Nebraska’s Oldest Private College Rearchitects
Network in Just Six Weeks to Address Student and Faculty Needs
during COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond
Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company (NYSE: HPE), today
announced that, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Doane
University in Crete, Nebraska, deployed an Aruba ESP (Edge Services
Platform) network to bring remote and hybrid education to its 2,500
students and equip its 500 faculty and staff with the tools they
need to deliver it. Using Aruba wireless, switching, security, and
management solutions, Doane quickly deployed a reliable and secure
network to address student and faculty needs and to begin planning
for a post-pandemic learning environment.
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Doane University relies on its Aruba ESP
network to bring seamless wireless experiences and enable remote
and hybrid learning for its 2,500 students. (Photo: Done
University)
Founded in 1872, Doane is Nebraska’s oldest private college and
is designated as a “Top National Liberal Arts College” by U.S. News
and World Report. The University’s main campus is comprised of 21
buildings including six residence halls that house 800 students.
Doane also operates two satellite campuses located in Lincoln and
Omaha.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, it escalated Doane’s need for a
reliable and secure network. Students were having problems
connecting to their courses from home or their dorms and were being
dropped from their Zoom sessions. The IT team was faced with either
upgrading their existing Cisco network or replacing it with a more
innovative solution that could support the University’s long-term
vision as well as its immediate needs.
“My goal has always been to make sure that the only thing that
is challenging for our students is their coursework,” said Doane
University CIO, Derek Bierman. “It’s important for us to think
strategically about all of the technology we’re using to provide a
fantastic learning experience for our students and build a network
for where the University wants to be, not where we are now.”
While Doane’s IT team considered using Cisco for a refresh, the
high cost, coupled with the requirement for a future-ready solution
that supports their vision, drove them to look for alternatives. In
addition, as the pandemic lingered, the uncertainty surrounding the
percentage of time students would spend in classrooms versus remote
learning underscored the need for a foundation that could better
address a hybrid learning model.
Working with partner DataVizion, Doane moved to an Aruba ESP
network including Aruba Wi-Fi 6 access points (APs), CX Series
switches, with Aruba Central providing unified cloud-based
management. The first phase of the deployment across Doane’s
residence halls was completed in less than six weeks. Phase two,
which includes connecting the rest of the buildings on campus and
deploying ClearPass to unify wired and wireless NAC, is
underway.
Unified Management Saves Time, Simplifies Tasks for
IT
One of the primary reasons Doane chose Aruba ESP was its unified
wired and wireless management. Doane’s Director of IT, Ryan
Dorshorst noted, “We wouldn’t want to put all of our APs in the
cloud and manage them with one system, then have to troubleshoot
our switches on another platform. Being able to manage everything
from a single pane of glass using Aruba Central saves us valuable
time and resources.”
Dorshorst also found that Central allows the team to monitor and
manage the network from anywhere without a VPN connection. For
example, on the nights when students are moving into their
residence halls, he can oversee the network remotely from his
phone. Central also enables him to run reports on specific traffic
– such as that emanating only from student devices – and provides
templates for easy configuration changes, resulting in time and
cost savings for the IT team.
Dorshorst is also excited about the potential to use contextual
data from Central to identify at-risk students so that Doane can
develop programming to assist them and further enhance their
educational experience. With some of the proximity tracing
capabilities inherent in Central, for example, a professor could
identify an absent student and check in to make sure the student is
well, can obtain notes and assignments from the missed class, and
can stay on track.
Student Devices and IoT Can Connect Securely and
Reliably
Another key benefit of Doane’s Aruba ESP network is the ability
to reliably and securely connect the wide variety of devices
students are bringing to campus including Sonos speakers, Amazon
Alexa devices, gaming devices and printers, and the usual laptops,
tablets, and smartphones.
Said Dorshorst, “The Aruba network is delivering the reliability
we lacked previously in the residence halls. I’m not getting
complaints that students are having trouble getting their mobile
devices connected or dropping from Zoom calls anymore.”
As Doane enters its second semester, it will be conducting
COVID-19 testing for students, allowing those with negative results
to return to classrooms, but continuing to enable others to learn
remotely. Dorshorst said the network is critical to building this
hybrid environment, giving students a seamless experience whether
they are back in the classroom or in their dorm.
In addition, Dorshorst says that Doane will add IoT devices as
the new network is fully implemented. The University’s facilities
department already has the entire HVAC system connected via the
wired network, but Dorshorst noted that it will be easier to add
IoT devices wirelessly moving forward, particularly since the Aruba
APs have built-in Bluetooth and Zigbee to simplify IoT deployment
and management.
“We already have an engineering professor looking at adding
sensors for air quality or water detection to reduce Doane’s
insurance costs, as one example,” he said. “But we envision many
different kinds of wireless IoT devices will now be able to connect
easily and securely.”
Aruba ESP Lays the Foundation for New Campus
Experiences
Moving forward, Doane plans to address more areas of its campus
and improve student experiences throughout the university with its
Aruba ESP network. Dorshorst says the IT team is evaluating Aruba’s
User Experience Insight (UXI) sensors to deliver network insights
that ease the troubleshooting and resolution of issues before they
arise. Furthermore, the IT team plans to expand wireless coverage
to the University’s athletic facilities where the legacy APs
currently fail once a certain number of devices are attached.
“We’re excited to deploy Aruba in the outdoor football stadium
and indoor track complex, so we can finally deliver reliable and
high-performing Wi-Fi. And we know that we’ll be able to look at
more advanced capabilities in the future like ticket scanning on
smartphones,” Dorshorst said.
Added CIO Bierman, “While we don’t know all of the things
students may bring onto campus in the future, with our Aruba ESP
network, we feel like we can handle whatever comes our way. We’re
future thinkers and Aruba mirrors that innovative philosophy.”
About Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company
Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, is the global
leader in secure, intelligent edge-to-cloud networking solutions
that use AI to automate the network, while harnessing data to drive
powerful business outcomes. With Aruba ESP (Edge Services Platform)
and as-a-service options, Aruba takes a cloud-native approach to
helping customers meet their connectivity, security, and financial
requirements across campus, branch, data center, and remote worker
environments, covering all aspects of wired, wireless LAN, and wide
area networking (WAN).
To learn more, visit Aruba at 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 the Airheads Community at
community.arubanetworks.com.
View source
version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210223005321/en/
Kathleen Keith Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company
+1-707-529-4507 kathleen.keith@hpe.com
Jennifer Miu Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company +1
650-236-9532 jennifer.miu@hpe.com
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