INDUSTRY WATCH
T
he Burj Al Arab Jumeirah is a
truly iconic hotel with many
technological firsts to its
name including being the first hotel
to have WiFi and computers and
plasma TVs in every suite. For Neil
Menezes, maintaining this competitive
edge meant ensuring the hotel’s
WiFi services too offered superior
performance, coverage and overall
quality of service.
“WiFi is today a basic expectation of
hotel guests, but we wanted to go over
and above and deliver a memorable
premium experience even as the
number of devices connecting to Wi-
Fi has more than doubled in recent
years,” Neil explained.
To achieve this goal, Neil and his
team decided to use the latest
802.11ac Gigabit Wi-Fi standard.
“We knew this would enable us to
support a range of new services in
the future to further enhance our
guests’ stay,” he said.
Neil wanted to ensure that the
investment could also be used
for back-end services that would
improve the hotel’s efficiency. At
the time, the Burj Al Arab’s existing
WiFi solution was based on Aruba
technology and this simplified
the selection criteria. “Apart from
the need to keep up with the
advancement of technology, we
had no complaints with our original
deployment. Aruba always had a very
solid WiFi offering,” he said.
Aruba’s 220-series 802.11ac Access
Points (APs) were selected to offer the
highest performance in high-density
environments. “With no restrictions
on bandwidth and an average of
10 devices connecting per suite,
these were both important criteria,”
explained Neil.
In all, over 900 APs were deployed
across the hotel, making centralized
AP management another key
requirement. To address this, dual
Aruba 7200-series Mobility Controllers
were used. “This gave our IT team
www.intelligentcio.com
FOR OUR EMPLOYEES,
WE HAVE TWO-FACTOR
AUTHENTICATION
IN THE FORM OF
CERTIFICATE BASED
AUTHENTICATION WITH
ACTIVE DIRECTORY
INTEGRATION. WIFI
CONNECTED DEVICES
GIVE OUR COLLEAGUES
UP-TO-THE-MINUTE
DATA ON ROOM
OCCUPANCY, GUEST
REQUESTS AND OTHER
VITAL INFORMATION.
THIS MAKES IT POSSIBLE
FOR THEM TO BETTER
CO-ORDINATE THEIR
EFFORTS AND EXECUTE
THEIR FUNCTIONS MORE
EFFICIENTLY
the ability to configure, update and
manage all APs from a single intuitive
pane of glass,” he said.
To offer a truly premium quality of
service, the Burj Al Arab required 100%
coverage across its entire premises.
However, the Hotel’s iconic atrium, with
its open layout and steel framework,
threw up challenges.
“RF signaling in this area was extremely
complicated as it was impacted by a
number of design and material factors,”
explained Neil. Here, the expertise of
Aruba’s team and capabilities of the
AirWave Network Management helped
resolve all issues.
“Aruba’s experts became deeply
involved in the deployment and tackled
these challenges in a systematic and
professional manner,” said Neil.
Another area where the expertise of
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