EDITOR ’ S NOTE
Greetings to the readers of Intelligent CIO Africa . One of the principal ICT areas that is always under pressure to expand and improve is wireless connectivity . Successful businesses will typically increase their employees every year and employees will carry with them a minimum of two and even three devices . Work at home , after school education , and home entertainment are consistent drivers for a continuous upgrade of home networking .
In this month ’ s lead feature we consider how a South African educational institution has successfully upgraded their wireless connectivity and management solutions to boost on-campus student experience .
The Central University of Technology , 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 . The project is being completed in partnership with Datacentrix , a hybrid ICT systems integrator and managed services provider ..
Prior to this , Central University of Technology ’ s infrastructure was failing to meet the needs of both students and staff , with connectivity issues becoming a sore point for the University . With around 22,000 staff and students on campus , each with a minimum of two devices and expectations of being able to connect wirelessly around the campus , connectivity had become an issue .
Challenges for Central University of Technology included low through-put , resulting in poor connectivity ; poor coverage , both inside and outside ; and a lack of visibility on the network .
However , trusted partnership built over recent years between Datacentrix and Central University of Technology along with Aruba ’ s access points , 802.11ax Wi-Fi 6 , and Aruba Central have helped to transform the on-campus connectivity experience .
Turn these pages to read more on these fascinating use cases inside Africa .
Moving forward , in our well-thumbed Editor ’ s Question section , as digital complexity increases and performance expectations of African business decision makers soar , what tools and solutions can IT adopt to manage availability , performance and experiences ?
Executives from Tech Mahindra , Riverbed , and SolarWinds offer insights and recommend tools and solutions that can help African IT and security administrators manage application availability and network performance more holistically .
All of this and our range of thought leadership blogs , news , and trends in the pages ahead . Happy reading .
Arun Shankar Managing Editor arun @ lynchpinmedia . com
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