UWA Innovates: Network Upgrade Transforms Student Experience, Boosts Security, and Drives Sustainability

Never has it been more important for universities to do more with less. The recent announcement by the Federal Government to cap international student numbers, lingering challenges since COVID, and high levels of technology debt have forced many universities to find creative solutions.

University of Western Australia (UWA) recognized that investment in its underlying network was a major lever to improve the student experience, automate the management of core functions and ensure university data was protected. UWA invested in a complete replacement of its core network equipment (including adding Wi-Fi access points) and an analytics platform which allowed UWA to better understand and manage its space utilization. UWA focused its investment on delivering five benefits:

1. Transforming the student experience and enabling true hybrid learning: the new network provided seamless connectivity to service students both on-campus and remote.
2. Adding security and scalability to its research network: The upgrade improved security to protect sensitive research data and ensure the network could handle increasing volumes of data from various research projects. It also allowed UWA to support industry collaborators on its network and fulfill the stringent requirements of research grant agreements.
3. Delivering operational efficiencies and agility through automation: UWA wanted to move away from manual, error-prone, and time-consuming processes and towards automation tools and software-defined architectures that streamlined network operations and reduced manual processes.
4. Ensuring cybersecurity compliance with new Critical Infrastructure legislation: new cybersecurity obligations in sectors such as Defense required a network capable of enabling full-stack observability, real-time threat detection, and automated processes for incident management.
5. Improving UWA's sustainability performance, including reduced energy costs: advanced network monitoring and analytics allowed UWA to optimize energy usage across campus facilities and contribute to its sustainability goals.

A detailed case study on the UWA experience can be found here.

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