Diyixian provides voluntary support for all primary schools
Helping students stay in touch with schools during the suspension period

In response to the 14-day closure of primary schools across Hong Kong , Diyixian will be providing free online support services for all primary schools so that teachers can continue tutoring students through the internet. Thanks to Diyixian’s support, students can continue their studies at home and remain in contact with their schools despite the spread of influenza.

“Many parents worried that the two-week school suspension would hinder their children’s education,” said Lap Man, Founder and Chairman of Diyixian. “The pressure is even higher because students are currently preparing for exams that will take place once schools reopen. Diyixian wants to contribute to the community by offering the use of its advanced networking systems to help students and teachers cope with these difficult circumstances. Through Diyixian’s advanced networking system, schools can use their computers for online teaching. Students can continue to learn and receive teaching notes on their home computers, and feel the benefits of a rich learning platform in the safety of their own homes.”

Schools will not incur extra cost in this arrangement by using free network support from Diyixian and free online teaching trial software that can be downloaded from the internet. Lap Man supports the government’s decision for students to remain at home, distanced from the hustle and bustle of crowds where the risk of infection is higher. Diyixian’s arrangements are in line with the government’s decision.

Additionally, many school intranets will see a rise in network consumption during the course of the suspension period as students log on en masse to download their homework. To ensure a smooth experience for teachers and students alike, Diyixian has volunteered to raise both the volume and quality of school bandwidth connections to avoid network congestion.

Furthermore, Diyixian currently employs the WebEx web conferencing platform for large-scale teaching purposes. No matter what operation systems students currently have installed, they will not need to purchase additional software. As long as the WebEx interface is opened at the scheduled lesson time, teachers and students will be able to communicate interactively as if they were sitting together in the classroom. WebEx is widely used in cross-border long-distance learning programmes.

Provided that schools move their servers to Diyixian’s data centre, Diyixian will help with installation, monitoring and security management. More importantly, Diyixian will upgrade the schools’ connection speeds to a bandwidth of 1GB free of charge (normal service bandwidth in the market is 10MB) to meet the needs of online teaching. This bandwidth upgrade will last until the end of the summer holidays, while the free online teaching service will be available for one month.

Diyixian was established in 1999, with headquarters based in Hong Kong . It is a leading service provider for MPLS IPVPN and corporate video conferencing services.

Our business partner AimServe (www.aimserve.com), an acknowledged expert in areas such as ERP software, networking, security and managed services through unique consultative approach, engaged with Diyixian to provide a complete ICT solution to one of its customers for cost reduction and increasing operation efficiency.

Customer background

The end-user customer is one of the leading providers of infant textile products, providing a wide range of infant bedding and related accessories from baby carrier to diaper stackers. The customer highly relies on their IT consultant and the ERP system for smooth daily operations between Hong Kong and China .

Business Challenges

Firstly, the customer faced a challenge in business expansion because the existing ERP system has reached its limitation and cannot fulfill their business needs. Unfortunately, the existing system cannot be customized further due to its proprietary nature and lack of expertise available in the market. Therefore it is critical to replace with a new ERP system with open architecture which guarantees better scalability and easy access to supporting resource.

Secondly, due to historical reasons, the customer is using three different networks for three different needs, i.e., an IPLC for video conferencing; an IPSec Internet VPN for VoIP and ERP solutions; and an broadband Internet connection for casual use such as email and file transfer. This situation has been proven for high admin & management cost on troubleshooting and hardware & software maintenance.

To worsen the case, two set of incompatible VoIP hardware appliances were deployed and inconvenient dialing plans had to be used.  User-friendliness is hence low which resulted in staff using IDD instead of VoIP. Original plan to save IDD by VoIP has failed obviously.

Last but not least, the customer has a management decision for dramatic cost reduction for the IT operations. To effectively mitigate this requirement, the new solutions must have low total cost-of-ownership and high return on investment values, while fulfilling user requirements in highly effective manner.

Solutions

System-wise:
During requirement discovery phase, AimServe consultant team met all level of the client’s staff, from management to daily users, to have full understanding on their existing software solutions, as well as their expectation and workflow changes in the future. A tailor-made ERP solution was then proposed and accepted. All the systems are unified into a single, user-friendly ERP platform for easy management and tracing of workflow. The system’s scalability and flexibility helps client in planning their future growth without any IT limitation.

Network-wise:
DYXnet ONE VPN Enterprise solution with Internet auto-backup and consolidated VoIP solution were proposed and accepted. After this deployment, all of their inter-office applications, i.e. Video Conferencing, ERP, VoIP, Email and file transfer are running on a unified IPVPN platform. Performance is also optimized for different applications. Furthermore, Internet auto-backup solution ensured higher availability for their mission-critical ERP solutions, as well as the Voice and Video systems.

The consolidated VoIP solution has enabled for a unified dial-plan and user-friendliness is improved very much.  VoIP has then become the main channel for inter-office voice communication. IDD cost is thus reduced to a fraction of the original amount.

In the next phase, customer is considering moving all their servers from office to DYX IDC in San Po Kong for better redundancy and operating environment. AimServe and Diyixian will continue to work together to provide the best solution for the customer.

If you have any enquiry about Diyixian’s ICT solutions or its business partner’s consultancy services, please contact your Account Manager or our Sales Hotline at 2187 7688.