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Henkel Headquarters - Germany

Henkel chooses Aruba

For more than 130 years, Henkel has been a leading company with brands and technologies that make people's lives easier, better and more beautiful. The company operates in three business segments: Laundry & Home Care, Personal Care and Adhesive Technologies. Henkel is one of the Fortune Global 500 companies and generates more than 60 percent of its sales in the fast-moving consumer goods sector, while the industrial business accounts for almost 40 percent of total sales.

In fiscal 2008, Henkel achieved sales of 14,131 million euros and an adjusted operating profit of 1,460 million euros. With more than 55,000 employees worldwide, the company dedicates itself daily to the guiding principle: "A Brand like a Friend" to ensure that people in over 125 countries can trust Henkel's brands and technologies.

Headquartered in Düsseldorf, Germany, with offices in over 125 countries worldwide, Henkel faced the challenge of providing wireless mobility solutions on a global scale.

Henkel, the name behind well-known brands such as Persil, Loctite and Schwarzkopf, recognized that the existing wireless LAN (WLAN) was burdened by outdated "thick" access points. These were not scalable, offered inadequate security and required a great deal of administrative effort.

To support logistics in warehouses, employee applications, guest access in offices and training centers, Henkel planned to implement "Next Generation WLANs" in many of its globally distributed offices. Given the scale and business importance of this network project, Henkel embarked on a rigorous selection process to identify the best provider for the project. Over 150 requirements were created, against which various vendors were tested and evaluated. Factors such as ease of network management and comprehensive security were at the top of the list.

"After the evaluation, we had assumed that it would be a tight affair," explains Detlef Feistl, System Engineer and IT specialist at Henkel. "We were all the more surprised when the analysis showed that Aruba was far ahead of the competition. Aruba met 87% of all criteria, while the competitor that came closest to Aruba met 50% of the criteria. But far more important for us was the fact that only Aruba met 100% of our security requirements."

Based on these convincing results, the global order followed immediately afterwards.

Until mid-2005, Henkel only had WLANs at selected locations. This was due to the fact that the "thick" access points required a great deal of administrative effort and complex security implementations, which in turn resulted in high costs of ownership. In order to realize the required expansion of the wireless LAN, it was decided to use a centrally manageable "thin" access point solution, combined with WPA-2 encryption and 802.1x authentication, whereby the existing Microsoft ISA servers were also integrated into the network.

The size of the network required automatic radio configuration and radio frequency (RF) management. The solution had to meet the different requirements of each office as well as the radio compliance laws in each country. Aruba's centrally managed, locally controlled implementation, combined with sophisticated automatic Adaptive Radio Management (ARM) at each access point, enabled easy and efficient deployment.

REQUIREMENTS

  • Centralized security, support of WPA-2 with
    802.1x authentication via Microsoft ISA Server Master Local architecture; allows worldwide
    Administration from one location; offers the
    Possibility to control the infrastructure locally
  • Centralized administration and reduction of total cost of ownership
  • Observance of the radio compliance laws in every
    Country, transmission strength and channel utilization
  • Layer-3 roaming to realize the potential of Voice over
    WLAN to the full
  • Support for existing 802.11b/g handhelds
    Scanners in the warehouses and support
    of existing and future laptop implementations incl. 802.11n standard

 

SOLUTION

  • More than 90 Aruba MC-800, MC-2400, MC-3400 and
    MMC-6000 Mobility Controller
  • More than 1,100 Aruba AP65 & AP-70 dual purpose
    802.11a +b/g Access Points, AP60/61 single radio
    Access Points und Outdoor AP80 Access Points

 

ADVANTAGES

  • Automatic RF management meets local
    Requirements.
  • Thin AP solution offers security and lower costs.
  • High availability solution
  • Centralized management, deployed locally
With around 1,100 Aruba Access Points and more than 90 Mobility Controllers deployed across Europe as well as in Australia, China, Russia and the United States, country-specific deployments were essential. Each Domain (DNS) implementation uses an Aruba 800, 2400 or 3400 Mobility Controller locally as a master with a redundant local controller to ensure business continuity. The network is centrally managed from Düsseldorf by the Aruba wireless management platform. Around a third of the access points are currently in use at Henkel's Düsseldorf office and warehouses.
The WLAN provides connectivity for employees with laptops in conference rooms, for participants attending courses and for handheld scanners used in the warehouses to manage logistics. The latter send real-time data to the SAP backend system. The WLAN also provides guests with the necessary connectivity and can separate them if there are too many guests.
Henkel is also evaluating the use of the Aruba Remote Access Point solution, which meets the same requirements for centralized control, management and security, to extend the corporate WLAN for teleworker or home office workstations. Although the WLAN is not currently used for voice-over-WiFi, it was important for Henkel that the solution supports this application via Layer 3 roaming. The ability to migrate to 802.11n at a later date was also important to the company, and Aruba was able to meet all of these requirements.
"Our experience so far has exceeded our expectations," said Feistl. "The intelligent controller-based architecture has proven itself and is particularly efficient for projects such as the implementation of new access points or software upgrades. The roll-out of WPA-2 at Henkel's WLAN in Europe was completed in just two hours. With a "thick" AP infrastructure, such a task would take at least two weeks. I am also very pleased with the very high availability of the network and ease of maintenance."

ABOUT US

Aeroaccess GmbH was founded in 2008 with the clear objective of providing mobile indoor and outdoor communication solutions to users worldwide as a medium-sized system house. In our continuous development, we have specialized in new and future-oriented technologies, which increasingly requires full-service models from our customers.

Our comprehensive range of services extends from planning, global logistics, implementation and management to on-site maintenance and support. We act not only as a solution provider, but also as a leasing partner. We currently support more than 300,000 users in over 175 countries in the use of mobile solutions.

With our move to Munich/Unterföhring, we are ready to tackle the next generation of mobile solutions. We are focusing more on end-to-end applications to provide our customers with enhanced functionality at both user and operator level. The integration of artificial intelligence and open APIs enables us to minimize downtime and reduce staff deployment.

HPE Aruba

Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, is a pioneer in delivering world-class enterprise mobility and networking solutions. With a clear focus on ease of use, reliability and security, Aruba creates innovative wireless LAN (WLAN), switching and security solutions for organizations worldwide.

Aruba's award-winning products, including the Aruba Mobility Controllers and Access Points, offer organizations the ability to build flexible and scalable networks. The patented Adaptive Radio Management (ARM) technology enables dynamic adjustment of the Wi-Fi environment to ensure optimal performance and connectivity. By integrating Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and IoT capabilities, Aruba also opens up innovative ways for companies to improve the user experience and introduce location-based services. Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

Aruba's holistic solutions span multiple industries and organization sizes, providing comprehensive networking capabilities to meet the growing needs of today's enterprises. With a strong focus on security, ease of use and innovation, Aruba remains a leading provider of wireless networking technologies, helping to improve the connectivity and productivity of organizations worldwide.

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