«Ultimately, we felt that for the durability, compatibility, and price, Extreme was the only way to go. We are seeing the reward of having a really powerful and reliable network.» – Jill Pierce, CTO, McMinn County Schools
With a priority and focus to ensure the highest-quality education for their 5,600 students, across the nine schools, McMinn County School System needed to replace their infrastructure and build a robust network foundation. McMinn evaluated multiple network vendors but ultimately chose to Extreme Networks to refresh the district and help them achieve their goals.
One requirement McMinn had for Extreme was to deploy secure and reliable wireless across their 12 buildings effectively. In addition to the core competencies offered in most school districts, McMinn also offers programs like newscasting and robotics. One of the main issues that needed resolving was the outdated wired and wireless IT network that the district had previously been using. The district also has a vast BYOD initiative across all schools, but especially within the high schools making the need for greater bandwidth even stronger.
«The single Extreme AP is already giving us better service than four of our old vendor’s APs.» – Jill Pierce, CTO, McMinn County School System
McMinn’s Extreme solution included ExtremeSwitching, ExtremeMobility, ExtremeManagement, ExtremeControl, and ExtremeAnalytics. As a result of working with Extreme, the network that could seamlessly connect to thousands of mobile devices, 400 IP-security cameras, intercoms, and HVAC control. Additionally, tracking of application usage, monitoring bandwidth, and user activity was made possible through the ExtremeAnalytics element.
Through the automation processes that were put in by Extreme, the district was able to save $20,000 in cost of ownership and eliminated 97% of the wireless issues they had experienced the year prior. Additionally, single pane of glass visibility gives the IT team the ability to locate problems instantly and advances the security of the network and building.
“We have cut down 97% of Wi-Fi issues since last summer and have saved between $15-20,000 in summer labor alone” – Jill Pierce, CTO, McMinn County School System
For more information on McMinn County School System’s experiences and successes with Extreme, read the case study, McMinn County School System Reduces Network Complexity and Total Cost of Ownership.
This blog was originally authored by Morgan Blaney, Content Marketing Co-Op.
