Education/SMB | New York Hall of Science

New York Hall of Science Finds Adonis 500 to be the Perfect Appliance for DHCP

BACKGROUND

Built initially as a pavilion for the 1964 World’s Fair, the New York Hall of Science is now New York City’s premier hands-on science and technology center, encouraging visitors to explore the wonder and excitement of biology, chemistry and physics. The Hall features the largest collection of hands-on science exhibits in New York City, and its mission is “to convey the excitement and understanding of science and technology to children, families, teachers and others by galvanizing their curiosity and offering them creative, participatory ways to learn”. The New York Hall of Science features more than 400 hands-on exhibits and, since 1986, has served more than 5 million children, parents, and teachers.

OPPORTUNITY

Whereas the New York Hall of Science could once be considered a relatively small organization, the number of exhibits and visitors has increased annually. As such, the Hall’s network infrastructure has similarly grown in complexity, in order to support the hundreds of technologically advanced science and technology exhibits the Hall offers. Specifically, DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) had become fundamental to the Hall’s mission, as more and more services involved wireless communications and other network applications. Effective DHCP ensures a more efficient utilization of increasingly scarce IP addresses through lease management. However, if there is only one DHCP server, and it fails, then IP address assignments cannot be made to network devices, leases are not renewed, and customers cannot be serviced.

Typical of most small to medium-sized businesses, the New York Hall of Science had initially relied on hosted service providers for DHCP. This approach can initially appear to offer practical cost savings, but contains many hidden costs and risks that are not always apparent until a loss of service occurs. According to the Hall’s Director of Technology, Stephen Uzzo, this was exactly the case at the New York Hall of Science: “DHCP failures were occurring on average once per month, which wreaked havoc by forcing us to go offline. It was particularly problematic when leases expired during downtime”. The Hall had definitively outgrown their current Sonic Wall DHCP device, and needed a scalable, enterprise-level DHCP solution that would provide a resolute level of security and reliability.

SOLUTION

New York Hall of Science evaluated the DNS One appliance from Infoblox and the Adonis 500 Dedicated DHCP Appliance™ from BlueCat Networks. BlueCat’s appliance offers advanced DHCP configuration and management capabilities for small and mid-sized businesses seeking better control of business-critical applications requiring dynamic IP assignment. Administrators can easily manage DHCP services using Adonis’ feature-rich, comprehensive suite of tools and wizards to securely and consistently configure, deploy, and administer dynamic IP address distribution. The Hall selected the Adonis 500 from BlueCat, based on the appliance architecture, its user-friendly interface, BlueCat’s responsive staff, and the exalting customer references the New York Hall of Science received. “Everyone raved about Adonis,” recounts Uzzo, “turns out, it was all true!”

IMPACT

The extremely scalable Adonis 500 Dedicated DHCP Appliance addressed and improved the reliability, security, and efficient management of IP address leases and allocations at the New York Hall of Science. Uzzo found that “It fit the bill nicely. It’s the perfect device for DHCP applications”. “It works like air. ” Uzzo went on, “when you walk into a room, you expect that air will always be there and always sustain your breathing. With the Adonis, you walk into an enterprise, you expect DHCP to always work and to always sustain your business”. The appliance has also helped the Hall to meet the standards that the City of New York has set, and though it was more expensive to purchase at the outset, the Hall’s investment has certainly paid off. Uzzo reported that “the appliance…is rock-solid. Ever since we installed it in 2004, we’ve never had a failure of any kind. We don’t need to worry about DHCP anymore”.

With appliances from BlueCat Networks, the same enterprise-class features and capabilities that meet the stringent needs of the world’s largest organizations are affordable and applicable to the SMB. Adonis’ user-focused interface, proven feature set, and iron-clad security were designed with scalability in mind, addressing the needs of small to medium-sized businesses as well as it does for larger businesses. When the TCO savings of the Adonis solution are factored in, there is simply no better solution for providing the DHCP services on which any business depends.