EMORY UNIVERSITY SELECTS ARUBA FOR CAMPUS MOBILITY
Seamless Mobile Edge across University Campus and the Largest Healthcare System in Georgia Delivers Secure Access to Voice and Data Services
Sunnyvale, Calif. October 23, 2006 - Aruba Networks, the Mobile Edge Company, today announced that Emory University, recently ranked 18th among 248 universities in U.S. News and World Report's annual college quality rankings, has completed the first phase of its Aruba Networks wireless LAN (WLAN) rollout, with 1,370 Access Points (APs) and 20 mobility controllers deployed across the university's buildings, residential houses and hospitals. By the end of the calendar year, Emory plans to implement Voice over WLAN (VoWLAN) in several portions of the network. When the deployment is complete, the Aruba network will provide wireless access to 11,300 students and 2,500 faculty members throughout Emory University, the graduate school of arts and sciences; professional schools of medicine, theology, law, nursing, public health, and Oxford College.
Prior to selecting Aruba, Emory had a legacy environment of 100 "fat" APs, which its IT staff found difficult to manage effectively. Emory officials began looking for a centralized WLAN system that provided better management, used their VPN security model, and integrated seamlessly with legacy equipment. Other requirements included a scalable solution and the need to address guest access. Emory now boasts 1,370 Aruba AP-60 and AP-61 access points, distributed across two separate networks--890 for academic use and 480 APs throughout four hospitals.
Secure Mobile Access with Role-based Access Control
The Aruba solution allows Emory to assign roles and privileges based on user level--as well as increasing security by scanning clients when they attempt to access the network. Before allowing access to a student or other authorized user, the Aruba solution scans for an active antivirus and personal firewall, as well as the presence of Spybot and the latest Microsoft Service Pack, and does not allow a connection unless these conditions are satisfied. Since the advent of the Aruba network, Emory has also seen a change from VPN to WPA authentication, and the university is now one of the few that uses WPA for authentication on a wide-scale basis. By early 2007, Emory's wireless network access will be entirely authenticated through WPA.
A significant requirement for Emory was guest access for visitors who did not have the credentials to authenticate themselves as students or faculty. Aruba's role-based access control capability with a customizable captive portal function allows Emory to easily provide authenticated guest access with requiring expensive backend systems for guest authentication.
Centralized Control and Advanced Mobile Networking Increase Scalability, Lower TCO
In the "fat" AP environment, Emory had five engineers manually configuring APs for deployment. With the Aruba solution, the University is able to centrally manage and monitor all of these APs from the same console, using the same tools. Only one tech was needed part time to configure all of the Aruba APs. Management of the wireless is also much easier with just two staff members designing, deploying and managing the entire WLAN.
"Now, when adding a new SSID for the university it's automatically propagated across all 890 APs. Unless you've done this using the old model, you don't realize how much easier this is!" said Stan Brooks, RF engineer, network communications group at Emory University. "I don't think there's any way we could have grown to the size of the network we have now--in terms of scaling the legacy APs -- without the kind of functionality, support and architecture that the Aruba solution provides."
"Another major advantage of the Aruba solution is the advanced mobile networking features such as VLAN pooling," continued Brooks. "During "arrival weekend" this fall, student demand for wireless was unprecedented; the number of wireless users more that doubled compared to last semester. With VLAN pooling, it was trivial to add additional VLANs and IP subnets to address the increase in wireless users. We were able to accommodate the increased load easily and without any disruption to the underlying IP network. We could not have done this with any other solution on the market today."
Network Visibility and Redundancy
Like all universities and large organizations, Emory needs to secure itself against potential hacking threats from within and outside its own networks, so it needed a solution that addressed this issue. Aruba Networks provides robust wireless intrusion protection and detection capabilities to avoid hackers, rogue APs, and other active and passive attacks. Emory now has visibility into APs that are located on a remote campus 40 miles away, can do remote packet capture for troubleshooting without sending a technician out, and can use location tracking capabilities mapped to floor plans to physically locate infected users and assist in remediation.
The university has deployed 11 Aruba 6000 Mobility Controllers throughout the academic network, and uses nine of these as local controllers. One controller is designated as a backup, with an additional two redundant masters. Emory has not had a single failure on any controllers.
Student Demand for Wireless
The push for expanding wireless got a jump-start based on the comments Emory CIO Rich Mendola heard from students and their parents during freshman arrival weekend. According to Mendola, "It was clear that this generation of students sees wireless as a necessity, rather than a luxury, and we had clearly missed the mark in meeting their expectations." After Fall 2005 freshman arrival weekend, the IT organization kicked into high gear to justify, and then address, this shortcoming. The project, known as "EmoryUnplugged," aimed to roll out wireless in all 55 resident halls, theme resident houses, fraternity houses, dormitories, and apartments--ranging from buildings as large as an 18-story apartment building to as small as a 3-bedroom house. The EmoryUnplugged project started in September 2005 and, within four months, all 55 buildings were complete. Prior to this year's fall semester, a new sorority lodge was built, and wireless was also deployed here. Since the EmoryUnplugged began, there has been an incredible uptake of wireless use at Emory, with simultaneous connections during peak time more than doubling, from 800 in May to 1,830 as of last month, mostly due to student demand.
The university has since rolled out wireless in its law and public health schools, as well as Emory College, and has replaced the legacy APs in the main library, student center, and other key areas, such as health sciences. The law school is the biggest user of wireless as it has a large online research component, and it is estimated that 97 percent of Emory law students now have laptops. Due to the demand in wireless, the university now stipulates that any new or remodeled building space must have wireless.
"It was really eye-opening to see the impact of the wireless network; I didn't expect this truly massive demand for wireless from the students," said Brooks. "Nowadays, wireless is not an optional extra--students demand and expect it. If you're not offering wireless, you'll fall behind, as students don't want to be tethered."
About Emory University
Emory University is known for its demanding academics, outstanding undergraduate college of arts and sciences, highly ranked professional schools and state-of-the-art research facilities. For nearly two decades, Emory has been named one of the country's top-25 national universities by U.S. News & World Report. In addition to its nine schools, the university encompasses The Carter Center, Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Emory Healthcare, the state's largest and most comprehensive healthcare system.
About Aruba Networks
Aruba Networks is a fast-growing enterprise infrastructure company enabling the Mobile Edge, an evolutionary network architecture that represents a new approach to transitioning enterprise networks from a fixed, port-based architecture to an architecture centered on secure, user-based mobility. The Mobile Edge simultaneously delivers mobile data and VoIP services, as well as a common user experience to mobile workers in the office, at home and on the road, by creating a secure mobility overlay that spans the LAN, the WAN and the Internet. To deliver the Mobile Edge, Aruba manufactures and markets a complete line of fixed and modular mobility controllers, wired and wireless access points, an advanced mobility software suite, and a mobility management system. Privately held and based in Sunnyvale, California, Aruba has operations in the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific, and employs staff around the world. To learn more, visit Aruba at http://www.arubanetworks.com.
Media Contacts
Don Reckles
Aruba Networks, Inc.
408-329-5108
dreckles@arubanetworks.com
Jay Nichols
Sterling Communications, Inc.
415-392-2300
jnichols@sterlingpr.com
Aruba Networks and Aruba The Mobile Edge Company are trademarks of Aruba Wireless Networks, Inc. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective holders. Portions © 2006 Aruba Wireless Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Specifications are subject to change without notice.