As one of the 10 largest art museums in the U.S., theMuseum of Fine Arts, Houstonhosts nearly a million visitors annually to experience the richness of the world's artistic creativity, from antiquities to the present, via more than 65,000 permanent works of art and countless thousands of pieces displayed during temporary exhibitions.
To do so in a modern, smartphone-enabled world we needed to go beyond seamless guest Wi-Fi connectivity. We envisioned fundamentally transforming our entire institution by deploying a high-performance wireless infrastructure with the flexibility and sophistication required for continuously evolving for years to come.
That's how our journey to adopt a mobile first strategy in partnership with阿鲁巴开始。
Not your typical office environment
Unlike many enterprises undergoing similar shifts, museums face unique challenges for providing high-density mobile experiences due to the lack of uniform interior spaces, aesthetic constraints, ever-changing floor plans, multi-acre outdoor exhibit areas and remote locations.
In our case, we maintain two off-site properties, located in historic homes, as well as our existing two main campus buildings, which include areas designed by notable architects such as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
Within our existing facilities, we had previously deployed Wi-Fi primarily as a back-office system for inventory scanning. However, meeting our new goals required a complete refresh.
如果这还不够英石Century Art和我们著名的Glassell艺术学院的新的85,000平方英尺的房屋。
当我们的多年重建在2020年完全完成时，我们将在主要14英亩的校园和地下在两个新车库中提供Wi-Fi，总面积为190,000平方英尺。
削减成本仅一半只是开始
为了满足我们的经验和转型目标，我们消除了大多数有线端口，可节省约280,000美元，有利于阿鲁巴high-density WLANincluding空波andClearPass。
但这并不是我们故事中最引人注目的方面。
Our initiative is most remarkable not for mobilizing our new facilities, where we have considerable engineering flexibility, but in our existing spaces – some of which date to the early 1900's – where we do not.
为了适应我们针对Wi-Fi的独特结构，我们的本地集成伙伴AMSY进行了详细的现场调查。实际上，现场调查是选择阿鲁巴的原因之一。竞争性的Wi-Fi供应商根据平方英尺提交了建议，这在我们的环境中不足。
Next came the painstaking process of installing hardware and cabling within strict environmental and artistic constraints. For example, we needed an advanced vacuum system to prevent construction dust from contaminating our galleries and individual pieces.
We also elected to deploy while remaining open to the public. Functionally, this meant developing a comprehensive plan for systematically completing each space. Work was completed overnight, which involved removing or protecting pieces, conducting implementation tasks and restoring exhibits before we opened in the morning.
In addition to expert project management, we met weekly with affected departments. This ensured everyone knew their roles and helped them effectively execute their respective task. In turn, the departments determined how each piece would be handled and, for those pieces that remained physically in place, our installers took various precautions to ensure artwork safety.
每一个经历都改变了
尽管哈维飓风将我们的新室内和室外建设推迟了几个月，但现有空间中的高性能Wi-Fi已经使以前无法进行的合作和互动。
现在，我们的650名员工和大约1,000名志愿者在我们的设施中使用我们提供的设备或使用自己的个人装备来工作。效率从不再来回走到桌子的效率相当大。
此外，随着工作人员在展示空间上花费更多的时间，他们正在经历观察或与我们的访客互动的被动利益。另外，计算和沟通的能力显着改善了调试和退役的旅行展览的过程。
更重要的是，我们现在动员了所有销售点的购买，以进行门票，活动茶点或礼品购买。除其他事项外，无线POS使访客能够使用最方便的入口进入博物馆空间，而不是通过特定的门漏斗。
我们还为展品本身提供物联网连接，这是艺术品托管的越来越多，我们正在驾驶其他物联网选项。这包括数字展览内容标签，最终将交互式和中央内容存储库中的多种语言提供艺术品信息。我们还评估了会议室的类似无线标签，而不是有线数字标牌，这是一种经济高效且灵活的选择。
在操作上，我们正在采用各种物联网技术，包括无线安全摄像机，并动员了我们的维护人员。诸如此类的能力以及我们未来期望的更多能力正在改善所有类型的博物馆工作人员的经验。
Safe, seamless, reliable
为了管理这一切，我们正在利用Clearpass和Airwave。
For Wi-Fi access, ClearPass enables us to segment network traffic to give our staff, partners and IoT devices the needed policy-based connectivity while keeping security strong. For guests, we use a ClearPass skin to harvest guest email addresses, which we provide to our marketing department weekly.
在网络管理方面，Airwave优化了我们的无线和有线基础架构。这是采用Aruba的供应商不稳定解决方案的关键因素，因为我们保持了异质的IT环境。
Becoming the cultural heart of the city
最重要的是，采用Aruba的Wi-Fi解决方案为我们提供了出色的灵活性和可扩展性。随着新的硬件和软件创新的可用，我们可以快速部署最新选项以满足不断发展的需求。另外，我们可以轻松适应更大的密度并微调我们的访问政策。
有了全面的解决方案，我们还可以评估其他员工，合作伙伴和来宾解决方案，例如移动参与应用程序以及通过Wi-Fi直播到我们的户外剧院。
All these efforts add up to providing superior experiences for our internal and external constituencies which, in turn, will help us achieve our overarching goal: becoming the cultural hub of the city by reshaping and reinvigorating not only the museum experience but also the future of Houston's civic life.
Shemon bar-tal担任首席技术官在美术博物馆,轩ton, since 2001. He is responsible for leading the strategic long-term goals for the institution's Information Technology department as well as the creation of the museum's long-term technology needs and directing infrastructure acquisitions to accomplish the organization's business objectives. His mission is improving guest and user experiences at the museum through innovative use of technology while containing overall IT costs.
