Cisco: Waiariki Institute of Technology Case Study

Mark Bloor of Waiariki Institute of Technology (WIT) was hired to be a problem solver. After a review of the institute's network infrastructure, he was brought on at WIT to develop the network as a crucial strategy component to attract students and reach aggressive admissions and performance goals. He began by working closely with the originators of the IT review, a local company called iTCo. There was plenty of work to be done.

WIT has been offering vocational studies for 30 years with a student population of around 7,000 full- and part-time students. The institute is known for its high level of student support and prides itself on ensuring that the needs of its students are met with excellent services and facilities.

Waiariki's network across the five campus locations in the central North Island was plagued with poor performance and a switching structure nearly a decade old. In the words of Bloor, it was becoming "run down."

What Waiariki needed was a bottom-up overhaul, one that would build a foundation for future growth in enrolment and faculty. Bloor and his team of nine in the IT department developed a plan and started evaluating their options. Their first project would be to completely revamp the switching and telephony structure. Bloor had good previous experiences working with Cisco based on a diverse and reliable product portfolio, excellent support and low total cost of ownership (TCO). When it came time to evaluate vendor responses to its RFP, the decision was an easy one for WIT.

"No one's ever been fired for buying Cisco," says Bloor. "They demonstrated the best knowledge of our systems and were willing to go the extra mile to help us get the solution right, even making repeated site visits from Auckland to Rotorua."

Each campus location had a Nortel Meridian Private Automated Branch Exchange (PABX) that Cisco promptly replaced with Unified Communications Manager for better reliability and ease of administration, built on the Cisco Power Over Ethernet (POE) platform. By using the POEs to deploy a full Voice Over IP telephony system, Cisco centralised Waiariki's system with far lower TCO.

Each desk on campus now has a Cisco IP phone, so the system can be administered from a central location instead of on a local level. Bridging geographic barriers this way is the ideal solution for WIT to trim costs and improve the user experience.

The second phase of deployment for Bloor and the Cisco team is the rollout of N-band wireless Internet access at each campus - making WIT the first in the country to have deployed this new wireless standard. At speeds up to five times faster than conventional B- or G-band wireless, WIT will be an innovator with the best speeds available to the technically-savvy student population.

But first, the team will need to install access points around each of the five campuses, a task they are currently working through with TelstraClear, who partnered with Cisco on the integration, and Datacraft, performing the actual technology installation.

The third phase is a collaboration project that will impact students and staff and change the way classes are taught. WIT will soon add Meeting Place software along with remote system logon so that classes can be taught and attended remotely; class sessions will be recorded for later playback by students, and WebEx access will ensure the remote experience is just as rich as the in-person one.

WIT is one of the few institutions in New Zealand that uses the full suite of Cisco products, from switches to routers and core switching. Combined with the security of the Cisco network and the upcoming collaboration project, WIT is well-positioned with a sound and scalable network able to grow with the institute.

"Before, managing our IT system was quite a struggle," says Bloor. "We're very pleased to have our new Cisco solution. We've had great feedback on the IP phones. They're very user-friendly and easy to use. And the beauty of the IP communications is that it's got a great lifespan. With software updates, the system never really ages."

What WIT now has is true triple-play capability in a system that can support voice, data and video. "Support has been fantastic," says Bloor. "We're widely-dispersed all across the North Island, so each location has a separate service level agreement and unique set of challenges. But what's most important to us is making sure we have the right technology in place to support our long-term growth."

Right now WIT has about 1,000 seats in total across students and staff. But that number is certain to grow with aggressive targets set to swell the student and faculty ranks 10 per cent each year for the next 2 years. This year alone, WIT has seen an increase in excess of 20 per cent growth in enrolment.