Case Study: Cabela’s achieves 70% cost savings and PCI compliance with HPE Aruba Networking AirWave

Cabela’s Outfits its Mission-Critical Wireless LAN to Curb Costs and Manage PCI Compliance

Cabela’s, a leading specialty retailer and the world’s largest direct marketer of hunting, fishing and camping gear, was managing a sprawling, mission‑critical wireless environment—about 2,000 APs and roughly 2,500 concurrent devices across corporate offices, distribution centers and 30 retail stores. Multiple separate wireless networks for phones, RF guns, printers and laptops, plus encryption/key changes and new PCI requirements, made operations complex, costly and difficult to manage even after a Cisco controller upgrade.

Cabela’s deployed Aruba’s AirWave Wireless Management Suite (including RAPIDS rogue detection and VisualRF mapping) to gain visibility, auto‑discover devices, and consolidate management appliances—cutting management hardware costs by about 70%. The solution sped troubleshooting, enabled precise device location and recovery, improved rogue detection and PCI compliance reporting, and supported proactive capacity planning, reducing costs and strengthening security.

Cabela’s

Gary Putnam

Enterprise Network Manager