The University of Waikato has selected Arista Networks for the build out of a new networking infrastructure at its Hamilton and Tauranga campuses.

The build, which covers the university's data center, campus, and wireless environments, will support more than 12,000 students and 1,600 staff across both locations.

The university's requirements included a high performance network that is easy to use and able to be automated. As a result, the company selected Arista Networks' Extensible Operating System.

Arista Networks provides cloud networking solutions for large data center and campus environments. Arista's award-winning platforms deliver availability, agility, automation analytics, and security through CloudVision and Arista EOS, an advanced network operating system.

The university also selected Arista‘s CloudVision, which is a network-wide workload orchestration and workflow automation system that will provide management to automate all networks tasks across all wired and wireless infrastructure.

The University's network also includes Arista 7050X Series purpose built data center switches, Arista 720X Series Cognitive Campus POE Leaf Switches and Arista C230 Wifi 6 Access Points.

University of Waikato chief information officer Eion Hall says the university is pleased to deploy the next generation of its network equipment.

“It is critical that we are providing our students and educators with a world class information technology environment to accomplish our mission of delivering the best possible learning enjoyment for New Zealand's next generation of leaders.

Arista Australia and New Zealand managing director Garry Turner says that the university is ‘at the forefront of what is possible in the design and rollout of its network environment in education.

“Leveraging the best of Arista's high performance, and ease of management to support thousands of students and educators. As the pioneers of the internet in New Zealand, we are very proud of our role in helping the University of Waikato lead in the next generation of high performance networking in the country.

Channel partner BEarena will also provide additional design, implementation and deployment services for the network over the next several quarters as the deployment is completed.

The University of Waikato's main campus is in Hamilton and operates a second campus at Tauranga. The university offers qualifications in a wide range of subjects across 12 schools and faculties.

In 1989 (with a little help from NASA) University of Waikato connected New Zealand to the internet before going on to become the first University in New Zealand to have cyber-graduates, offering teaching degrees online.