Network refresh improves digital experience at George Washington University

Determined to address technical debt and simplify the service, the IT team evaluated the top wireless LAN vendors for a modern, cloud-managed wireless network.

“We wanted a wireless solution that would deliver a superior experience and would use AI and automation to simplify network management and troubleshooting,” says John Zonderwyk, manager of networking at GW. “We wanted to involve more of our frontline support staff in addressing customer issues rather than needing to escalate troubleshooting to the network engineering team.”

The student experience was also a priority.

“We wanted to provide an at-home wireless experience for our students, where students could move throughout their house without worrying about their wireless connection dropping out,” says Zonderwyk.

The current design and age of parts of the infrastructure limited the kind of Wi-Fi experience students had on campus. Wi-Fi connections often dropped when people moved between floors in the same building and residence halls lacked the wireless capabilities to provide for the personalized experiences expected with all of the devices students bring to campus today. This led to high volumes of support requests for IT staff.

GW migrated to the new Juniper network during the summer months to lessen the impact on faculty and students.

“Our last refresh took two years to replace half the access points,” says Zonderwyk. “With Juniper, we replaced 6847 APs and 50 access switches in three months.”

The network engineering team used the Juniper Mist portal to preconfigure the APs and set up the configuration templates for the switches. The on-site installation team used the Juniper mobile app to scan a QR code on each Juniper AP, which then activates itself, including its location on the floor plan map.

The installer simply hung the APs using the existing mounting brackets and snapped a picture to upload to the portal. Deployment moved steadily, even at the Foggy Bottom campus, home to many beautiful, historic buildings that often present a challenging RF environment.

The Juniper network offers an at-home wireless experience that GW IT had not previously had the capability to provide. People can move through buildings and across campus while their calls and apps stay connected. The service desk has intuitive tools to quickly resolve issues, and the network engineering team has better insight into difficult problems and tools to proactively solve problems.