Fan experience was front and center when FC Cincinnati, the Cincinnati-based Major League Soccer franchise, began building TQL Stadium.

FCC needed networking technology to support a variety of stadium functions: secure, high-speed, wired and wireless connections; mobile ticketing and scanning; a large video board; and a point-of-sale (POS) system for 175 food and beverage vendors. The organization turned to Minneapolis-based IT services firm and consultancy Atomic Data to supply the stadium technology, which was based on Aruba Networks equipment. The duo delivered network infrastructure capable of accommodating the new stadium's increasing attendance.

After Major League Soccer awarded an expansion franchise to Cincinnati in 2018, FCC aimed to open a new facility and began building a $250 million, privately funded stadium with a capacity of 26,000 seats. Thorough planning went into the TQL Stadium building, which includes 53 traditional suites and 4,500 premium seats throughout four premium club spaces.

FCC wanted a channel partner familiar with soccer stadiums to oversee the stadium's networking deployment and selected Atomic Data. Atomic Data managed technology for Minnesota United FC's Allianz Field, a 19,400-seat soccer stadium that opened on April 13, 2019, and worked on Minnesota Vikings' U.S. Bank Stadium. In addition to overseeing the networking project, Atomic Data would integrate the technology.

The companies then evaluated vendors and decided to use Aruba Networks because of Aruba's equipment design, scalability and pricing, noted Yagya Mahadevan, enterprise project manager at Atomic Data.

The stadium technology package included the following:

Atomic Data tested all the project's equipment in its data center in Minneapolis and then shipped it to the stadium, Mahadevan said. Next, the company coordinated with the prime contractor, IBM, to provide the stadium connectivity.

"COVID regulations made it challenging for us to install the equipment," Mahadevan said. "We had to provision the system in a piecemeal fashion rather than an end-to-end deployment."

FCC wanted an exceptionally responsive network. "Fans do not understand the network technology used in POS, mobile phone, parking or ticketing applications," said Dan Lolli, vice president of facilities and stadium general manager for FCC. "Ultimately, all they care about is whether or not the network is responsive."

Atomic Data used Aruba's network administration tools during the project, including its ClearPass policy-based network access control product and NetEdit software for coordinating switch configuration, monitoring and troubleshooting. Atomic and Aruba tinkered with the placement of the wireless APs to ensure that there were no dead zones in the stadium, according to Mahadevan.

The stadium opened in May 2021 with 7,000 fans at its first game. As attendance numbers gradually increased in the following weeks, Atomic Data and Aruba continued to fine-tune the network connections and coverage.

The TQL Stadium technology project marked the first time that Atomic Data worked with Aruba Networks.

"The Aruba team was very responsive," Mahadevan said. "They were available to us whenever we needed them to run through integrations and validate the network architecture. We also held biweekly check-ins to determine what was working and what was not working, and they were on-site whenever we conducted testing in the stadium."

TQL Stadium's network has performed well. "Atomic Data understood our needs because they had worked on other soccer stadiums," Lolli said. "They knew the importance of both the front-end and back-end systems supporting our guest experience and created a very responsive solution."

Following the project, Atomic Data said, the firm now provides FCC with virtual CIO services, remote support, and managed services involving compliance, infrastructure and server management.

Firms move to add depth and skills with deals for fellow channel players

Partners wondering about the attitude of the prospective new owner of VMware to the indirect model will have been reassured by ...

Comms player introduces partner proposition to tap into growing customer demand for additional Microsoft Teams functionality

The Senate Committee on Homeland Security published a report that points to a lack of ransomware reporting as a major issue in ...

The DOJ and FTC said the social media company misused consumers' personal data for advertisement purposes, from which it gained ...

Software supply chain attacks are on the rise. Follow these source code best practices to protect both in-house and third-party ...

Hot, Cool or Archive -- where should Azure Blob Storage go? Each tier has its challenges, but don't panic if data is in the wrong...

IBM released the elastic storage system 3500, a new object storage array that uses Spectrum Scale to provide fast storage for AI ...

It's going to take some outside-of-the-box technology to help make up for the escalating increases in stored data. Could colored ...

System and service management are vital to ensure customer satisfaction and service delivery. These systemctl commands can help ...

SD-WAN is the most common form of WAN virtualization. But virtual WAN strategies are evolving to include software-defined ...

COVID-related lockdowns around China prevented Cisco from getting critical components, leading to a projected decline in revenue.

To successfully use AWS Organizations, admins must grasp key concepts related to organizational units, service control policies, ...

Terraform benefits include scalability, repeatable infrastructure and cost efficiency. Follow this step-by-step tutorial to learn...

Experts at the MIT Sloan CIO Symposium described the advantages that justify the high cost of moving to the cloud while ...

Effective data governance provides a variety of benefits to organizations, including improvements in operational efficiency, data...

The vendor's latest update brings users more integration options to connect with data quality tools and adds more capabilities ...

The database vendor updated its CockroachDB platform with features to enable user to users more reliably scale and control ...

In addition to lowering the values of publicly traded data, analytics and AI vendors, the stock market's decline is making it ...

The vendor's new capability is a pipeline for developing and deploying machine learning models with graph technology and works ...

The vendor's latest update includes increased connectivity to cloud data storage repositories and enhanced augmented intelligence...

All Rights Reserved, Copyright 2006 - 2022, TechTarget Privacy Policy Cookie Preferences Do Not Sell My Personal Info