Leading Private Research and Health Organization Taps Aruba to Connect Users in 200 Buildings Across 11 Million Square Feet
Aruba Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARUN) today announced that the University
of Miami, a private research institution and the top-ranked school in
Florida, and its health system, UHealth-University of Miami Health
System, have selected Aruba for an organization-wide wireless network
upgrade covering 200 buildings and 11 million square feet of the
University’s three main campuses, as well as UHealth’s three hospitals
and two dozen outpatient facilities. With the Aruba infrastructure, the
University can address the substantial increase in mobile devices within
its varied academic, research, residential and clinical care
environments on a single, high-performing network.
With its large, multi-location campus serving more than 15,000 students,
as well as a fast-growing medical center that includes 40 buildings
across 72 acres, the organization’s primary network challenge was to
satisfy all of the connectivity needs of these differing facilities.
Delivering organization-wide access and mobility were key objectives, as
was the ability to handle an increasing density of mobile and wireless
medical devices and, eventually, support a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)
policy. To satisfy the needs of all their users who are increasingly
representative of #GenMobile,
the new generation of mobile worker defined by their preference for
mobility, the organization knew its aging infrastructure needed an
upgrade.
The University embarked on a thorough evaluation of solutions from its
incumbent vendor, as well as several challengers, including Aruba.
According to Stewart Seruya, Assistant Vice President and Chief Network
Officer for Information Technology, University of Miami, the evaluation
was led by a broad mix of the institution’s decision-makers including
the hospital and research teams, all of whom concluded that Aruba was
the best solution to meet their needs.
“We completed multiple pilots in high concentration areas with students,
as well as dense areas on our Medical campus, and the Aruba access
points were clearly the best-performing in these high density
situations,” said Seruya. “The Aruba APs handled the different hand-off
scenarios we posed – particularly in our medical environment where there
are lots of wireless devices being used by the nurses, staff, and
physicians – and they passed all of our stress tests. At the end of the
evaluation, our decision to go with Aruba was straightforward.”
The organization has deployed Aruba
mobility controllers, the Aruba
130 Series APs and the AirWave
Network Management system. To date, the institution has installed
approximately 2,300 Aruba APs, with another 4,000 planned over the next
twelve months. They are also in the process of configuring Aruba’s ClearPass
Access Management System; the original intent was to use ClearPass
to provide guest access, but according to Seruya, the University has
been impressed with ClearPass’s advanced features and functionality and
plans to use it to enable BYOD, moving forward.
The University of Miami/UHealth has begun a rigorous, phased deployment
schedule that will eventually result in the Aruba infrastructure
covering its entire campus and medical facilities. Currently, the main
University buildings, hospitals, and specialty practices are all
outfitted with the new gear and over the summer of 2014, the key
residential colleges will be upgraded. The University expects 50% of the
upgrade to be completed by the end of the summer, with the remaining
areas covered in phases over the next two years. In addition, the
organization has just announced plans to open a new, 200,000-square-foot
outpatient facility that will be upgraded with Aruba infrastructure. The
institution will also provide wireless network coverage for major new
buildings on campus including a School of Music, a Marine School, and a
unique research and science facility that incorporates three stories of
water to study weather patterns and storm impact.
“Mobility is crucial for all of our institution’s academic and medical
staff, students, and patients, and strategic to the success of the
University and UHealth,” said Brad Rohrer, Associate Vice President and
Deputy CIO for Information Technology, University of Miami. “We suspect
that more than 25,000 devices are connecting to our network daily and
we’ve seen peaks as high as 18,000 devices simultaneously on the
network. The expectation is to keep all of these users connected
reliably and without disruption, anytime and anywhere across the entire
organization. The infrastructure is absolutely critical in making this
happen.”
Rohrer noted that in both the academic and medical environments, the
institution is relying more heavily upon the wireless network. “We want
to get to the point where it doesn’t matter what type of device people
are using, as long as they can do their job. The network will support
whatever devices are being used and will enable easy, secure access for
everyone.”
Future plans for the academic environment revolve primarily around BYOD,
where the University wants to allow students, faculty, and staff to
self-configure their personal devices to the network without IT
involvement, while maintaining security and HIPAA requirements.
For the medical environment, one of UHealth’s key goals is to implement
Electronic Medical Records (EMR); the wireless infrastructure is central
to enabling EMR, as it will allow the various wireless medical devices
to communicate.
The organization is also looking to roll out 802.11ac in the near
future, which will help it keep pace with the number and types of
devices being used in both the academic and medical facilities. Rohrer
says he expects that about 40% of the 4,000 additional APs that they
will deploy in the next year will be 802.11ac APs. Additional plans for
the future include Microsoft Lync for Unified Communications, as the
institution believes that its new wireless infrastructure will enable it
to move away from expensive investments in telecommunications and voice
products.
Said Rohrer, “We’ve had all of these differing needs that we had to
consider as we designed our network, and with Aruba, we’ve been able to
bring them all together into a single network that serves all of our
users. As we move forward, I’m certain that we’ll continue to see more
users, more devices and applications and, therefore, more challenges. We
feel confident that our new Aruba infrastructure will help us face these
challenges head on.”
About Aruba Networks, Inc.
Aruba Networks is a leading provider of next-generation network access
solutions for the mobile enterprise. The company designs and delivers
Mobility-Defined Networks that empower IT departments and #GenMobile, a
new generation of tech-savvy users who rely on their mobile devices for
every aspect of work and personal communication. To create a mobility
experience that #GenMobile and IT can rely upon, Aruba Mobility-Defined
Networks™ automate infrastructure-wide performance optimization and
trigger security actions that used to require manual IT intervention.
The results are dramatically improved productivity and lower operational
costs.
Listed on the NASDAQ and Russell 2000® Index, Aruba is based in
Sunnyvale, California, and has operations throughout the Americas,
Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific regions. To learn more,
visit Aruba at http://www.arubanetworks.com.
For real-time news updates follow Aruba on Twitter
and Facebook,
and for the latest technical discussions on mobility and Aruba products
visit Airheads Social at http://community.arubanetworks.com.
© 2014 Aruba Networks, Inc. Aruba Networks’ trademarks include Aruba
Networks®, Aruba The Mobile Edge Company® (stylized), Aruba
Mobility-Defined Networks™, Aruba Mobility Management System®, People
Move Networks Must Follow®, Mobile Edge Architecture®, RFProtect®, Green
Island®, ETips®, ClientMatchTM, Virtual
Intranet AccessTM, ClearPass Access Management
SystemsTM, Aruba InstantTM,
ArubaOSTM, xSecTM,
ServiceEdgeTM, Aruba ClearPass Access
Management SystemTM, AirmeshTM,
AirWaveTM, Aruba CentralTM,
and “ARUBA@WORKTM. All rights reserved. All
other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
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Aruba Networks, Inc.
Pavel Radda, +1-408-419-0294
Director of Corporate Communications
pradda@arubanetworks.com
or
LSH Communications for Aruba Networks
Lori Hultin, +1-818-879-4651
Principal
lhultin@arubanetworks.com