CASE STUDY
A
bu Dhabi National Exhibition
Company (ADNEC) owns and
operates the 73,000 sqm Abu Dhabi
National Exhibition Centre with a vision
of being ‘the region’s leading exhibitions
venue’. Wi-Fi is a vital part of the exhibition
experience, leveraged for everything from
running demos, essential services and social
media engagement, to keeping international
guests and visitors connected without the
prohibitive cost of roaming services.
Ahmed Al Marzooqi, Director – IT, ADNEC,
and his team saw this as a business risk, as
the shortcomings of their ageing wireless
infrastructure inhibited their ability to
correctly deliver this fundamental service.
ADNEC’s legacy Wi-Fi infrastructure, based
on a seven-year technology, presented a
host of performance challenges. Feedback
collected from exhibitors, organisers,
internal staff and attendees after each
event had consistently highlighted poor
speed and regular connectivity drops as
leading pain-points.
“These connectivity shortcomings were
unbecoming of the Middle East’s largest
exhibition centre. They significantly
impacted our reputation and even
resulted in loss of revenue as exhibitors
looked for alternative venues based on
the poor feedback this critical service
received,” said Al Marzooqi. While Al
Marzooqi and his team saw the wireless
upgrade as an opportunity to build a
platform for innovation, they decided the
pressing concern was to first address Wi-Fi
performance and reliability.
Careful evaluation of solutions from leading
vendors, analysis of independent reports
from reputed industry research firms, and
feedback from other large public venues in
the Emirates led ADNEC to select Aruba.
“In addition to meeting all our requirements,
they demonstrated a flexible OpEx based
model and readiness to meet the unique
logistic challenges of our deployment,” said
Al Marzooqi.
With over 100 events and conferences held
at its exhibition centre each year, ADNEC
hosts exhibitors and attendees from across
the globe which raises peculiar challenges.
“We have users from developed nations
with the very latest smart devices, as well
as those from developing countries with
METICULOUS
PLANNING WAS
ESSENTIAL, GIVEN
THE MERE THREE
WEEKS WE HAD
TO COMPLETE
THE ENTIRE
INSTALLATION.
less advanced hardware. We have to
ensure everyone has a consistently positive
experience from the perspective of ease of
login to quality of service,” said Sunando
Chaudhuri, Advisor – IT, ADNEC.
Density demands and short
deployment windows
The sheer volume of events and seasonal
nature of business affords ADNEC only two
short windows – during the summer and
again, at the end of the year – for major
technology upgrades. This elevates the
complexity associated with overhauling
systems such as Wi-Fi wherein Access
points (APs) are distributed across the
entire venue.
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