Southampton Solent University Leverages Enterasys to Enable Wireless and VoIP
Southampton Solent University, one of the U.K.’s newest universities located in southern England, has selected Enterasys to provide solutions to securely connect more than 3,500 network devices which service more than 16,000 students and 1,000 University staff across multiple campus buildings. Through its partnership with Enterasys, Southampton Solent University now has the foundation necessary to implement next-generation applications such as IP video multicasting and Voice over IP (VoIP), while network users enjoy secure, “always-on” availability for both wired and wireless applications.
Southampton Solent University officially expanded from a college to university status in 2005. With the rapid growth of the University, the desire to roll out next-generation connectivity services that enhance the curriculum and allow students and staff to work more safely and with greater efficiency became a priority. The University also required a solution that was compatible with its multi-vendor infrastructure environment, which includes Check Point firewalls and Dell servers.
“For more than 10 years, Enterasys and their partner NetConnection Systems have supported us as our University and our network have expanded and modernized,” said John Carling, Head of IT at Southampton Solent University. “We selected Enterasys solutions because they were proven to be compatible with our existing IT infrastructure at a price point with technologies that other leading vendors couldn’t offer at the time. We were also greatly impressed with the responsiveness and knowledge of Enterasys’ sales, service, and support staff.”
Today, Southampton Solent University’s network connects three separate locations within a 10-mile area, consisting of multiple buildings including classrooms, administration offices, and student residences. Connected endpoints are secured through unified wired/wireless policy privileges that distinguish between staff and student roles while proactively protecting against unauthorized behavior by rogue devices or unauthenticated users. Applications for campus-wide wireless access, next-generation multimedia communications, and a VoIP system are prioritized and secured. Carling has plans to implement an Enterasys Dragon® Intrusion Prevention system, and is exploring the option of installing Enterasys’ Enterprise Notification System as well.
“The built-in security and self-healing redundancy provided by Enterasys products has proven its value through service-oriented, identity-based access to online resources depending on who you are and where you’re located. In short, the solution does exactly what Enterasys promises it does, the company is easy to work with and the performance is very reliable,” Carling said. “As an IT professional, we understand that we rarely get calls from users congratulating us when the network is running well, but we do get calls when there’s a problem. With Enterasys equipment, we don’t receive many of those calls. The network is transparent to our users, highly visible to us, and if we want to make future enhancements, it won’t require a forklift upgrade.”