Operational Management of Multi-Vendor Wi Fi Networks in Smart Campus Environments

Abstract

Digital transformation in higher education increasingly hinges on the robustness and governability of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructures, with campus Wi-Fi networks serving as the operational backbone of digital learning, research collaboration, and administrative services. In large universities, these networks typically evolve into heterogeneous, multi-vendor environments, introducing ongoing challenges in monitoring coherence, configuration governance, and cross-platform performance diagnosis. Despite the centrality of these issues, smart campus scholarship has paid limited attention to day-to-day operational management. This study examines the design and operational performance of a dual-platform Wi-Fi network management architecture implemented at Mahasarakham University, Thailand. The architecture strategically integrates SolarWinds and LibreNMS to combine centralized network-wide visibility with fine-grained, device-level diagnostics across a multi-vendor infrastructure. An engineering-oriented mixed-method approach was employed, drawing on production monitoring logs and semi-structured interviews with campus network engineers. Findings indicate that SolarWinds strengthens configuration oversight and campus-level situational awareness, whereas LibreNMS enhances detailed performance analytics and accelerates fault isolation. Their coordinated deployment improves operational stability, diagnostic clarity, and long-term maintainability of campus Wi-Fi systems. The study provides practical architectural guidance for managing heterogeneous ICT infrastructures in smart campus and enterprise-scale environments.