Cisco has signed a deal with U.K.-based Nottingham Trent University (NTU) and will deliver one of the largest deployments of unified communications (UC) in the Higher Education sector.
The University turned to Cisco (News - Alert) and Logicalis to establish a well-managed, cost-effective platform. Cisco and Gold Certified Partner Logicalis are expected to collaborate to develop a complete cross-campus Cisco UC system.
With this system deployment, students can wirelessly access all the university’s resources online and also work wherever they are on the campus. Additionally, the Cisco UC system is expected to play a key role in the university’s multi-million pound development of the Newton Arkwright building in the city center. Plus, Cisco UC will help the integration of phones with the University’s Wi-Fi infrastructure.
“By installing the Cisco Unified Communications (News - Alert) system across the university, we now have a platform for our communications infrastructure to develop alongside the university,” said David Swayne, IT Director at NTU.
He believes that this project will go a long way towards driving innovation at NTU, and also helps enhance the University’s national and international reputation as a “dynamic” and “forward-thinking” institution.
The University is taking advantage of Cisco's Unified Workspace Licensing, procuring a broad range of Cisco Unified Communications applications and services on a per-user basis.
With converged voice-and-data network, the IT department expects to manage resources efficiently and provide staff ample time to support a growing student body and expanding campus.
A single-vendor solution is expected to address interoperability issues, helping NTU grow and adapt the network as student needs evolve.
Earlier, the NTU was using separate voice systems which caused many problems in the University's IT infrastructure. According to Cisco, the challenge for the company was to bring these varied systems together to enable students and staff to access voice, data, video and mobile applications on the new network.
Anshu Shrivastava is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Anshu’s articles, please visit her columnist page.Edited by Stefania Viscusi