En1657 case study bluesocket poke

About Poke Poke is a digital creative agency that helps brands and companies leverage digital channels and techniques to achieve the business objectives. They started as a team of six in 2001 and have grown to over 60 employees in the past 10 years.

The Challenge

vWLAN Provides Poke Employees and Guests with Increased Connectivity and Reliability

Poke needed a solution that would provide reliable wi-fi access for their employees, require minimal hardware investment, and enable scalability for future growth, both in additional offices and more employees.

The Solution Poke installed vWLAN, software-based centralized control, residing on their existing VMware deployment with Bluesocket Access Points.

The Benefit Employees have found increased productivity and satisfaction because of consistent reliability and connectivity. The cost and functional advantages of virtualization have now been extended to the wi-fi network. The staff is also now able to provide visitors with unique guest access ID’s that restrict access from servers and printers and expire on a certain date.

Poke is a premier creative design agency who specializes in innovative concepts and unique online strategies. Recent client projects have included earning a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most tagged photo and starting the first YouTube Fashion Boutique.

Due to expansion, the company’s initial wi-fi network was no longer providing the connectivity necessary and Poke realized they needed a new wireless network solution. By implementing ADTRAN’s Virtual Wireless LAN (vWLAN) solution, the staff and visitors at Poke now have consistent network access and extended wireless coverage, resulting in increased productivity and employee satisfaction.

Real People Over the past few years, Poke, which has offices in London and New York, has undergone tremendous growth with the London office expanding from five employees to their current 60. The London office used Apple Mac servers with wireless points, but as the company grew the home-style network configuration was not meeting the needs of the London location. “We had outgrown our environment and needed a solid, scalable enterprise solution,” said Tom Davies, IT Manager at Poke.

Employees found that their productivity was often disrupted because of unreliable connectivity. Davies said that staff often lost network access when they took their computer to another part of the office and workflow was interrupted. In addition, Poke did not have a secure solution for guest access.

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“I am very pleased with vWLAN and it has worked as I wanted it to. This solution suited us very nicely.”

Tom Davies, IT Manager

Real Enterprise Wi-Fi Poke decided it was time to upgrade the network and began working with Westcom Networks, an ADTRAN partner. One of the priorities was to move to a virtualized network environment as an alternative to additional hardware for both efficiency and cost savings.

Having deployed VMware, Poke was familiar with the benefits of virtualization for simplifying IT infrastructure, hardware consolidation and effortless scaling and management. “When you have a reasonably small infrastructure, there aren’t a lot of products that you can set up on a budget,” said Davies.

Westcom Networks suggested ADTRAN’s Virtual Wireless LAN (vWLAN) solution to Poke. The vWLAN solution does not include an expensive hardware controller, because the control function is virtualized on software that resides on a hypervisor. Network administration is greatly simplified since vWLAN allows for centralized control and management of all access points– in any location around the world.

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Also, vWLAN is certified as VMware-Ready, VMware’s highest designation of endorsement for partner solutions, allowing VMware customers to further leverage their existing VMware investment.

After considering Cisco and other vendors, Davies decided that ADTRAN’s vWLAN would best meet their needs. The vWLAN architecture would provide Poke a virtualized wireless network along with integrated guest access. Poke would not need the expensive controller hardware required by other network solutions instead they could deploy vWLAN on VMware, further reducing capital equipment costs and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Moreover, vWLAN’s distributed architecture separates the control and data planes, allowing Bluesocket APs to reach an aggregate throughput to 200-300 Gbps.

“I like the idea of less hardware. The less to go wrong, the better,” said Davies. Poke was also impressed with the level of support they received from both ADTRAN and Westcom Networks on the vWLAN installation. “When you are such a smaller customer; it is difficult to get hands on support without expensive contracts, but with the vWLAN, support was easily accessible.”

Increased Reliability and Employee Satisfaction After the vWLAN was installed, the Poke staff immediately enjoyed seamless connectivity throughout the entire office and more reliable connections allowing them to roam without connection drops from one AP to another. Employees can now be found working on other floors, in the front reception area and even on the terrace in the summer. “No one thinks twice about where they work because they know they can get the access wherever they need it,” said Davies.

Because of the configurability of the vWLAN, employees can also securely connect to the network from a variety of devices. “Everyone is now able to connect from whatever device they are using, from a 5-year old Windows PC, a brand new Mac Laptop, an iPad or an Android phone,” said Davies. The security is at the edge of the network, so unwanted traffic is turned away at the access point and not brought onto the network.

The virtualized wireless network has come in handy for support issues. Even when offsite, the environment can be administered using remote access into the virtual wireless environment via the Web UI. Poke also found ADTRAN to be very responsive when assisting with the configuration of the security settings on the vWLAN.

Easy to Use Management Features and Customizable Guest Access Davies is impressed with the management features, such as creating destinations and logins. The vWLAN management software allows him to monitor the network and troubleshoot from the central application and location.

“All of these features are quite handy when you start using them. You can’t do some of these tasks with other wireless network solutions, unless you purchase third-party add-ons. But with ADTRAN’s vWLAN solution, they are all included,” said Davies.

A management feature that has been exceptionally useful to Poke is the ability to create customized logins. In addition to using the main SSID to create

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“All of these features are quite handy when you start using them. You can’t do some of these tasks with other wireless network solutions, unless you purchase third-party add-ons.

But with ADTRAN’s vWLAN solution, they are all included.”

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internal accounts, vWLAN supports unique guest logins that are valid only for a set period of time. The user’s role is managed by the central management software, but enforced by the APs. Poke appreciates these features that are inherent to vWLAN, since other vendor solutions require additional hardware to support guest access.

Post-Sales Technical Support

Each guest login is set to access specific parts of the network and can be restricted so guests cannot access printers and servers. When students or clients visit the office the receptionist at Poke is able to quickly create guest logins specific to the needs and privileges of each person.

Pre-Sales Technical Support 800 615-1176 toll-free application.engineer@adtran.com www.adtran.com/support Where to Buy 877 280-8416 toll-free channel.sales@adtran.com www.adtran.com/where2buy

888 423-8726 support@adtran.com www.adtran.com/support

Global Inquiries 256 963 8000 voice 256 963-6300 fax international@adtran.com www.adtran.com/global

Looking Towards the Future Another selling point for Poke was the future scalability offered by vWLAN. The virtualized instance of the control function allows Poke to add additional APs to support new satellite or home offices in the future. Because Poke will not have to purchase more hardware, this will equate to substantial cost savings compared to other wireless network solutions. In addition, Davies will be able to effortlessly control and manage the new office locations using the same vWLAN management software residing on VMware, from his office in London – a function that no other wireless solution can offer. vWLAN’s distributed architecture provides up to a 10x increase in network capacity. If the pattern of employee growth continues, vWLAN enables Poke to easily increase the number of users with additional APs - instead of expensive hardware controllers.

“I am very pleased with vWLAN and it has worked as I wanted it to. This solution suited us very nicely,” said Davies.

EN1657A October Copyright © 2011 ADTRAN, Inc. All rights reserved. ADTRAN believes the information in this publication to be accurate as of publication date, and is not responsible for error. Specifications subject to change without notice. ADTRAN, Bluesocket, NetVanta, VMware and vWLAN are registered trademarks of ADTRAN, Inc. and its affiliates in the U.S. and certain other countries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners. Five-year warranty applies only to products sold in North America.

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