Aruba Networks (News - Alert) announced the signing of a deal with Durham Catholic District School Board (DCDSB) to upgrade the latter’s wireless LAN architecture with Aruba’s enterprise-class solution. The advanced WLAN architecture from Aruba is custom designed to manage the 21^st Century education program from DCDSB. The architecture will comprise of Aruba Instant controller-less access points (APs), controller-based APs and remote APs, thus enabling DCDSB to address all its wireless requirements across all its facilities.

In a statement, Ronald R. Rodriguez, chief information officer at DCDSB, said, “Our IT staff is lean, so it was very important that our new wireless LAN be able to meet the varying needs of the schools in our district, as well as offer simple, cost-effective deployment. Aruba delivers all of this. The Aruba interface is intuitive, and our network is now self-configurable and can be managed from a central location. Best of all, we can have both a traditional, controller-based solution in the schools where we need it, and the Aruba Instant controller-less APs for quick installation in our elementary schools, without sacrificing any crucial enterprise-class features.”

Around 80 percent of DCDSB’s classrooms use interactive communication technology over iPads, laptops, smartphones and other similar devices in addition to nearly 400 interactive video projectors installed in around 50 percent of the classrooms. The technological upgrade of DCDSB’s infrastructure also included deploying an Apple (News - Alert) TV connected to every projector and empowering the teaching staff with an iPad. The WLAN solution from Aruba Networks will comprise Aruba AirWave Network Management System and Aruba RAPs for connecting with off-site staff providing them with resources to seamlessly access data remotely.

Speaking of the development, Sylvia Hooks, director, Product Marketing for Aruba Networks, said, “Aruba is the only WLAN vendor to offer both controller-less and controller-based deployments on a single architecture. This allows school districts like DCDSB to not only mix and match between the two architectures based on their initial needs, but to also alter their deployment as their requirements change over time. With Aruba, school districts can keep 100 percent of their initial investment since switching from controller-less to controller-based APs doesn't require any hardware changes.”