Case Study: Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs achieves secure, centrally managed wireless and guest access with HPE Aruba Networking

Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Goes to Aruba for Secure Wireless and Guest Access

The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) operates 109 embassies and missions worldwide and needed a secure, scalable way to extend network access—especially to biometric passport terminals placed in public embassy areas—without running vulnerable wired links or flying engineers to every site. Key requirements included centralized management, easy remote deployment, strong 802.1X security, and dependable guest Internet in challenging RF environments.

MFA chose Aruba’s WLAN solution—controllers, AP-61/AP-70 access points and Remote Access Point (RAP) technology—with Adaptive Radio Management, centralized authentication with local backup, and automatic WAN failover. The deployment secured embassy data and staff connections to Oslo, noticeably improved indoor wireless coverage, enabled secure home access for key staff (faster than VPN), and was rolled out across dozens of embassies with a target of all 109 missions by mid-2009.

Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Glenn Jone Østebø

Senior Technical Advisor