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Innoventures Education students benefit from a fully integrated digital environment

UAE-based Innoventures Education is delivering learning experiences by creating a completely integrated digital learning environment based on Aruba’s solutions

Innoventures Education modernises network infrastructure at its UAE schools to facilitate a fully integrated digital learning environment that elevates teaching and learning experiences for staff and students.

Tech solution provider Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, has implemented wired and wireless networking solutions at five Innoventures Education schools to achieve 100 per cent Wi-Fi coverage and seamless roaming across the campuses.

The installation of over 1,000 APs has provided reliability and smooth operations as over 10,000 devices connect to the network from across the Innoventures Education Group’s five school campuses.

Poonam Bhojani, CEO, Innoventures Education, says: “Aruba’s wired and wireless connectivity has eliminated the physical boundaries of the campus and enabled our students and teachers to stay connected, both on campus and online. This has made it possible for us to deliver teaching anywhere, anytime thereby creating a fully integrated learning environment."

Innoventures Education has over 7,500 students from over 100 countries, ranging in age from 45 days to 18 years, studying in schools and nurseries. With the modernised wired and wireless network infrastructure to facilitate a fully integrated digital learning environment, about 1,250 staff and over 7,500 students at five of its international schools are benefiting from the solution.

Innoventures Education operates Dubai International Academy in Al Barsha and Emirates Hills, Collegiate International School, Raffles International School and Raffles World Academy in Dubai, as well as nine Raffles Early Learning Centres.

“From a technology perspective, it is our mission to provide a secured network that enables our students to access various learning systems that enhance the learning experience. A strong network is a backbone of IT services and is an essential requirement in today’s world," explains Ms. Bhojani.

Building on a strong foundation

As a long-standing Aruba customer, schools of the Innoventures Education Group were the first educational institutes in the UAE to implement an end-to-end Aruba network architecture, enabling a state-of-the-art IT environment comprising infrastructure from Hewlett Packard and HP desktops, laptops, and printing equipment.

Rapid digitalisation of the education sector prompted a need for the Group to consider a network infrastructure refresh. Aruba continued to present a strong case for the group to build on its long-standing success and proven architecture.

“While we did our due diligence and evaluated other vendors which were also Gartner Magic Quadrant leaders, we were especially impressed by Aruba's diverse range of enhanced Network Access Control (NAC) solutions and security orchestration with ClearPass, as well as its broad range of wireless access points and switches unified in a coherent design,” adds Ms. Bhojani.

Elevated experiences from day one

Implementing Aruba’s wired and wireless networking solutions enabled the Innoventures Education schools to achieve 100 per cent coverage across each of its school campuses without any blind spots, thanks to the installation of over 1,000 APs. This performance and reliability are pivotal to smooth operations as on average, over 10,000 devices connect to the network from across the Group’s five campuses.

“Aruba enables students and teachers to securely access Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Teams and other popular teaching, learning and collaboration applications without experiencing delays, jitter, or dropped connections,” says Ms. Bhojani.

Securely supports bring your own device (BYOD)

In a highly connected world, the diversity of digital devices and their personalised nature means that the Innoventures Education Group’s staff and students would prefer to use their own devices for studying or as well as for leisure. Standard-issue laptops or tablets are not only costly but also seem to be a thing of the past.

“All our campuses now support BYOD and thanks to Aruba’s zero trust architecture, all our mission-critical cloud applications – our student management system, library management system, e-assessments, and learning management system – are seamlessly and securely accessible to relevant stakeholders,” adds Ms. Bhojani.

Aruba ClearPass has been key to supporting BYOD for staff and students in a truly secure manner. The solution’s QuickConnect, Policy Manager, OnGuard, and Guest features ensure that personal and institution-owned devices alike can rapidly connect to the network, while checking that these meet pre-set configuration and security criteria, and that only relevant resources are accessible based on predefined roles.

Platform for ongoing digitalisation

The new network infrastructure forms the backbone of the group’s ongoing digitalisation program, supporting a wide range of devices including desktops, laptops, projectors, interactive display panels, iPads, CCTV systems, signage TVs, and attendance and access control systems.

“Our mission is to leverage technologies that work together cohesively to augment the overall experience that students have at our schools. Aruba’s network ensures these solutions operate efficiently and effectively which translates to intuitive and truly world-class experiences,” says Ms. Bhojani.

Reduces management overheads

With operations spread across five school campuses, simplified, centralised management of the entire network – made possible by the implementation of Aruba’s 7200 series controllers – has been tremendously beneficial to Innoventures Education’s IT team. “Aruba facilitates automation of previously manual processes, which leads to the smooth running of our network. This also simplifies operations and reduces costs and risks,” explains Ms. Bhojani.

“Because of the considerable reduction in connectivity related support tickets, and the improved time to resolution, we now require fewer resources for network management. We expect this to result in savings of 50 per cent over a three-year period,” she adds.

Fully integrated learning environment

It isn’t just the Aruba technology that has impressed Innoventures Education. “We find the team to be customer-centric. Their paradigm isn’t just the implementation of devices, but rather, to address their customers’ challenges and provide effective solutions,” says Ms. Bhojani.

“Aruba’s wired and wireless connectivity has eliminated the physical boundaries of the campus and enabled our students and teachers to stay connected, both on campus and online. This has made it possible for us to deliver anywhere, anytime teaching and learning, thereby creating a fully integrated learning environment,” she says.

Jacob Chacko, regional director — Middle East, Saudi and South Africa at Aruba, said: “While ensuring great student experiences and supporting student success is a primary focus, ensuring best IT experiences is important too, especially in today’s campus where device proliferation and security concerns require detailed visibility and management of the network. We are very happy to have collaborated with Innoventures Education in their digital transformation journey and look forward to enlarging our engagement with the institution in the future”.