Oaklands is a highly successful 11 to 18 years
old, mixed, Catholic, voluntary-aided school
in Hampshire, UK, with 1,270 pupils and 85
staff.
As a forward-thinking establishment and in
line with Government directives to
encourage the use of information
technology and promote broadband level
services in every secondary school, Oaklands
constantly re-evaluates and improves its
Information and Communications
Technology (ICT). Its existing wired network
was a series of vulnerable daisy-chained
switches with limited bandwidth shared
between too many users. At peak times of
the day the network was slow and
unreliable, and access to the school’s
information management system network
was limited depending on your location on
campus.
These problems had become a regular
occurrence, and both staff and students
alike often become frustrated at the low
level of reliability. Oaklands staff in
particular, wanted the freedom to access the
Internet and the school’s central
management system from their laptops in
any building on the campus at any time.
With their current network, they were
unable to do this.
Increased power and reliability
Oaklands approached leading ProCurve
reseller, European Electronique, to help solve
their limited bandwidth and flexibility
problems. It sought a reliable network that
had enough power to ensure that its current
pain points were overcome and a system
that would enable staff to achieve their
objective of accessing email and shared files
on the internal network from wherever they
were located in the building, without wires.
As a specialist in the education market,
European Electronique had no hesitation to
recommend a ProCurve Networking
wireless solution based on its industry
leading reputation for quality, scalable
products and a proven track record in the
education sector.
“To Oaklands, and indeed any school
considering a new network, the most
important factors are the manageability
and reliability of the system. That is why
we recommended ProCurve,” says Tim
Killick, education account manager at
European Electronique. “ProCurve has a
strong reputation in the industry for
reliability and offers quality, cost effective
solutions.
“ProCurve products carry a lifetime, next
business day warranty, complementary
software and firmware updates, and free
telephone and email support, so service
costs and maintenance are kept to a
minimum, for as long as you own the
product, and that is very important for a
school.”
Central management
Engineered for reliability and robust
security, the turnkey ProCurve wireless
solution installed at Oaklands is designed
around the intelligent ProCurve 5308xl
switch and provides 1Gbit fibre optic
connections to each cabinet location.
These cabinets offer 100Mbit connectivity
to each user or wireless access point with
either existing ProCurve 2524 switches or
2600 Series switches, using Power over
Ethernet (PoE) where required.
Another fundamental need for Oaklands
was the manageability of its new solution.
Its previous network was task heavy and
could not be managed from a central
location. To configure the network, staff
literally had to go to every access point and
reconfigure them. With the new ProCurve
solution, central network management is
achieved through the ProCurve Wireless
EDGE Services xl Module (WESM) as Killick
explains:
“The centrally managed nature of Oaklands’
wireless solution was an important factor in
making the decision to go with ProCurve. In
the old days when you had fat access points,
if you wanted to configure your network
you had to go round to every wireless access
point to do this. Now, we have thin access
points, that are simple, and easy to manage,
and are all controlled from the centre of the
network through the ProCurve Wireless
EDGE Services xl Module.”
The ProCurve Wireless EDGE Services xl
Module, which resides in the core 5300xl
switch, centrally controls the wireless radio
ports distributed around the campus.
Constant access
With its new ProCurve solution in place,
Oaklands has an intelligent and flexible
wireless network that is easy to manage
through a centralised system that staff have
complete confidence in.
With the old network, staff at Oaklands had
little confidence in network availability.
The new ProCurve solution has completely
restored their confidence, and the staff have
wireless access to the internet, intranet and
the schools information system – a working
benefit for staff as Maggie Child, deputy
head teacher at Oaklands explains:
“We were looking for reliability, and a job
well done, and that is what we got with this
ProCurve wireless network. All our staff
now have wireless enabled laptops and no
matter where they are, they can access the
Internet and the school’s information
management system, including their own
work areas, meaning that staff productivity
levels are kept to a maximum at all times -
they think it’s fantastic!
“Our next move will be to input registration,
class attendance and pupil assessment data
straight into our central systems from the
laptops. In the future, thanks to ProCurve’s
inherent security, we will look at the
possibility of providing access for the sixth
form and then all students.”
Killick adds: “Oaklands School now has a
faster network with a cleaner design, and
thanks to the inherent reliability of
ProCurve, it is built on a more resilient and
efficient architecture.”
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