San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Merges Art and Technology with a Wireless Network from Extreme Networks
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As one of the world's most innovative museums of modern and contemporary art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is committed to an active technology refresh program based on the idea that a museum should continually strive to improve the ways in which it serves a diverse public. The museum's visitors have become comfortable with the physical museum space—in this case a magnificent building by the Swiss architect Mario Botta. However, the museum continues to seek new ways to improve the public's experience by utilizing technology to deploy artistic content that complements the museum's permanent collection and exhibition programs.

When the museum was selected as a showcase site for Intel's Centrino technology, SFMOMA had an opportunity to integrate wireless connectivity into its existing network. Although there were several wireless offerings from which to choose, SFMOMA selected Extreme Networks' Unified Access (UA).

"It was immediately apparent that Extreme could deliver superior wireless performance while meeting the budgetary needs of a private, non-profit organization," says Leo Ballate, IT Director. "From the start there was really only one choice—Extreme Networks.

Superior Performance From a Unified Wired and Wireless Network
SFMOMA installed an Extreme Networks' infrastructure five years ago based upon Extreme's superior price performance. With mission critical retail point of sale systems relying on the network, from ticket sales to the Museum store, SFMOMA couldn't risk investing in a network that provided anything short of flawless performance and reliability.

"Hitless failover was a big motivating factor for choosing Extreme," notes Ballate. "With Extreme we got more bang for our buck without sacrificing performance, reliability or manageability."

The museum's choice of a wireless partner was well thought out from a management, deployment and flexibility standpoint. That's why, when it came time to select a wireless solution, the museum once again looked to Extreme Networks.

With Black Diamond^® and Summit^® switches already in place, the museum IT staff didn't want to increase management requirements by managing two separate networks, as other solutions required. With Extreme Networks' Unified Access, the access points are simply another port on the switch. The museum was able to simply add Wi-Fi access in the Café Museo, Haas Atrium and Koret Visitor Education Center without increasing network complexity.

"Today we can offer visitors Wi-Fi access in several areas of the museum, and we have plans to take advantage of our wireless capabilities with additional offerings, such as media programs via video sources," explains Ballate. "We also have future plans to further engage visitors with wireless devices such as PDAs, giving them the ability to walk around our galleries and instantaneously link to additional information about the exhibits."

The network continues to play a vital role in the museum's efforts to engage the community. The Education Department at SFMOMA organizes a wide range of programs for audiences of all ages, and unique among United States art museums, SFMOMA's Koret Visitor Education Center offers new pathways to enjoying art. This dynamic drop-in facility provides a broad range of services—from the individual to the interactive—as well as a full calendar of public programs and activities. Extreme's wireless solution has played a key role in delivering content to visitors and enabling the museum to offer new and interactive services.

Managing a Single Network—Simply
As they evaluated wireless solutions, the museum's IT staff looked at the soft costs associated with a new management tool. With seven IT resources supporting the museum's considerable technology initiatives, increased management requirements would take time away from other activities aimed at improving museum operations and the public's experience. They determined that the cost implications of learning a new platform were too high to warrant adopting a wireless solution that couldn't be managed from a single management platform.

The entire Extreme Networks' platform shares a consistent hardware, software, and management architecture, creating management simplicity while reducing network ownership costs. With the ExtremeWare^® software suite, similar tasks can be handled for all switches at onceæsaving time and resources and making it easy to manage across the network.

"The beauty of the solution is that everything is done via EPICenter," says Ballate. "With Extreme we can manage from the port to the core with tools that are intuitive and robust. This reduces the time and resources necessary to manage the network while providing added flexibility."

SFMOMA also uses EPICenter™ management suite to create and manage virtual local area networks (VLANs), including those used to keep the wireless network traffic separate from the wired network for increased security.

"Extreme's wireless solution provides excellent security," notes Ballate. "Even though we have visitors using Wi-Fi access, with VLANs and the robust security shared across all Extreme switches, our network resources are secure."

Extreme's Unified Access implements centralized authentication to deliver the highest level of security. End-users are blocked at the switch until they've been authenticated; they're also tracked as they travel across a network. Policy-based user profiles can be set up and reconfigured on the fly, and all communications between an AP and switch is encrypted.

Planning for the Future
Today, SFMOMA continues to pursue opportunities to improve museum operations and its visitors' experience. With an Extreme Networks' infrastructure in place, the museum will be deploying a new Voice-over-IP (VoIP) solution to replace its PBX, saving money and allowing the museum to leverage its investment in a single infrastructure.

"The cost of deploying VoIP was equal to a new PBX system and will pay for itself within 18 months," notes Ballate. "Extreme's robust Quality of Service (QoS) capabilities and unsurpassed reliability can support converged applications such as voice and video without compromising other traffic. It's an ideal solution."

In addition to converged applications, the museum also plans to take advantage of additional Extreme security features, such as MAC address lockdown, hardware lockout and authentication. This will allow user authentication any time someone plugs into a port and ensure even more stringent security measures.

"Extreme's unified wired and wireless infrastructure solution gave us the performance and flexibility we wanted with the low cost of ownership we required," says Ballate. "Whether through support for new, emerging applications or advanced management and configuration tools, our Extreme network has positioned us for the future."

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