The Dartmouth wireless network, which was installed beginning in 2000, consists of a mix of Cisco and Aruba devices. The legacy network comprises 560 Cisco 350 APs.
Although Noblet has good things to say about the reliability of the Cisco gear, he has concluded that it wasn't a manageable solution and didn't deliver the services he required. So last year, he began looking for alternatives and landed in Aruba's camp. He has deployed the Aruba devices in appliance mode, using both Layer 2 VLAN technology and Layer 3 GRE (generic routing encapsulation) services to connect APs virtually back to Aruba switches. Dartmouth has deployed about 100 Aruba APs, with plans to implement more. At the same time, Noblet is keeping tabs on new WLAN product offerings from Cisco.
In light of its goal to deploy converged voice, data and video services over the wireless network, Dartmouth concluded early on that scalability would be a key design element. Thus, it embraced a microcellular design that will blanket the 150-building campus and outdoor public spaces, with a multiband wireless network encompassing both 2.4-GHz 11b/11g and 5-GHz 11a. That will require the installation of thousands of APs, which Noblet is prepared to handle using in-house labor. With a few years' experience, his technicians and engineers have gotten good at it, and the Aruba system lets the RF environment dynamically respond to changing physical and traffic conditions.
A range of university data services are carried over the network, with e-mail and interactive messaging making up a sizable component of the overall traffic. VoIP traffic is also growing rapidly. Dartmouth has deployed a Cisco Avvid system as well as wireless VoIP services using technology from Telesym and Vocera. The Telesym system provides users on Windows, Pocket PC, and, in the future, MacOS with soft phones that work over both wired and wireless networks, delivering audio of such high quality that the system has been used to deliver streaming audio broadcasts of campus events. The Vocera system is being deployed in a number of pilots, including the IT organization; the campus facilities management group; and the School of Business, which is using the system to facilitate virtual group voice interaction among students.
Noblet is optimistic about the future and sees the industry evolving in a timely manner to meet his needs. He is very high on the Aruba wireless system, which addresses fundamental management, security and quality-of-service issues. He's also encouraged by a growing array of tools that let him design networks as well as monitor and troubleshoot existing systems. And he says he's hopeful that the combination of better converged applications and higher-bandwidth systems will let him realize his vision of rich wireless services for all members of the Dartmouth community.
Organization: The Indiana Heart Hospital
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