Situation:
Archbishop McNicholas High School has an enrollment of approximately 700 students. The network was in need of updating and redesign when it was decided to move to a one-to-one tablet PC program using a wireless infrastructure. Adding further complexity the outsourced, one-person IT consultant maintaining the existing infrastructure left unexpectedly. The challenge was to maintain current network performance while implementing a complete new wireless infrastructure to roll out the tablet PC program starting with the 2011-2012 academic year.
Solution:
Upon being contacted, Full Service Networking (FSN) immediately secured the current network performance. Upon stabilizing the existing infrastructure, collaborative efforts to implement a long-term technology strategy began. The resulting roadmap prioritized purchasing new VMWare equipment to establish a fully redundant network with adequate monitoring. A rapid recovery solution was subsequently implemented giving the school the ability to recover and restore files in minutes, virtualize a backed-up server in just 30 minutes and fully restore to a new server in under four hours. A new network fabric of switches, wireless controllers along with securing a better ISP relationship meant additional network performance and reliability. The tablet PC program was enhanced with a Windows deployment server for universal updates throughout the busy school year, avoiding the need to individually update one computer at a time.
Results:
The classes of 2014 and 2015 will be the first to enjoy the benefits of the one-to-one tablet PC program. A robust, customized IT infrastructure with redundant capabilities supported by a 24x7 help desk allows students to securely access information at all times of the day. Software and hardware upgrades are now part of a planned budget process. Through a collaborative effort the payoff is an efficient and reliable network to foster a dynamic learning environment to achieve the spiritual mission of the school.
“Full Service Networking provides us a deep bench of experts who are on-call 24x7 to ensure that our network is available at all times to educate our students. They allow us to focus on serving our students as technology keeps evolving.”
-Andy Ey, Director of Technology, Archbishop McNicholas High School
