After a multi-year field trial, Campus Solutions has now officially reached general availability. This key milestone enables high-quality connectivity to be extended to local campus environments. Elena Fascilla, Director of IT Services at the University of Mons - the first Belnet customer to adopt Campus Solutions - reflects on her experience and shares her perspective on the solution.
“The University of Mons chose to make use of the Campus Solutions framework in order to rely on an already structured administrative arrangement that meets our needs both in terms of the acquisition of equipment and licences and the associated services. This framework enables us to benefit from solutions tailored to higher education, while significantly simplifying the administrative procedures related to public procurement.
In this context, we use Campus Solutions mainly for the acquisition of Juniper equipment and licences intended for our network infrastructure. We also make use of the managed services offered under the contract, in particular for the management of the network infrastructure of our university residences.
Our experience so far has been very positive. The main advantage lies in the simplification of the procurement process: Campus Solutions saves us from having to draft and publish specific public tenders, while ensuring a clear and compliant contractual framework. The ordering process is smooth, and the support provided by the various partners facilitates the implementation of the selected solutions.
On a day-to-day basis, the services and equipment meet our expectations in terms of quality and reliability. We also appreciate the possibility of benefiting from managed services where relevant, allowing our teams to focus on activities with greater added value.
Beyond the technical and administrative aspects, Campus Solutions helps strengthen Belnet’s role as a true service provider for higher education and research institutions, and no longer merely as a connectivity provider. In our view, this evolution represents real added value for member institutions.”