Internet and External Connectivity

The CityU Internet infrastructure provides Internet access and external connectivity for CityU staff and students.  Acting as a communication bridge between the CityU campus and the external world, it is designed to be highly available and secure.

High Availability

The CityU Internet infrastructure is connected to the Internet via two different channels:

  • HARNET (The Hong Kong Academic and Research Network) is the wide-area network (WAN) that links up the campus networks of the eight local universities with the Internet.
  • Dedicated Internet link   

In a normal situation, Internet traffic will flow via both channels to enjoy the maximum bandwidth.  In case of any WAN link failure, traffic will re-route to the remaining WAN links to maintain Internet connectivity.

Multiple Connectivity

In addition to the Internet, the infrastructure also connects to other networks:

  • Education and Research Networks – Hong Kong Open Exchange (HKOX), China Education and Research Network (CERNET), Singapore Advanced Research and Education Network (SingAREN), National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), Kreonet, TEIN3, etc.
  • Content / Cloud Providers – Google, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Akamai, etc.
  • Hong Kong Internet Exchange (HKIX)

These connections are either directly connected or via HARNET or HKOX

Security and Threat protection

Multi-layer of security and threat protection has been installed in the CityU Internet infrastructure to protect against cyber-attacks:

  • Application awareness firewalls provide security protection up to the application layer
  • Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) with Sandboxing to analyse Internet traffic pattern, identify malicious activities and automate the related blocking instantly
  • Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) to detect and prevent identified threats
  • Application and Bandwidth Control assures and protects network service and application delivery and controls traffic flow between the CityU campus and the Interent to reserve resources for critical applications and prevent resource abuse.

 

IT.ServiceDesk@cityu.edu.hk