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Situated in a large and growing metropolitan area, the Harrisburg School District needed to update its network infrastructure to overcome downtime and modernize its networking services. Like all school Districts today, Harrisburg School District is constrained by tight budgets, meaning its network plans had to squeeze the maximum value out of every dollar spent and to save money wherever possible.
Following a state-mandated request for proposals (RFP) process and evaluation of three network vendors, the Harrisburg School District chose a ProCurve Networking by HP solution for its superior value and lifetime warranty. Since deploying the ProCurve network, the school District claims it has recouped the costs of the project in the first year on the savings from the maintenance contracts from the original equipment, it has also realized improved network performance and security, implemented wireless
capabilities and expanded educational programs - all while streamlining network management functions.
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The Harrisburg School District took immediate
advantage of ProCurve's lifetime warranty,
which eliminates the need for maintenance
contracts for networking equipment As a
result, the school District was able to keep the
funds it used to spend every year on
maintenance contracts and apply it directly to
education.
"School Districts are always pressured to save
money, and the money we save per year goes
a long way in the classroom," explains Gregg
Pankake, Network Manager for the Harrisburg
School District.
The District has converted approximately one-
third of its wireless access points to ProCurve
Wireless Access Point 420 products, and "the
signal strength is much better than before,"
says Pankake. In addition, the ProCurve APs
are power-over-Ethernet (PoE) enabled, so the
District does not have to replace power
supplies nearly as often - which means
additional value for the District. "The PoE
capability has saved us considerable money
already," he says.
Each classroom in the Harrisburg School
District has four to six computers, all of which
are connected to the ProCurve network. The
school District has a 2gb Ethernet Star
topology backbone and offers 36 educational
applications over the network for classroom
use.
Harrisburg has set up Telecenters in each of its
schools to take advantage of the educational
opportunities offered by these networking
technologies. Using a classroom interface,
teachers can search and see menus for content
on any topic, then go directly to a Web site or
schedule a streaming video to play at a pre-
determined time on a TV set in the classroom.
They also utilize 36 Distant Learning Carts to
deliver various programs from Inet2.
"That's a great example of how smart use of
technology can enhance the learning
experience," says Pankake. "We're here to
serve the students. If I know that one student
has used the network to learn something new,
I've done my job."
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The Harrisburg School District has embraced
the ProCurve Adaptive EDGE Architecture™
philosophy of "command from the center,
control to the edge." Instead of servers in
every building, the school District runs all
educational applications from the Data Center,
including e-mail and Internet access, proxy
server and security applications such as
firewall and intrusion detection.
"Central network management and
administration is the way to go," says
Pankake. "It simplifies network management,
and it's secure because everything's under lock
and key. We run fiber to every building in the
District, so there's plenty of bandwidth and
intelligence at the edge, where the users are
located."
The District uses ProCurve Manager Plus 2.0
network management software to simplify all
aspects of the network's operation, from
troubleshooting and day-to-day tweaking to
software upgrades. "I no longer spend half my
day managing switches," says Pankake. The
Harrisburg network also uses ProCurve virus-
throttling technology, which "listens"
continuously to all the ports on the network
and can shut down any port where a virus is
detected, before the virus has a chance to
infect the network. This capability is
especially valuable for laptops used by
teachers and administrators.
"We used to have huge issues with virus infections introduced inadvertently by faculty and staff, who frequently take home laptops and then plug back into the District's network," says Pankake. "Since we installed the ProCurve switches with virus-throttling technology, these issues have been reduced significantly."
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Some people think of educational institutions
as less rigorous IT environments than
corporations, but Pankake takes the opposite
view. "School Districts are actually among the
biggest enterprise environments in the
world," he says. "For instance, in our District
we have 6,600 computers and 10,000 'users'
on the WAN - which qualifies as a large
enterprise by any measure."
The Harrisburg School District has found that
its new ProCurve network is easily up to the
task of handling the networking performance
needs of its enterprise-level operations
including the District's future plans.
"We're renovating the main high school
campus, with 180 classrooms due to be
completed in 2007," says Pankake. This high
school will expand IT capabilities 400 percent,
with new network equipment and higher port
densities. We're confident that our ProCurve
solution will be able to deliver what we need
from the network."
Harrisburg's old network nominally used
industry standards, but "tweaked versions,"
according to Pankake. "ProCurve is compliant
with IEEE standards. They write to the specs
without deviating. This is crucial for us to
plan, manage and operate our network. We're
very impressed with our ProCurve
equipment."
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- By choosing ProCurve Networking and its lifetime warranty, the Harrisburg School District was able to recoup the cost of the project in the first year and divert the funds previously spent on maintenance directly to student education, to better prepare students for future scholastic endeavors and careers.
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ProCurve Manager Plus 2.0 network management software has simplified all aspects of network management, freeing the IT staff to work on other projects.
- ProCurve virus-throttling technology has reduced significantly the inadvertent virus infections that used to happen when faculty and staff plugged their laptops into the network after taking them home to do work - enabling the District to support the flexibility for working at home without risking the security of the campus network.
- The high-performance, secure and reliable ProCurve network enables the District to take advantage of innovative technologies such
as real-time searches for scientific content or scheduling of streaming video content - and integrate them fully into the classroom environment.
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The ProCurve Networking business unit of HP delivers enterprise networking solutions comprising wired and wireless LAN and WAN networking products, services and solutions. Recognizing the necessary migration of intelligence and functionality to the network edge, the ProCurve Adaptive EDGE Architecture™ strategy is the industry's only comprehensive and inclusive network design strategy that is adaptable, scalable and completely interoperable for achieving command from the center with control to the network edge. ProCurve was positioned in the challenger quadrant in research and advisory firm Gartner, Inc.'s 2004 Magic Quadrant Report for Global Campus LANs.
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Hardware
Software, Services & Support
*Available in most countries, on most products, for as long as the original customer owns it. The ProCurve 9300m and 9400sl series routing switches, 8100fl series Interconnect Fabric switches and 700wl series access devices have a one-year limited warranty with extensions available.
**For the most up-to-date information, go to www.procurve.com.
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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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