August 05, 2009
Aruba AirWave Chosen to Improve Wireless Management at Babson College
By Jyothi Shanbhag, TMCnet Contributor
Aruba's AirWave (News - Alert) Wireless Management System (AWMS) was recently selected by Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts in a bid to better manage the college’s multi-vendor wireless network.
According to Bryan Wargo, general manager of Aruba's network management division, wireless networks are a critical infrastructure for educational institutions, and a powerful management tool with comprehensive analytics and Help Desk support can increase up-time and improve the end user experience.
“AWMS provides better monitoring, management, and diagnostics of more generations of Cisco (News - Alert) wireless LANs than do any other tools on the market. And it does so from a single console,” Wargo said.
After a six month trial evaluation, Babson purchased the AWMS tool to connect different points located in residential housing and staff areas, and needed a consolidated view.
Bill Thompson, network engineer for Babson College said they use the AWMS on a daily basis to troubleshoot wireless issues, identify rogue APs, visualize network coverage and performance, and generate management reports. He said that the rich suite of features has significantly reduced troubleshooting time, improved visibility into network usage has helped improve capacity planning, and to locate stolen laptops.
AWMS helps the college recover stolen laptops by generating an alert when a stolen laptop connects to the network.
In addition, AWMS supports multiple generations of technology, wireless standards, and vendors through a single console interface. It includes an “Extensive Help Desk” feature and interfaces to trouble ticket solutions such as “BMC Remedy” and can monitor individual interfaces, including Wi-Fi radios, and configure the access points.
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Jyothi Shanbhag is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Jyothi's articles, please visit her columnist page.
Edited by Jessica Kostek