The National Portrait Gallery perfects the art of secure wireless networking

The National Portrait Gallery perfects the art of secure WiFi networking

The National Portrait Gallery deployed their WiFi network to provide secure and flexible access to their staff and customers, whilst maintaining aesthetics and providing full WiFi coverage across its buildings.

  • IT Infrastructure and Development Manager at National Portrait Gallery

    Since the solution has been installed, we have been adding more access points to increase our wireless coverage encompassing additional areas such as libraries to meet the demands of the Gallery. The system has been extremely reliable and well received by our staff. We have had no issues over the past four years making the project a huge success.

  • We haven’t had any issues with security or interfering wireless networks, which was a key concern when we wanted to extend wireless coverage to more locations across buildings. We provisioned the access points centrally on the wireless controller and simply plugged them in to our new areas. They automatically created the wireless environment, with little effort from my team. The wireless platform that we invested into four years ago, has paid for itself giving us great return on investment based upon the increased productivity of users, flexibility of the solution and the ease of getting guests onto the wireless network.

Utilising the security features within the wireless solution such as the Policy Enforcement Firewall and RFProtect modules, the Gallery has been able to deploy multiple applications seamlessly and securely to a wide range of users, with very little or no impact to the IT support team.

Due to their sites being located in very busy and congested areas in central London, both security and interference are extremely important factors that the Gallery has been able to address with the security features within the wireless solution.

About the National Portrait Gallery  www.npg.org.uk

Founded in 1856, the aim of the National Portrait Gallery, London is ‘to promote through the medium of portraits the appreciation and understanding of the men and women who have made and are making British history and culture, and … to promote the appreciation and understanding of portraiture in all media’.

The Gallery holds the most extensive collection of portraits in the world. The Collection is displayed in London and in a number of locations around the United Kingdom, including several houses managed by the National Trust. The Gallery is increasingly keen to find new ways to share the Collection through the National Programmes, as well as through this website. Like other national museums, the Gallery is supported both by government and increasingly by a large number of individuals, companies, trusts and foundations, as well as by the receipts from ticketed exhibitions, shops, catering and events