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Nestled between the peaks of the Rocky Mountains to the west and the eastern plains of Colorado, Longmont lies in the valley of the St. Vrain River. Longmont's municipal government's business is managed over one of the most technologically progressive networks available, a convergent-ready system implemented using ProCurve Networking's Adaptive EDGE Architecture™.
The key to the city's networking success is a ProCurve Networking solution that is scalable as needed and is highly available. As the city's population continues to grow and technology requirements expand to accommodate a converged communications network (including the ability to support additional voice and video capabilities), the ProCurve Networking solution enables city IT managers to accommodate future traffic demands without the need for network redesign.
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Over the past ten years, Longmont has experienced a population growth of nearly 40 percent, while the city's technology infrastructure has remained virtually unchanged. Every major facility in the municipality is networked together-from the main civic center, to the safety justice center, to senior and youth centers. As with many municipalities, these city services and utilities touch everyone in the community and are crucial to ensuring the city runs safely, smoothly and efficiently.
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Longmont has a recently upgraded network, built around the HP ProCurve Switch 9304m as its core
routing switch and HP ProCurve Switch 4000m edge switches. The ProCurve Networking solution provides
network managers with peace of mind knowing that they have control today with the flexibility to
support a broad range of new applications in the future.
Kurt Headrick is one of two senior network analysts for Longmont, responsible for managing the
entire network. Today, there are more than 15 different sites running a myriad of applications. Each entity has individual needs specific to its division. That means that the network connecting these sites must be capable of running everything from recreation system management applications, to imaging software, to computer-aided reporting software for fire and police personnel, as well as have the ability to incorporate video streaming in the future. The network must constantly adapt to support new applications, accommodate a varied group of end-users and be accessible at all times.
"We have evolved our system from an infrastructure that had been in place for five to six years," said Headrick. "Previously, we were using all Cisco equipment between facilities, and this solution no longer provided the performance we required. We had a core Catalyst 5500 router that didn't provide us with the expandability we were looking for and we wanted to get to Gigabit speeds. With new budget, we had the chance to upgrade and provide a great service to the community."
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Longmont IT managers wanted to increase speeds to their end-users and improve network
redundancy to ensure continuous availability. They also wanted to be sure they were ready for
future technology advancements. Headrick conducted extensive research to help determine which
vendor could provide the best solution, contacting a number of different manufacturers to get
information directly.
"HP provided us with complete information, gave us an excellent demonstration, and supplied us with names of other HP customers we could contact that were using the ProCurve Networking products," Headrick said. "We researched all of our other options including solutions from Extreme, Cisco and 3COM. We compared cost and functionality. It boiled down to the fact that HP gave us the most bang for the buck. With the change in equipment we've gained both speed and performance. This has allowed the city to increase its fiber backbone to Gigabit Ethernet speeds and provide 100TX switched to all the desktops. Our bandwidth capabilities now are huge compared to what they used to be."
The initial cost savings of the equipment has enabled IT managers to purchase and implement HP network node manager for SNMP management of all ProCurve Networking equipment. In addition, they have begun to implement Voice over IP (VoIP), and according to Headrick, have been able to do so seamlessly without any network issues.
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"We found we could actually replace our core Layer 3 switch with a wire speed Gigabit solution for a little more than the cost of the annual maintenance fee for the outdated Cisco solution," Headrick said. "We've now replaced our entire network backbone with HP equipment."
How do you connect a plethora of services quickly and easily without interruption, for the best value? Take a look at the city of Longmont, Colorado-an excellent example of how smart networking can connect an entire city today, while keeping all doors (and switches) open for the future.
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- Longmont's critical city services (including the police and fire divisions) are operating more quickly, reliably and efficiently with ProCurve Networking's Adaptive EDGE Architecture™ solution.
- Network administrators in Longmont have peace of mind knowing that, as their city grows, their convergent-ready network can expand to meet all future application needs.
- ProCurve Networking's solution provides the city of Longmont with the ultimate networking solution to affordably manage today's city services, and can easily scale up as the city expands in size.
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Hardware
Software
HP services
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Lifetime warranty with next-business-day advance replacement (available in most countries) on most products for as long as the customer owns it *
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Telephone support available during normal business hours
- Technical product support available via e-mail
- Comprehensive network design and configuration services offered at no extra charge
* The HP ProCurve Routing Switch 9300m series and Secure Access 700wl series have a one-year warranty with extensions available.
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When you are ready to explore the benefits a ProCurve Networking solution can offer you, call HP at 1-800-975-7682.
To learn more about ProCurve Networking's Adaptive EDGE Architecture™ solutions, visit our home page.
Purchase: In the US, HP business solutions, products, and supplies can be purchased at your local HP partner, or bought directly from HP either online or by calling 800-613-2222.
Finance: HP finance plans provide all the benefits of new technology without the risk or cost of ownership. For details, call 888-999-4783.
Accessibility: HP is committed to providing products and services that are accessible to people with disabilities. For more information, please visit the HP Accessibility web site or call 888-259-5707.
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