University Meets Demands of #GenMobile Students, Saves Over One Million Dollars with Aruba 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Security Solutions
Aruba Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:ARUN) today announced that West Chester
University, the largest of the 14 universities in Pennsylvania’s State
System of Higher Education with approximately 16,000 students, is
deploying an Aruba 802.11ac wireless LAN (WLAN) to provide connectivity
to the more than 5,000 students living in West Chester’s 12 residence
halls and student apartments.
Driven by demand from students for reliable, high-performing wireless
and the IT department’s requirements for network security and cost
efficiency, the University is rolling out Aruba solutions to their
dormitories and student apartments, with the goal of transforming the
majority of the student housing to all-wireless environments by the Fall
2014 semester.
Having deployed an Aruba 802.11n wireless network across its academic
and administrative buildings, West Chester University already realized
the benefits and costs savings associated with wireless networking.
Student housing posed a particular challenge for the University as it
combined a number of older, wired buildings with brand new buildings
designed with Wi-Fi in mind. In particular, the older buildings were not
designed to accommodate the needs of the #GenMobile students who have a
strong preference for Wi-Fi and are using bandwidth-intensive
applications. According to Richard Chan, Assistant Director, Networking
and Telecommunications for West Chester University, the Wi-Fi demands
and activities of the students were key drivers in the decision to move
to all-802.11ac wireless in every housing facility.
“We noticed that students were bringing routers from home into the
older, wired dorms and the proximity of all of these routers caused
numerous interference issues,” Chan said. “Our students were really
relying on wireless connectivity not just for basic Internet and email
access for course work, but also for access to online courses and
distance learning, plus social media and HD video streaming. We realized
the right approach was to equip all of the existing dorms with
ultra-fast Wi-Fi and ensure that all of the new dorms were all-wireless
from the ground up.”
Chan noted that while the typical #GenMobile student activity initiated
the University’s move to all-wireless in its student housing, the
associated cost benefits made the decision even easier. “By eliminating
cabling costs and going all-wireless in some of the buildings, we’ve
been able to realize over one million dollars in total cost savings.
That made cutting the cord a simple choice.”
West Chester is using Aruba’s 802.11ac AP-220
Series access points for both indoor and outdoor coverage of the
student housing areas, AirWave
Network Management, and the ClearPass
Access Management System to securely on-board and register many of
the 50,000 unique devices the University sees on the network, on average.
The University was already using Aruba 802.11n AP-135 and 134 access
points and Mobility
Access Switches on campus to cover its academic and administrative
areas and according to Chan, 95% of the campus has wireless coverage
now, with the addition of the student housing facilities. As the
University’s needs evolve – including a move to offer more online
courses or mixed classrooms – Chan sees West Chester eventually moving
to 802.11ac and all-wireless for the entire campus.
“Since we recently upgraded many campus buildings to 802.11n and that
network is operating well, we won’t be changing this immediately,” he
noted. “However, I definitely see our student housing deployment giving
us the confidence to move toward an all-wireless campus in the future.”
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