TRENDING
Deploying fast, context-aware Wi-Fi
in all environments
To cover all the bases, pursue a robust
and cost-effective strategy to ensure
your wireless and wired infrastructure
covers all the bases. More institutions
will take advantage of Wave 2 802.11ac
infrastructure and its performance
innovations, including multi-user
multiple input and multiple output
(MU-MIMO) and four spatial streams
(4SS). In a nutshell, Wave 2 access
points (APs) can transmit to multiple
client devices using different streams,
thus increasing network utilisation and
enabling higher device densities to
support quality user experiences.
Jose Vasco, Regional Director,
MEMA at Aruba, a Hewlett Packard
Enterprise company, talks us through
six trends that have emerged in
higher education this year
Automating, not just securing,
device connectivity
With device proliferation affecting
both performance and security,
higher education IT departments will
move from self-service onboarding
to end-to-end automation of device
connectivity and security. Beyond
assisting with constrained IT resources,
automation is the most effective
network defence, for both wireless and
wired connectivity, because it denies
attackers the time needed to carry out
their activities.
Where is the best place to start?
Establishing device guidelines
institution-wide to govern wired, mobile
and IoT equipment - while the specific
process you employ will be unique to
your campus, the important thing is
ensuring cross-divisional and cross-
functional committee representation.
Use the resulting guidelines to
establish connectivity and security
policies in IT. Then automate
implementation with a robust policy
management and an access control
system capable of operating at scale.
If your institution lacks such a system,
invest in one this year.
26
INTELLIGENTCIO
Advanced indoor and outdoor Wave
2 APs also incorporate the Bluetooth
low energy (BLE) technology necessary
for location-based services. This offers
opportunities to maximise hardware
deployment budgets versus installing
separate BLE gear. Additionally, adopting
multi-gigabit Ethernet edge switches will
provide needed immediate performance
gains and assist you with network
future proofing. Multi-gigabit switches
resulted from work by the NBASE-T and
MGBASE-T technology alliances, which
the IEEE utilised to create the recently
released 802.3bz specification.
2 APs over existing Cat 5e/Cat 6 cabling,
at a significant savings over re-wiring.
Some solutions can even automatically
detect and provide the proper connection
such as 1, 2.5, 5 or 10GigE.
Predicting network behaviour and
enabling intelligent responses
To continue meeting escalating
expectations, higher education IT
departments will begin deploying
management equipment with built-
in intelligence to automatically
make adjustments as networking
requirements shift on a day-to-day
basis. Advanced management solutions
incorporate machine learning to adjust
and optimise the entire network – not
just a group of access points or a certain
area of campus – which is especially
important in dense environments. In
addition to dynamically managing the
network, the latest solutions also add
the resilience and persistence needed
for students, faculty and staff to move
seamlessly between indoor and outdoor
spaces while maintaining connectivity
throughout. These innovations supply
new redundancy technologies to
ensure hardware or software outages
are completely transparent to end
users, even in the highest-performance
applications such as video conferencing
and Voice over Wi-Fi (VoWiFi) calling.
Essentially, the new specification enables
deploying the highest-performance Wave Modernising affordability
“It’s only a
matter of
time before
institutions
begin leveraging
data collected
from mobile
devices and
networks as
students move
about campus.” To make networking updates affordable,
institutions can continue to use phased
and tiered approaches, where use cases
match the corresponding equipment.
For example, re-deploying your existing
Wave 1 802.11ac APs to non-public
facilities spaces, where reliability is
critical but device density is low, may
be sufficient in the short run. No
matter what your institution’s specific
situation, you have more mobility
options and innovations to choose
from than ever before. This makes it
an exciting time in mobile connectivity
as higher education organisations can
offer their constituencies enhanced
capabilities and experiences to improve
environments, increase operational
efficiencies and help achieve
educational outcomes. n
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