Powering a vibrant civic life

World-class amenities for a vibrant community

Having long concentrated on promoting quality of life, the City of Carmel frequently tops livability indexes in the U.S. Its thriving arts scene, 700 acres of green spaces, year-around outdoor festivals, and other public amenities all contribute to the vibrance that has attracted more than 125 corporate headquarters to the area.

“With mobility essential to modern life experiences, our municipality is dedicated to supplying exceptional connectivity for staff and community across indoor and outdoor spaces,” explained Morgan Rinehart, Network Administrator for the City of Carmel, Indiana. “Whether it’s public Wi-Fi, enterprise mobility, IoT-enabled solutions, or other connected technologies, having fast, secure, and reliable wired and wireless access is key to fulfilling our role.”

Supporting entertainment year-round

To support public and staff Wi-Fi across 36 outdoor locations and 23 indoor facilities, Carmel set out to update its networking infrastructure, starting with a wireless refresh. It initially outfitted an outdoor plaza with a handful of access points (APs) from its incumbent vendor, but the equipment quickly proved insufficient.

“The incumbent APs failed in below zero temperatures,” Rinehart said. “This was unacceptable, as we support and host numerous winter festivals and daily activities, such as a massive outdoor skating rink in the heart of our city center.”

To remedy the situation, Carmel quickly pivoted to adopting an end-to-end HPE Aruba Networking solution. This included deploying the latest generation of outdoor Wi-Fi across more than 95 acres of exterior spaces and Wi-Fi 6E over a quarter million square feet of indoor facilities—supported by automated and streamlined HPE Aruba Networking CX switching wired infrastructure.

Freeing time for higher-value projects

Unifying administration of the City’s infrastructure, which stretches over the municipality’s 49 square miles, was another a significant benefit from adopting HPE Aruba Networking, according to Rinehart.

For network management, the municipality relies on two AI-enabled solutions. HPE Aruba Networking Central streamlines and simplifies wired and wireless administration and HPE Aruba Networking User Experience Insight (UXI) uncovers network degradations proactively and in real time, before they impact experiences.

“Centralized AI-powered management was a significant differentiator for selecting HPE Aruba Networking,” said Rinehart. “We’ve reduced deployment labor costs by 30 percent and cut troubleshooting time to resolution by 50 percent, enabling us to refocus IT resources on higher-value projects.”

Configuration time slashed 50 percent

To secure more devices without adding to IT overhead, Carmel also appreciates its new network access control (NAC) solutions. Working with trusted local partner Laketec, the municipality first deployed HPE Aruba Networking ClearPass for unified, built-in Zero Trust and secure access service edge (SASE) cybersecurity.

“As we’ve embraced more network-enabled and IoT equipment, we’ve seen exponential growth in the number of devices we need to secure,” said Rinehart. “For example, renovating and enlarging our police, fire, and judicial facility resulted in expanding AV equipment from one device in a few spaces to four connected devices in every room.”

In addition, Carmel adopted HPE Aruba Networking ClearPass Device Insight, for AI-powered intelligent device discovery and profiling. “Instead of manually analyzing the attributes of each new device, ClearPass Device Insight instantly identifies the equipment,” Rinehart said. “This enables us to get new devices connected and protected by ClearPass in minutes instead of hours.”

The city also rolled out Dynamic Segmentation, which combines with ClearPass and CX switching to automatically assign every connected device to the proper wired switch port or wireless SSID on the fly. It also ensures each device is granted network and application access based on the appropriate policy-based level of security.

“We estimate the combination of ClearPass, Dynamic Segmentation, and CX switching reduces staff time spent on configuration by 50 percent,” said Rinehart.

Building out smart city deployments

By utilizing the data collection and analytics capabilities engineered into its new network, Carmel is building out its smart city deployments for powering internal operations, such as inventory control and facility planning, as well as fine-tuning resident and visitor services, such as enhancing festival experiences.

“Our weeks-long Christkindlmarkt is considered the top holiday market in the U.S., drawing visitors regionally and worldwide,” Rinehart said. “Advanced Wi-Fi analytics provides us with real-time event insights, enabling us to immediately adjust hours of operation or staffing levels. Post event, we use the analytics for improving experiences the following year.”

Analytics are also supporting Carmel’s goals for limiting sprawl, such as leveraging free parking 24/7 in municipal structures to encourage core population density. This requires understanding parking utilization behavior, which is accomplished via IoT parking sensors connected via Wi-Fi.

“Parking availability analytics help us with improving resource allocation to accommodate daytime users, such as employees and shoppers, evening event attendees, and residents,” said Rinehart. “We’re also rolling out duration sensors, which will help with identifying potentially abandoned vehicles or a possible public safety issue.”

Boosting sustainability, public safety, and civic pride

Carmel is also using IoT-enabled smart applications for initiatives that enhance sustainability, improve public safety, and boost community spirit.

For sustainability, the city has deployed smart meeting rooms and office spaces that automatically power down idle equipment and irrigation solutions that monitor plants and green spaces to ensure water is only applied when required.

“We’re also planning a smart refuse and recycling container system that would enable efficiently mapping a route for emptying full containers, while bypassing containers that are not,” Rinehart said.

From a public safety perspective, the new Wi-Fi 6E is particularly appreciated by law enforcement and public safety staff, who have seen a 66 percent reduction in the time required to upload body cam, thermal imaging, drone footage, and other video media daily.

“In the past, it could take an officer 45 minutes to physically visit a desk, upload video, and return to the field,” said Rinehart. “Now, they can upload video anywhere there is an AP, without leaving their vehicle, and be back out serving the public in about 15 minutes.”

Civic engagement projects include smart decorative outdoor lighting, “which is just one of the fun ideas we have on the drawing board,” said Rinehart. “The lighting can be turned green for Veteran’s Day, pink for Breast Cancer Awareness month, or change colors continuously during various holiday celebrations.”

In the pipeline: data center networking and Zero Trust security

To make city operations simultaneously more secure and more efficient, the municipality is also evaluating HPE Aruba Networking Data Center Networking solutions and HPE Aruba Networking Security Service Edge (SSE).

The former simplifies architecture, enhances experiences, and reduces costs by providing a stateful firewall engineered into the high-performance HPE Aruba Networking CX 10000 switch. “By securing traffic between users and our servers with the CX 10000, we could improve our cybersecurity posture,” Rinehart said. “We can also reduce our traditional firewall appliances, for considerable deployment and maintenance savings.”

Using SSE, Carmel can grant conditional access to internal systems based on highly-granular permissions, such as permitting an external HVAC contractor to adjust building controls remotely, Rinehart said. “This carries a significant cost benefit versus an on-premise service call.”

Smarter, safer, better

Regardless of which networking initiatives Carmel pursues, its IT staff is ready for whatever comes next. “HPE Aruba Networking has been a great partner for helping us deploy network solutions that support standardizing technology across our entire municipal government,” Rinehart said.

“HPE Aruba Networking solutions are easier to manage and more fiscally responsible than other leading vendors we evaluated,” he added. “Our new network is helping us make our city smarter, safer, and more efficient overall.”