Kitasato University, one of Japan’s leading private universities with a focus on medical faculties, has selected Colt IP Access from Colt Technology Services across three of its major campus locations.
The university chose a 1Gbps Internet access service for its Sagamihara Campus (Kanagawa Prefecture) and Shirokane Campus (Tokyo) where the university’s hospitals are located, and a 100Mbps service for its Towada Campus (Aomori Prefecture), which houses the School of Veterinary Medicine.
These are the first steps with the introduction of SD-WAN/SASE in the university’s plan to renew the system to cloud-first and to build a Zero Trust environment to use the new system.
The adoption is part of the university’s transition from a perimeter model — in which all servers and campus networks are centralised in a single data centre — to a cloud-first network environment.
Also, this was partly due to the urgent need to secure high-bandwidth Internet access from November 2020, as remote work and remote classes expand due to measures against new coronavirus infection.
In addition, it was important to expand the use of SaaS/Cloud applications such as Microsoft 365, BOX, and AzureAD and to unify the use of these applications across the entire university.
A local breakout configuration using SD-WAN was implemented for internet access from each site, taking into account business continuity requirements instead of using the traditional internet connection points at the data centre and other locations.
As a result, in addition to stable internet access and application use for students and researchers, the university is now able to operate a highly available and flexible system and to develop a vision for future system expansion and the realization of a smart hospital and smart university, as well as a complete migration to the cloud.
Masayoshi Seo, executive director of Kitasato Research Institute, said Colt was the only company that could provide a stable, guaranteed 1 Gbps bandwidth internet connection service in their current environment.
Other carriers offered dedicated lines, but Kitasato needed internet connectivity to realise a cloud-first system.
“Internet connectivity for fast and efficient access and Zero Trust security are critical to our University’s use of the cloud,” said Seo. “The ability to realise this environment and expand various systems is essential for our new medical and educational initiatives.
Founded in 1962, Kitasato University now has seven faculties, a graduate school, a professional training college, affiliated hospitals, and research institutes.
In 2015, Distinguished Emeritus Professor Satoshi Ōmura was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
In April 2023, the university plans to open the School of Future Engineering to engage in advanced, interdisciplinary education and research.
