Allied Telesis AT-8948 Supplementary Manual page 3

Kapiti Coast
A mere 40 minutes drive from New Zealand's capital city,
Wellington, is a coastal area of spectacular sea vistas,
picturesque sunsets, and unspoiled native forest.This is the
Kapiti Coast, home to the Kapiti Island nature and marine
reserves.
Here you can enjoy a wide range of activities, from a variety
of exciting outdoor pursuits, to excellent shopping.The Kapiti
Coast boasts New Zealand's top golf course, a world class
car museum, nature reserves, restored antique trams, and a
multitude of arts and crafts.
Population:
Kapiti Coast: ~ 46,197
Wellington Region: ~ 423,765
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Customer Requirements
New network for the EOC
The KCDC required a network solution for the EOC that would
allow it to function as a survivable communications centre, with
the ability to maintain sufficient local telephony and data services
even in an emergency. A redundant connection into the EOC
was therefore required, as was wireless connectivity for data
traffic between the various council offices.
Local Internet access, protected by a firewall, was required at each
site to remove Internet traffic from the WAN.
Automatic failover
Achieving automatic failover was a primary goal for the network
restructure.The KCDC already had a wireless network which
was around 14 years old, and a 1 year old frame relay network
which was installed when they upgraded their telephone systems
to Voice over IP . They had triple-feeds into most of their sites -
one for Internet access, one for wireless and one for frame relay.
The wireless feed was used only for data, and the frame relay
network was used only for voice. However, if either of these
failed, services did not automatically cut over to the other one. If
the wireless network failed, then data did not automatically
failover to the frame relay network, and vice-versa.
Critical to the solution was the need for high end L3 switches
capable of facilitating automated backup of both the voice and
data networks.
Challenges
Although maintaining connectivity in emergency situations was
the primary goal, the new network design also had to support
the KCDC's normal day-to-day business in an efficient, cost
effective manner. Therefore, the proposed design had to balance
the required redundancy carefully with the associated cost, in
order to arrive at a scalable solution.
Allied Telesis Case Study: Kapiti Coast Civil Defense | Page 3