Aoyama Gakuin School Corporation traces its origins to a woman’s elementary school founded in 1874 by the Methodist Episcopal Church of the U.S., as part of the church’s educational effort, pursued alongside its missionary activities. Aoyama Gakuin, which celebrated its 135th anniversary in 2009, provides integrated education, from kindergarten through to graduate school, as a comprehensive educational institution, with its school motto based on the Christian teachings. Aoyama Gakuin, as one of the forerunners of educational and research institutions in Japan, and aiming to foster human resources that can meet the needs of the times, continues to send forth talented graduates into various fields. Aoyama Gakuin University was founded in 1949 with Aoyama Gakuin as its parent organization, and the university sets an educational goal of fostering human resources that can contribute to society, as a leading educational and research institution, based on the “Educational Policy of Aoyama Gakuin,” which stands on the Christian teachings.

In November 2006, Aoyama Gakuin laid down its “Academic Grand Design,” which details what shape the 21st century should ideally take, and it has also promoted various reforms. To realize one of the pillars of this grand design – the “construction of an international educational and research network” – the institution established the “Aoyama Gakuin Next-Generation ICT Strategy Formation Committee” in 2007, which conducted a full-scale study related to ICT strategy. For the modernization of the network at Aoyama Gakuin, performe d in 2009, the basic policy of the ICT network system, designed mainly by the committee, was fully incorporated.

The office of Aoyama Gakuin University’s Information Science Research Center played a pivotal role in the modernization of the network. The research center’s office manages and operates the educational and research network for all of Aoyama Gakuin. The office, which also manages the educational and research system, including PC classes and the networks that are installed at the university campus, is the nerve center of ICT at Aoyama Gakuin, and is engaged in the planning, construction, and operation of the network infrastructure of the entire Aoyama Gakuin campus. For the upgrade of the school’s network, Blue Coat ProxySG appliances were introduced to provide secure web access to both teachers and students. Starting in 2010, the functionality of IPv6 has been evaluated and validated using ProxySG appliances, because of the issue of IPv4 address exhaustion.

Accelerate Web Access and Modernize the Network

Aoyama Gakuin is a comprehensive educational institution, of which Aoyama Gakuin University is the core organization. It has more than 25,000 students and pupils, including more than 1,200 teaching staff at its Aoyama campus (which provides information on academic studies and cultural creation) and its Sagamihara campus (which combines humanities and natural sciences). Aoyama Gakuin has in place a network to connect the two campuses, but a large number of users browse websites and use the network, and therefore, voices have been raised for a more convenient Internet connection. Mr. Kiyoshi Haga, general manager of the office of the Information Science Research Center, stated, “During the timing of this network renewal effort, which is conducted every five years, we have decided to accelerate Internet access using web caches.”

The network that interconnects the two campuses is redundant, and there are three inter-campus lines operating at 100 Mbps and 1 Gbps. The school’s network has 100 Mbps and 1 Gbps connections to external networks. Two Blue Coat ProxySG appliances are deployed at each campus to accelerate web access and to function as forward proxies.

Mr. Tsuneo Jo, of the Information Education Support Group, Education and Learning Support Unit, Sagamihara Campus, University Administration said, “The number of Internet users is approximately 5,000. We made sure that the performance specification would be satisfactory, but we also paid substantial attention to robustness and stability, as these attributes can ensure a stable operation. Since we have been using ProxySG appliances as reverse proxies for some time, we have experienced their robustness.” Even now, as web caches, the appliances greatly contribute to the acceleration of Internet access. They are used to smoothly handle a large amount of traffic, including movies.

Moving to IPv6

A key objective of the network modernization was how to address the global issue of IPv4 address exhaustion. Though Aoyama Gakuin had abundant IPv4 addresses, as a leading educational and research institution, it needed to prepare for the most current Internet environment. As the global trend calls for transition to IPv6, Aoyama Gakuin wanted to make its website IPv6-enabled. “When a user who can use only IPv6 makes an attempt to connect to the site of Aoyama Gakuin, if the site is only IPv4-enabled, the user may not be able to access the site. Though we have not identified such a case, we should avoid such risk as much as possible,” said Mr. Akira Okada of the office of Information Science Research Center.

After the review, they decided to continue to utilize the know-how that has been nurtured in the IPv4 environment to reduce the operational workload, while seeking ways to realize the coexistence of IPv4 and IPv6. Blue Coat ProxySG appliances that can convert between IPv4 and IPv6 as a reverse proxy were selected. “We decided to closely examine the functions that are necessary for transition to IPv6, as well as to inspect and evaluate the result starting from the website and its surrounding areas, which have the greatest impact on users. For that purpose, we have laid down a native IPv6 line at the Sagamihara campus for validation, and we newly added two ProxySG appliances for verifying IPv6,” said Mr. Okada.

Blue Coat ProxySG appliances act as a translator between application, service, and data requested received in the IPv4 format to the IPv6 format, which enables communication between an IPv4 network and an IPv6 network. With the appropriate policies, the Blue Coat ProxySG appliances provide business continuity without imposing the complicated work of translating addresses, rewriting applications, or upgrading network infrastructure. In addition, the appliances enable the use of IPv4 and IPv6 applications on the same single infrastructure and can provide a stable environment without interrupting the business process.

Regarding this modernization effort, Netmarks Inc. provided the necessary support to introduce Blue Coat solutions at Aoyama Gakuin. In addition, one of the reasons Blue Coat was selected was a strong network of partners across Japan. Mr. Haga continued, “In this brand-new effort, we owe a lot to Netmarks, which provided us with substantial support through a strong cooperative framework. Netmarks is now a partner that we can trust 100% – not only regarding construction and introduction work, but also regarding the operation of the system.”

Aoyama Gakuin University has been validating the various functions of ProxySG appliances as web proxies, such as whether an IPv6 address can be assigned to the interface of ProxySG appliances and whether the log can be duly recorded with the IPv6 address architecture. Moreover, to confirm the validated results, Aoyama Gakuin University participated in “World IPv6 Day,” an IPv6-related event, to verify the mutual connection service on a global basis. This event was held on June 8, 2011 by the Internet Society. In addition, Aoyama Gakuin continues to take part in new efforts, such as validating an IPv6-enabled environment that has been constructed using the two web servers of Aoyama Gakuin and Aoyama Gakuin University, along with using ProxySG appliances, to verify connectivity.

Expanding IPv6 Services

Aoyama Gakuin has successfully migrated to IPv6 using Blue Coat ProxySG appliances. In the future, the school intends to expand IPv6 to primary services such as DNS and e-mail, while conducting validations, and will also improve the service quality of IPv6 services to the same level of those realized on IPv4, such as a high-availability configuration. Currently, IPv6 traffic is 1% of that on IPv4, but in preparation for growth, the construction of an environment where IPv4 and IPv6 networks can coexist is planned as the final goal. In this way, as a leading educational and research institution, Aoyama Gakuin, taking part in state-of-the-art technologies, continues with activities to keep its position firmly as the forerunner of the age.