Case Study: West Hills Community College District achieves a resilient, secure, AI-enabled unified wired and wireless network and $250,000 in savings with HPE Aruba Networking

Regional higher-ed and community innovator modernizes infrastructure and experiences with Aruba CX 8400, IAPs, and Central

West Hills Community College District (WHCCD), a 7,700‑student, multi‑campus community college serving a large rural area, needed to replace an aging Cisco wired and wireless infrastructure that frequently failed—especially during power outages—and required long warranty lead times. With 24/7 campus and housing network demands and an ultra‑lean IT staff, the district needed a reliable, secure, scalable, and easy‑to‑manage solution to support growing academic technologies.

Working with HPE/Aruba and integration partner AMS.NET, WHCCD deployed an end‑to‑end Aruba stack—CX 8400 core switches, 3810/2930 access switches, indoor/outdoor APs, Aruba Central and ClearPass—for zero‑touch provisioning, AI‑enabled automation, analytics and unified NAC. The upgrade restored service quickly during a core failure, delivered about $250,000 in initial capital savings versus the previous vendor, reduced expected staffing from three to one, slashed support turnaround from months to hours, and provided a resilient, future‑ready network for advanced academic needs.

West Hills Community College District

Jeff Seed

Director of IT Infrastructure and Security