IT News

Oral Roberts U Looks To Simplify Network Management

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 05/25/10

Over the course of a weekend Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma replaced the core aspects of a Cisco networking infrastructure with gear from Enterasys. The university, which has about 3,100 students, sought a new setup that would simplify network management.

The IT staff evaluated a variety of options. "With Enterasys, we saw an opportunity to not only replace the entire network, but also immediately realize the benefits of the performance, security, management and support features that would have been cost-prohibitive add-ons with other vendors' solutions," said CIO Tannie Olsen. "We now have a high-end, [quality of service] platform on which we can launch the next-generation services our students and faculty will need as the university grows."

The initial deployment of the network involved both the institution's network operations staff and Enterasys engineers and support team members, who replaced the network switches in a weekend. Over the 2009 summer break the university installed the Enterasys Network Management Suite and Security Information and Event Manager.

"Students love to plug devices into our network, and with [these applications], no matter how many moves, adds, or changes occur in our environment, we can keep everything in view and under control through role-based access controls and network behavior monitoring," Olsen said. He added that the network management software is also used to manage network equipment from other vendors.