Case Study: John Cabot University achieves centralized management and high-performance campus Wi‑Fi with Cisco Meraki

John Cabot benefits from management of APs, Access and Aggregation switches

John Cabot University, a four‑year liberal arts institution in central Rome serving about 1,000 students across five locations, faced limited visibility into who and what was using its network and struggled with non‑centrally managed devices. To simplify operations and improve performance the university selected Cisco Meraki—using Meraki Switching and Wireless LAN products (indoor/outdoor 802.11n/ac APs, Layer 3 Access Switches and 10Gb Aggregation Switches)—to deliver a reliable, easy‑to‑manage campus edge and guest/high‑density Wi‑Fi solution.

Cisco Meraki deployed centrally managed APs and switches tied to the Meraki dashboard, enabling remote configuration (APs in 5–10 minutes, switches in ~15 minutes), warm spare failover, per‑port customization and live troubleshooting tools. The new network supports over 3,000 unique users per month (mostly BYOD), allows time‑based group policies, Layer 3/7 firewall and traffic shaping, and rapid device location via MAC identification and integrated Google Maps; automatic firmware updates and built‑in features have simplified operations and delivered measurable cost savings for John Cabot University.

John Cabot University

Andrea Fornari

IT Director