Cisco and Corning: Wireless Network Success

With over 165 years in material sciences, Corning has pretty much seen it all. But when they wanted to create a wireless network that will propel them into their future, they turned to the one company that could do it right, Cisco.

Corning needed a network that could support a massive amount of bandwidth but also allowed workers the freedom they needed not to be tied to their desks. The company’s main RD&E campus in New York state was the spot where Corning’s entire infrastructure was going to be remade.

“We had a legacy cable environment that needed an upgrade and the natural choice for our offices was wireless,” said Glenn Bleiler, Corning’s Information Technology Director for Science and Technology and Manufacturing Technology. “We also have a couple million square feet of labs, with everything from glass furnaces to electron microscopes. Most of those devices won’t go wireless right away, so the solution needed to be flexible.”

Cisco understood Corning’s needs—a network solution that can provide connectivity for thousands of workers and office devices. Not only did the connectivity need to be lightning fast, but it had to be secure too. In order to do this, Corning completely overhauled its network infrastructure by deploying Cisco products that include Cisco Aironet Access Points and Cisco Catalyst Switches.

“Cisco’s wireless access points deliver the performance and security we need to power a 100 percent wireless office environment,” said Bleiler.

And the wireless workspace has increased the productivity of the employees as people are now able to work together and share information anywhere in the facility, without being tied to a desk or workstation.

By adding Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE), Corning was able to add a layer of security on the network that easily enables policies and guest access with a few clicks of a mouse. This allows Corning to make sure that only the right people have access to the company’s sensitive data.

To learn more about Corning’s Cisco solution—in addition to the savings that the new network has made—please click here.