management.

To enhance these services, the ministry launched a 30,000-page Web site, "Ropin' the Web," which is considered one of the leading agricultural Internet sites in the world.

Though Ropin' the Web hosted 1.7 million visitors last year, AAFRD's previous Token Ring/Ethernet network suffered from repeated breakdowns, causing severe delays for researchers and impeding postings of farming developments to the Web.

To restore the efficacy of its operations and its Web site, AAFRD sought an affordable, higher-speed network solution.

• 3Com SuperStackŪ 3 Switch 4900 switches deliver gigabit over copper to 50 servers and, over fiber, to Fast Ethernet and gigabit edge switches.
  
  
• 3Com SuperStack Switch 3300 switches deliver the network at 10 megabits per second (Mbps) to desktops.
  
  
• 3Com 10/100/1000 PCI-X server network interface cards (NICs) connect the gigabit core to switches and servers.
  
  
• 3Com 10/100 PCI NICs offer advanced features that provide desktop computers with the fastest network connectivity possible.
  
  
• 3Com 10/100 LAN PC NICs reliably connect desktop computers to the 3Com network.

The Benefits
Using 3Com's affordable Gigabit Ethernet solution, ministry staff now rapidly explore the Internet for the latest details on key issues such as Mad Cow disease, then quickly post the data onto Ropin' the Web. The versatile SuperStack 3 Switch 4900s flexibly deliver gigabit-over-copper connections to 50 servers and gigabit-over-fiber links to 6 additional SuperStack 3 Switch 4900s.

With the plug-and-play 3Com LAN, AAFRD employees now have fast access to Lotus Notes' Groupware databases. Data is swiftly collected and shared on everything from off-farm fuels to soil sampling techniques to Ropin' the Web.

The 3Com solution additionally expedites Ropin' the Web users' access to AAFRD's custom-built agricultural Decision Support Systems (DSS) knowledge-based application. Using the network-driven program, Web-site visitors can insert criteria such as crop quality and cattle heads to instantly obtain data ranging from what pesticide to use to the best machinery to buy to meet their needs.

AAFRD's LAN also delivers ArcView's graphical information systems (GIS) Geographic Land Information Management & Planning System (GLIMPS) application to users' desktops. When farmers call the agency to pinpoint the source of water run-off on their property or locate oil or gas lines on their land, the network-based GLIMPS rapidly delivers completed maps to ministry employees, who immediately share it with the callers.