25 September, 2004: The American University of Beirut (AUB) has standardised on Aruba 's Wireless Grid architecture and related products to provide secure, pervasive and high performance indoor/ outdoor Wi-Fi coverage to a 70-acre campus. Considered the largest planned WLAN network in the Middle East, AUB's network is currently being installed by Aruba's reseller partner, Triple C (Computer Communications Consultants) of Beirut , Lebanon.

Consisting of over 300 Aruba 802.11a/b/g grid points, the network will cover 33 multi- story buildings and 21 outdoor areas where students assemble. The dense deployment of Aruba Series 61 grid points in user workspace will allow AUB to provide high performance 802.11a or b/g wireless connectivity when and where needed. New Aruba 60 series grid points will also be deployed in ceiling spaces to provide outdoor coverage using detachable antennas.

The phased deployment, expected to be completed by September 2005, will bring secure wireless connectivity to locations such as faculty buildings, student buildings, dormitories and gathering areas, the university library, and administration buildings. AUB anticipates over 1,000 users to initially register for the wireless service.

The university's decision to build a massive, high performance WLAN was aimed at improving student and faculty productivity by delivering more flexible access to a variety of data center applications. These applications include email and the Internet, the library catalogue and journals, computer-based courseware, the student information system, and Intranet services.

The university is deploying 300 new, low cost Aruba 60 series grid points.The software programmable, single radio, 802.11 a/b/g APs will be placed into seven zones of the AUB campus that are interlinked with their wired meshed Gigabit Ethernet connections.The wireless zones will be managed by eight Aruba 2400 series switches equipped with Aruba's wireless IDS software that allows AUB to automatically detect and eliminate rogue APs, wireless interference sources, ad-hoc networks and to block a wide variety of wireless intrusions and attacks.

ww.arubanetworks.com