Mat-Su School District in Alaska Partners with Enterasys for Wired and Wireless Network Upgrade

ANDOVER, Mass., May 16, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Enterasys Networks, a Siemens Enterprise Communications Company, today announced that Mat-Su Borough School District in Alaska is deploying an Enterasys OneFabric BYOD architecture to upgrade its wired and wireless network, providing enhanced student learning and giving teachers new tools to teach and interact with a community over 17,000 students. OneFabric will allow the district to automatically provision the network from the core to the edge, managing it from a single pane of glass, enabling BYOD capabilities to enhance the learning experience. 

Mat-Su's 44 school sites and three admin locations are distributed over 25,000 square miles, an area roughly the same size as West Virginia. The seven-person network team deployed Enterasys Wireless, C-Series stackable switches, K-Series modular switches, and NetSight Management to accommodate the district's 100 servers, 50 virtual servers, and more than 8,000 computers, netbooks and PCs. The new network, which utilizes Enterasys OneFabric architecture, will improve the current ad hoc wireless, providing reliable wireless access and allowing the network team to manage devices across the district, rather than at each location. 

"Our large and distributed district needs to be supported by a small IT staff, so centralized management of both the wired and wireless network was key to providing our students and faculty with improved access, while maintaining security and manageability," said Justin Michaud, CIO at Mat-Su School District. "Enterasys' OneFabric architecture gave us a comprehensive and simple-to-manage technology that allowed for centralized deployment, management, and remote repair of network issues throughout the district." 

Mat-Su solicited networking solutions from several vendors. The district was looking for technology that would give them the network they needed today, while also allowing them to deploy new technologies in the future, providing reliable quality of service to students and staff, simplicity of deployment and management, and low operational costs. The Enterasys network supports important district-wide educational initiatives, such as iPad use for students and staff and support an infrastructure that will allow the district to expand as students and staff bring in their personal devices. 

The district had used some Enterasys solutions in the past and chose Enterasys for its network upgrade because of its complete wired/wireless solution, centralized management, lifetime warranty of products, and comprehensive yet simple-to-manage technology.

"We felt like Enterasys truly understood our needs and provided us with the solutions for our unique challenges," said Michaud. "In addition to the centralized management, Enterasys solutions also allow for us to ensure a secure environment, with the Mobile IAM and wireless solutions providing granular control and separate guest access to the network through multiple SSIDs, with the ability to securely provision BYOD throughout the district." 

Mat-Su has a roadmap for future enhancements, including Enterasys isaac, which will allow them to address network problems in real-time from familiar social media interfaces and wireless devices, such as Twitter, Facebook and Salesforce.com Chatter. 

Resources

• Mat-Su Borough School District case study
• Enterasys OneFabric BYOD
• Enterasys C-Series stackable switches
• Enterasys K-Series modular switches
• Enterasys Wireless
• Enterasys NetSight
• Enterasys K-12 solutions

About Enterasys Networks and Siemens Enterprise Communications
Siemens Enterprise Communications is a premier provider of end-to-end enterprise communications, including voice, network infrastructure and security solutions that use open, standards-based unified communications and business applications for a seamless collaboration experience. This award-winning "Open Communications" approach enables organizations to improve productivity and reduce costs through easy-to-deploy solutions that work within existing IT environments, delivering operational efficiencies. It is the foundation for the company's OpenPath® commitment that enables customers to mitigate risk and cost-effectively adopt unified communications. Jointly owned by The Gores Group and Siemens AG, Siemens Enterprise Communications includes Cycos and Enterasys Networks. For more information about Siemens Enterprise Communications or Enterasys please visit www.siemens-enterprise.com or www.enterasys.com.

SOURCE Enterasys Networks

WANT YOUR COMPANY'S NEWS FEATURED ON PRNEWSWIRE.COM?

440k+
Newsrooms &
Influencers

9k+
Digital Media
Outlets

270k+
Journalists
Opted In

GET STARTED