With more than 200 years of history, the University of La Laguna de Tenerife It is the most important higher education center in the Canary Islands. It welcomes more than 25,000 people, including students, teachers and administration and services staff.
The University has six university campuses, which house more than 30 buildings including faculties, institutes, university management and others. Some spaces that, since 2017, have been updating their infrastructure and access layers with HPE Aruba technology.
In particular there are deployed almost 2,000 wireless access points (W-iFi) that satisfy the extremely high demand for mobility connection of the university community. However, the University wanted to take advantage of the potential of this infrastructure even more and for this reason, they started up.
After the pandemic years, knowing the influx of its facilities It has become a critical aspect for the University. However, to cover this point it was necessary to install expensive additional systems for that function that added new loads to the IT equipment.
At this point, the partner Globalan Telecommunications came into play together with the Omnia Infosys development team, which, together with HPE Aruba, launched the innovative iWIP DATZN project to resolve the case raised.
With the only condition that each space had at least one Wi-Fi access point, the University of La Laguna was offered a complete set of tools that allow knowing both the level of occupancy in real time of the designated venues, as well as the evolution in the influx of people to them.
Specifically, the solution is based on the technologies: Aruba Location Engine (ALE) and iWIP DATZN. HPE Aruba technology is a virtual context aggregation and location engine that collects data about mobile devices. In the case of the iWIP DATZN tool, use the Wi-Fi network as a sensor network to analyze occupation and influx.
The main advantage of the solution is that it did not require additional equipment. With the Wi-Fi infrastructure of the University itself, it is possible to better understand the use profile of certain spaces, thanks to mobile connections that are evaluated completely anonymously.
Tangible benefits: efficiency, safety and cost savings
With the implementation of this solution, the University of La Laguna has managed to gain efficiency, security and cost savings, eliminating the installation of new devices that require more investment and management.
“Knowing the use profile of our spaces has allowed us to optimize the resources we dedicate to them: security, cleaning, lighting, etc.”explains José Carlos González González, Vice Manager of Strategic Planning at the University of La Laguna.
In addition to improving the efficient use of resources such as energy or cleaning, the University of La Laguna will be able to prevent and avoid dangerous situations that result in the well-being of the entire educational community.
