地方政府Wi-Fi将挑战变成机遇

When Trafford Council needed to vacate its town hall temporarily, its IT department linked with Aruba Networks to turn a challenge into an opportunity. With support from its longstanding local IT partner Mavoda, the council was able to do something it had not done before: deploy government-grade wireless networking, and get BYOD and teleworking coverage for staff, councillors and local citizens into the bargain.

“We had a workshop in about 2009 with key staff to identify technologies that could improve our service to both staff and citizens,” explains John Mann, head of infrastructure at Trafford, a metropolitan borough council within England’s Greater Manchester region. “We’d never had wireless at that point – it just hadn’t happened, plus the workforce wasn’t as mobile or agile back then.

“机会是我们遇到了住宿问题 - 市政厅正在关闭进行翻新，因此我们想要一个覆盖网络，我们可以快速提供其他空间。当然，我们现在发现的是对此的扩展 - 人们移动，网络必须遵循。”

可以肯定地说，我们的Aruba Wi-Fi超出了我们的期望。
托尼·凯特尔（Tony Kettle），, Network & Communications Manager at Trafford Metropolitan Borough Council

市政厅的翻新和临时办公室的搬迁使IT团队可以检查对Wi-Fi的需求是否存在，这无疑是。此外，它使他们能够与建筑物承包商联络，以确保将翻新的建筑物设置为无线设置。他们还旨在尽可能多地卫生网络，例如选择使用Wi-Fi饱和新建筑物，以便添加无线VoIP时，容量就会存在。

“One thing we made sure of is coverage,” says Mann. “My advice is don’t just use heat-maps or RF plans – understand the fabric of your building. Going through the process in our temporary accommodation gave us a really good insight into the signal coverage challenges in the new building, so we worked with our contractors to ensure the fabric would be conducive to wireless.”

“With the new town hall, a big selling point for us was agile working,” adds Tony Kettle, Trafford’s network & communications manager. “We used Wi-Fi in a big way tocover the temporary accommodation, plus wired too – both were available everywhere. Now we are back in the town hall, fixed desk workers still use wired, but the others all use wireless.

“一开始我们想证明the technology worked for us, that it was complementary to wired - it has now become more than a complement. Going around the building I notice how many people are sat at desks, but the cables are not plugged in. The new building has a lot of breakout areas too, and it’s common to see people sitting there with their laptops out.”

When the council put out its tender for a wireless network, its demands were strict. It required a secure separation of public and private networks on the same infrastructure, it had to be scalable and flexible, and of course it had to meet the UK’s Government Secure eXtranet (GSX) code of conduct. “That Aruba was我们工厂检验计划S-compliant是一个额外的卖点，”曼恩指出。

特拉福德团队还知道他们需要确保设备对他们有效，在此过程中，他们想起了使用正确的工具来进行任务的正确Wi-Fi站点调查的重要性，而不仅仅是快速带笔记本电脑走来走去。

“Before we bought the kit, we told Aruba what we were thinking of and they lent us hardware to test, but we couldn’t get it working properly,” says Kettle. “We were hours away from binning it in frustration, then an Aruba engineer came in with a spectrum analyser and found the problem: the infra-red detectors on the fire alarms also had Wi-Fi, and even though it was not in use it was turned on, so the Wi-Fi access points were constantly being knocked off channels.”

“My advice to anyone undertaking a project like this is always do proper surveys of coverage, connectivity and speed, and set expectations for the business,” adds Mann. “And remember that you also need the right tools and expertise for a proof-of-concept. For example, our network team has its own spectrum analyser now and checks all new sites.”

他继续说：“招标过程的很大一部分是选择合适的合作伙伴。自2009年以来，我们一直与Mavoda合作 - 他们和Aruba似乎拥有一定水平的专业知识，他们总是热衷于与我们开会，并提供咨询和信息以进一步开发解决方案。”

除了关键的业务安全Wi-Fi外，实施Aruba Wireless的其他重大胜利是BYOD，无论阿鲁巴远程访问点(RAPs) at home. “People like that with RAPs there’s no messing about and no need for VPNs – you just get your laptop out and boot up,” says Mann.

He continues: “Now libraries are telling us they need wireless, like an Internet café. We’re not really seeing a big BYOD uptake at the council, but certainly in libraries people want to use their own devices, not the council’s. So it’s registering, on-boarding and managing those devices, and self-provisioning is very important because our counter staff are busy enough already.

“我们正在寻找ClearPass，因为自我保护非常重要。不过，自我注册面临挑战 - 您是否有某种验证或资格？We found the best way of dealing with that was some sort of kiosk where you present your details so we know you are on site, then the library or help-desk staff get an email and as soon as they click ‘approve’ your device is on-board.”

Mann adds that the success of the town hall Wi-Fi and of a pilot installation at the central library has generated more work for the network team, not less. For one thing, they need to resurvey their earliest Wi-Fi sites as they move from coverage focused on specific problem areas towards blanket coverage, and for another they need to make the wireless network more robust.

他解释说：“这是一个覆盖网络，但它已经变得至关重要，因此我们需要系统中的一些冗余。”“我们的WAN已经在后牙具有弹性，现在Wi-Fi似乎正在吸引它。”幸运的是，添加弹性并不是Aruba网络的问题，因为可以将其移动性控制器配对并聚集以使故障耐受性。尽管这意味着还有更多事情要做，但曼恩说这是一个好兆头，这不是一个坏兆头。他笑着说：“我们一直是我们自己成功的受害者。”

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