NEWS
South Africa ’ s Central University of Technology partners with Datacentrix to upgrade WiFi
Busi Matube
The Central University of Technology , CUT , a higher education institution based in South Africa ’ s Free State province , has successfully rolled out phase one of its three-year network and Wi-Fi infrastructure upgrade , an important step in the university ’ s digital transformation journey . The project is being completed in partnership with Datacentrix , a hybrid ICT systems integrator and managed services provider .
“ Datacentrix ’ s strong footprint in education , which extends to the support of several local universities , and our excellent vendor certification levels , as Aruba Platinum Partner with ClearPass Policy Management competencies and the 2022 winner of the Aruba Partner Deal of the year award , were critical in our appointment to provide the procurement , configuration and installation of Wi-Fi equipment for a period of three years at both the Welkom and Bloemfontein campuses of the university , as were our Level One Broadbased Black Economic Empowerment certification and competitive pricing ,” adds Henry Denner , Datacentrix Account Manager : Commercial .
Says Busi Matube , CUT ’ s ICT Director and Chief Digital Officer : “ The driving force behind this infrastructure upgrade is our digital transformation strategy , with the aim of improving our connectivity efficiencies and speed , and our use of 4IR technologies . This will allow us to better leverage the Internet of Things , IoT for other projects we have in place , such as smart buildings , smart bins , a virtual reality environment for our engineering students , and more , located in different areas .”
“ Over this time , technology has changed and advanced , and the existing solution , which was not scaled for high volume connectivity , was under increasing pressure ,” he comments . “ With around 22,000 staff and students on campus , each with a minimum of two devices apiece and expectations of being able to connect wirelessly around the campus , connection speed had increasingly become an issue for us , and end-of-life infrastructure needed to be replaced .”
MSP Metacom deploys hyper-scale Nutanix Enterprise Cloud to meet demands of growth
Nutanix , announced that Metacom has successfully deployed Nutanix Enterprise Cloud as it embraces a new era of hyper-scalability to match the demands of its growing business . Drawing from the full Nutanix suite , the company has been able to seamlessly replace ageing infrastructure ,
Alex Russell gain complete visibility across client sites and geographies , and put itself in a position to scale up client requests in days .
As a managed service provider that also produces and deploys its own hardware , routers to ensure the effective delivery of its SD-WAN , POS , multi-media , and Wi-Fi services , Metacom turned to Nutanix to meet its needs for robust , secure , and uninterrupted access to its network . Notably , the company currently services clients from diverse industries , with a growing footprint in the retail sector , where it delivers services to more than 7000 retail outlets in over 20 countries .
“ The sheer rate at which we are onboarding new clients is great for business , but it strains our technology . The environment was just not fit for purpose , could not scale , and could not support the growth we were experiencing . In short , if we did not make a move , our systems would fail us ,” says Casper Visser , Network Manager , Metacom .
“ Metacom has truly drawn the best out of the Enterprise Cloud Suite . They have created an environment that can scale as needed , have full visibility with tightly integrated management , and now have the resiliency and redundancy they wanted from a hyperconverged solution ,” says Alex Russell , Regional Sales Manager , SADC at Nutanix .
When Metacom ’ s system upgrade window opened , it opted to investigate a hyperconverged platform that would afford it the scale it needed . The live , real-time hosted solutions it delivers include digital displays , audio and radio streaming , its full spectrum Wi-Fi services , VoIP , retail analytics , and its network performance solution Metacom Online . All of these systems cannot suffer any downtime and need to be able to scale in hours if a client ’ s needs change . p
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