Babson College Managing Mixed Wireless Network with AWMS -- Campus Technology

Major Hardware and Infrastructure

Babson College Managing Mixed Wireless Network with AWMS

By Dian Schaffhauser
08/06/09

Babson College has deployed Aruba Networks' AirWave Wireless Management System (AWMS) to manage the multi-vendor wireless network at its Wellesley, MA campus. After a six-month evaluation, Babson purchased the application to get a consolidated view of its network of 400 Aruba and Cisco access points (APs) located in residential housing and staff areas.

"We use the AWMS on a daily basis to troubleshoot wireless issues, identify rogue APs, visualize network coverage and performance, and generate management reports," said Bill Thompson, network engineer. "The rich suite of features has significantly reduced troubleshooting time, improved visibility into network usage has helped improve capacity planning, and the locationing capability has even helped us locate stolen laptops. Working with a division that does nothing but wireless LAN management has proven to be the right choice for Babson College."

Thompson said one benefit of the new management system is how it expedites troubleshooting of network performance problems. An administrator can quickly drill down and view the access point with which a user is associated, the signal strength, association history, and location. "What used to take hours can now be done in seconds," he said.

The new system can also help the college recover stolen laptops by generating an alert when the laptop connects to the network.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

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