The University of Denver Selects Nile for Its Next-Gen Campus Network

Nile announced its Nile Access Service, an AI-powered Network-as-a-Service offering, has been selected by the University of Denver to support its new campus network serving thousands of students across multiple sites.

“At the outset, we knew that the same old networking model wasn’t going to work for our deployment,” said Russ Kaurloto, Vice Chancellor & CIO, University of Denver. “My team is tasked with helping our students excel, so I need them to prioritize those projects instead of spending most of their time integrating a hodge podge of different hardware and software products, constantly maintaining software updates, and dealing with a long list of network-related IT tickets. Nile provided us with a solution that gives us enterprise-class coverage, capacity, reliability, and security combined with automated network management - without any upfront capital costs.”

Located in the heart of downtown on 125 picturesque acres, the University of Denver is a nationally recognized private research university. It’s the oldest independent private university in the Rocky Mountain Region of the United States, founded in 1864. The University of Denver’s (DU) dorms were due for a Wi-Fi network upgrade, and the IT team needed a new solution that would address the unique security and deployment challenges the university faced. While the university initially relied on HPE/Aruba Networks for wireless connectivity and Cisco for wired switching, they wanted to investigate new approaches. Nile Access Service offered a cost model that made sense for their higher education environment, and lightened the load for its IT department, allowing them to focus on a key priority: enabling student success.

The Nile Access Service has been deployed across two residence halls with a combined capacity of 1,100 students, serving 2,500+ connections with more on the way. From site survey to final installation, Nile’s team led the deployment of the entire wired and wireless network. The unique architecture and capabilities of the solution allowed for a complete network refresh even while the dormitories were fully occupied. Currently, ten additional dorm buildings are being transitioned to the Nile Access Service.

Residents of the dorm now benefit from secure wired and wireless connectivity in a zero-trust environment that offers a 300% increase over the speed of the previous network, along with assured performance in terms of coverage, capacity, and availability. Instead of focusing on troubleshooting and upkeep, DU’s IT staff have more time for innovative projects that bolster student success. A flexible subscription-based pricing model made this deployment feasible and delivered excellent ROI, enabling the university to eliminate the need to spend more than $1M in upfront capital expense and save on anywhere from 7% to 10% in interest alone.

Source: Nile media announcement