City University College Ajman partnered with Huawei to integrate, upgrade, and scale its existing IT infrastructure to meet its current and future needs, and has been delighted with the results.
City University College Ajman (CUCA) was opened in 2012, and is one of the city’s most prominent educational institutions. The university currently has 200 employees and 2,000 students, and also offers 15 programmes in Bachelors and Masters degrees. Earlier in April this year, the ruler of Ajman inaugurated a major milestone for the university – the opening of CUCA’s new state-of-the-art campus.
The first phase of the campus, comprising a land area of 1 million sq. ft., was completed in 2017 and opened doors to students in January for the spring semester. The new campus, which cost AED 200 million, has some of the most state-of-the-art equipment from high tech classrooms to computers, media labs, a student centre, TV studio, library and sporting facilities.
Objectives
CUCA was in need of a strong ICT player who had the capability to integrate, upgrade, and scale the existing IT infrastructure to meet the current and future needs of the university. Huawei presented their offerings to CUCA, and after reviewing several ICT players, CUCA decided to award the project to Huawei.
Solution
Huawei collaborated with CUCA and implemented their industry-leading end-to-end Agile Education Campus solution as well as a number of complimenting solutions such as campus agile switches with native access controller, agile controller, and eSight.
President of City University
College of Ajman
Huawei’s Agile Education Campus is an industry-leading solution that is convergent, advanced, and easy to manage. The solution deployed across the new campus supports wired and wireless access and uses high-density access points for complete coverage. Intelligent fault detection and fault location capabilities significantly shorten network fault recovery time and simplify network management and service deployment. The solution also accommodates future network expansion requirements – something that CUCA was in need of.
Additionally, the solution allows for the infrastructure to be easily built and programmed around the specific needs of the campus. IT managers maintaining the network are able to respond to requirements on-demand. In addition, the power of scalability enables future expansion plans.
Results
Some of the major advantages that have resulted include more unified and coordinated communication. The network now allows for seamless communication across different departments in the same campus.
Optimised operational costs – IT managers do not need to physically deal with each component of IT at different locations but enjoy a holistic view of the entire ICT infrastructure from a single pane. Consequently, this has drastically optimised OPEX as well as total cost of ownership. Comprehensive security was key. Access to websites or social media platforms that may be considered inappropriate can now be monitored. With the help of next-gen firewalls, authentication systems, intrusion prevention systems, anti-virus and anti-spam software, Huawei allows access to secured communication and information without compromising the quality of the user experience.
Customer testimonial
“While the solution in itself is highly reliable, we chose Huawei because of their approach, and strategy for the education industry,” Imran Khan, president of City University College of Ajman, said. “We had several players to choose from; however when we took costs, timeline of delivery, and quality of service into account, Huawei seemed to be the ideal choice.
“City University College of Ajman is responsible for delivering top standards of learning and education to a whole new generation. Thanks to Huawei’s global expertise, they understood our needs and their customised education solution properly addresses our requirements. We truly believe we have an ideal choice in choosing our ICT partner and we look forward to the next phases of our project.”
