An Enterprise-grade Wireless Infrastructure within Government
During the past few years, the MITA Network Engineering Services (NES) team embarked on a journey to modernize wireless network connectivity across all government departments and entities.
The demand and importance of a stable wireless infrastructure has significantly increased during the last few years as more and more devices transition from wired to wireless connectivity. The Malta Information Technology Agency (MITA) NES team designed and implemented this new wireless infrastructure by making use of cutting edge enterprise grade equipment within its Data Centres and government remote offices.
MITA published a wireless procurement framework such that a new centralised wireless and network access control solution could be purchased through this framework. This framework can be utilised by all Government CIO Offices such that any requests related to the provision of wireless connectivity can be purchased at advantageous prices, as a result of economies of scale.
The wireless equipment available through this framework supports the latest wireless technologies including better performance and coverage over the previous wireless infrastructure. Also, the new wireless solution utilizes the latest security mechanisms such that MITA can provide a secure wireless network environment. Implementing secure wireless connectivity is crucial and will provide peace of mind to the user, especially when accessing government related critical data or confidential applications. This infrastructure provides a high-availability environment which can also scale up according to the client’s requirements. As a result of this new setup, MITA introduced an efficient commissioning process whereby the procured wireless equipment is delivered directly to the client site for configuration and installation.
Through this solution, MITA can provide better management of the various wireless networks since the infrastructure is centralised, which makes it easier for the MITA NES team to provide better troubleshooting, maintenance, and system monitoring. Furthermore, the MITA NES team can access live detailed wireless activity which gives added visibility of the overall health status of this solution.
MITA has also invested in a new Network Access Control (NAC) solution to support the latest authentication mechanisms across the various network infrastructures consisting of both wired and wireless equipment. The NAC tool provides various useful features and functionalities including detailed and automated reporting. It can also been integrated with cloud services and other applications to leverage additional 3rd party data as part of the authentication processes.
Through the new NAC tool, the MITA NES team can now commission new wireless services more efficiently. Furthermore, it is now possible to implement a more secure wireless authentication process for users connecting to both the new and old wireless systems. This gives us more flexibility through dynamic authorization and better security posture through device profiling. The added visibility that the MITA NES team has when devices authenticate to the network, means that it is easier to pinpoint specific network issues and quicker to resolve such issues.
