Manchester Health Academy

Manchester Health Academy

Contract Value: £5,000
Location: Manchester

Working with one of our partners, Playfords successfully replaced Manchester Health Academy’s faltering Aruba solution with a new Fortinet managed wireless solution during 2012.

The initial phase of the project was to complete an active wireless survey of the existing Aruba wireless deployment to document the coverage & performance issues. This was completed by one of our network consultants using the Fluke AirMagnet Survey Pro software application to measure the signal strength, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), connection speed & many other wireless parameters across the school site. This was used by the customer to show the problems they were having with the existing network installation, and as a comparison tool against any potential new installation.

The installation phase of the project consisted of replacing all the existing Aruba wireless access points with new Fortinet AP320 units, and installing a new Fortinet MC3200 wireless controller at the core of the network. We also re-configured all of the academy’s existing HP network switches with new VLAN information to integrate the new hardware into their existing network infrastructure. In addition, further AP320 access points were also installed in new locations which had been missed by the previous deployment, ensuring full site-wide coverage using the newer 802.11n technology. A post installation active wireless survey was completed to document the coverage & performance provided by the new solution, and could be easily compared against the previous survey to highlight the improvements.

Since the completion of the upgrade project, we have continued to work with the customer in enhancing the services delivered by the wireless network. This has included additional wireless networks and additional VLANs as well as the ongoing software updates and support.