Update From Brett
Wireless and Ready!
"It is a bit freaky with this wireless technology."
Wireless is a long-term trend for students and staff alike, and Emory is making a bold push in this area, not because wireless can be less expensive than wired but because "untethered" is the way people like to work and live. Our plans for Back-To-School (BTS) hit a roadblock and the team responded beautifully.
The initial request, begun one week before BTS, was to install approximately 220 AP-61 access points, spread across the student dorms on main campus. We assembled teams consisting of Field Services, data engineers, architecture design, and contractor staff. The majority of this work was completed during the week, however some weekend work was required.
A key decision that helped with fast turnaround time was to use free-hanging command strips for the APs. This meant that the installation method would be much quicker since no holes would be drilled and the APs could be relocated at a later date when timing wasn't the biggest driving force.
The APs were provisioned by Zack Wade (Infrastructure) and were staged by Lamar Kelly (Field Services) according to building locations. Mike Politinsky (Infrastructure) tracked overall progress while Kim Braxton's team (Academic Technology Services) completed spot checks as installations were completed. It was pure cross-team collaboration at its finest. They even added 25 APs at Oxford, which didn't allow building access until the day before BTS.
The team was able to complete all installs prior to BTS weekend. There were additional APs needed that the BTS crew addressed during the move-in weekend. At the next school break, the wireless project team will permanently mount the APs.
Many of your co-workers pulled together to make this effort a success. Paul Petersen (Infrastructure), Alan Cattier (ATS), and Marisa Benson's PMO were all very professional, not because they were afraid of failing, but because they saw the need and agreed to work together. This involved a lot of trust and it showed that we are an organization that knows what it wants and how to get there.
By utilizing workarounds, and by committing to permanent installations at a later date, we prioritized this work through our regular project mechanisms, which is an organizational maturity that we haven't had before. This prioritization was an instance of placing operational work over the usual project methodology and the earlier completion of the regular 802.11n project. This shows we can adapt to the needs of the moment for the betterment of the overall mission.
- Brett Coryell, Deputy CIO, UTS