Utica College Upgrades Network

Utica College in New York has upgraded its wired and wireless network to improve the teaching and learning experience and improve network access and management at its main campus and three satellite locations.

The college serves more than 4,300 undergraduate and graduate students and wanted to make it easier for those students to access e-learning tools without hiring additional network engineers. The college selected a new software-driven wired, wireless and analytics solution from Extreme Networks, and Extreme partnered with infrastructure optimization company GSS Infotech to implement both the wired and wireless network.

The new wireless network uses the 802.11ac standard, which promises benefits such as increased capacity and speed. ExtremeWireless's visibility into application use across the network is designed to optimize application performance, and Utica College expects students and faculty to experience greater reliability when accessing e-learning applications. The college also implemented the ExtremeControl integrated management suite to provide IT staff with improved visibility across the wired and wireless network.

"With the help of Extreme, we've reduced the complexity of our network and made it easier for people to access and use our systems," said Vijay Sonty, CIO of Utica College, in a prepared statement. "The gains in efficiency and simplicity alone have had true bottom line results. Now, a single network engineer can easily maintain a network that serves 4,000 users, where the customary ratio is one engineer to 200 users."

According to Extreme Networks, the college's new wired and wireless network can support more than 4,000 users and more than 50 applications across the 128-acre main campus and three satellite campuses.

About the Author

Leila Meyer is a technology writer based in British Columbia. She can be reached at [email protected].

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