New Unified Network is Foundational to Meeting
Leading Public Research Institution’s Rapidly Evolving Needs
Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company (NYSE: HPE), today
announced that Kent State University, based in Kent, Ohio, is
standardizing on an end-to-end Aruba ESP network. The leading
public research institution is deploying Aruba technology
throughout its eight-campus system to provide exceptional
connectivity experiences for its approximately 35,000 students and
5,000 faculty and staff members.
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A leading public research institution,
Kent State University is deploying Aruba technology throughout its
eight-campus system to support approximately 35,000 students and
5,000 faculty and staff members. (Photo: Kent State University)
To power today’s academic, research and residential innovations,
while meeting the swiftly-changing expectations of its campus
communities during the years ahead, Kent State is deploying Aruba’s
wired, wireless, management and security solutions. “We needed a
reliable, secure high-performance network that could evolve
rapidly,” explained John Rathje, vice president of IT and CIO at
Kent State.
“With Aruba, we can continuously modernize our network, which
helps ensure we can deliver the best possible user experiences
across a full spectrum of present and future activities,” he added.
“This includes the new HoloAnatomy-enabled augmented reality
laboratory at our College of Podiatric Medicine, ScreenBeam content
sharing platform in general instructional spaces, our growing
esports program, and whatever comes next.”
For its future-ready infrastructure, Kent State is adopting a
wireless network comprised of Aruba’s Wi-Fi 6 indoor and outdoor
access points (APs) and mobility controllers. “Aruba’s combination
of proven technologies was a key factor in our decision,” said Jim
Raber, Executive Director of Support, Infrastructure, and Research
Technology at Kent State.
“It’s critical to provide home-like experiences in our
residences, regardless of the devices students bring, and Aruba’s
AirGroup will help enable that,” he continued. “Other vendors were
just coming to market with a solution, but Aruba has been refining
AirGroup for a decade.”
On the wired side, the institution is implementing Aruba’s CX
Series switches from edge to core, achieving efficiencies, gaining
significant automation capabilities and controlling costs.
“Previously, our wired network was vendor-neutral, which frequently
meant contacting multiple sources to troubleshoot a single
problem,” said Michael Geist, manager of Network and
Telecommunications at Kent State.
“By standardizing on Aruba, we have a single pane of glass and a
single partner with an incredibly responsive support team,” he
added. “Plus, licensing is streamlined and all-inclusive, rather
than requiring separate licenses to get the various features we
need.”
Kent State will also rely on Aruba’s advanced network
administration tools. This includes ClearPass, for unified wired
and wireless network access control (NAC) and policy management;
NetEdit for coordinating switch configuration, monitoring and
troubleshooting; and User Experience Insight (UXI) for Wi-Fi
incident detection using AIOps to pinpoint issues that require
immediate attention.
“Using Aruba’s tools, we’re realizing significant operational
savings while also providing students with educational
opportunities,” said Raber. “Just one example is switch deployment.
With NetEdit, a student can securely configure and deploy a switch
in a half hour. Previously, it required an experienced full-time
engineer three hours.”
Moving ahead, Kent State looks forward to adopting and
leveraging other Aruba solutions. These include Location Services
for a variety of data-driven initiatives, and Aruba Central for
advanced AP and switch management. Using Central’s advanced AIOps,
Kent State can automate the identification and resolution of user,
IoT and network issues before they impact people and devices. This
equates to significant reductions in trouble tickets and IT
overhead, as well as associated improvements in campus
experiences.
“We’ve recently deployed Central for a remote learning location
and expect to expand it across our footprint,” said Geist. “Our
team is very excited about exploring Central’s AIOps capabilities
for making deployments and day-to-day network administration faster
and more efficient.”
According to Rathje, the value of Kent State’s new network is
foundational the university’s strategy and essential to delivering
digital experiences for its users. “Beyond just having a network,
we wanted to align our IT missions across the institution to
support and enhance user experiences,” he said. “After undergoing
an extensive evaluation, we determined Aruba’s vision, engagement
and the inter-operability of all its solutions throughout the
network layers made it the right partner for us.”
Rathje, Raber and Geist will be speaking at Educause, on October
27th from 2:15 – 3 p.m. ET on the topic of “Creating a Flexible and
Scalable Network Foundation to Drive Experiences and Innovation” in
which they will share their best practices and lessons learned on
the recent technology transformation they oversaw at Kent
State.
Additional Resources
- Blog: Class is in Session: Kent State University delivers
connected, immersive experiences with Aruba
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.
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Kari Curto Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company +1
650-504-1076 kari.curto@hpe.com
Kathleen Keith Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company
+1-707-529-4507 kathleen.keith@hpe.com
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