Tri-Center School District
Customer Profile
Tri Center Community Schools is a rural Iowa school district of approximately 800 students.
Overview of Solution
HTS and Tri Center worked in tandem to create a new technology model that would take them into a new generation of tech savvy kids.
Customer Pain
Tri Center was having problems with downtime due to years of additions, patches, and upgrades, as well as older equipment on the network that had become no longer reliable.
Assessment
HTS engineers were called in and determined that a complete upgrade was in order. Faster networking equipment was going to be an important need as Tri Center was soon to move to a 15mb internet connection. Server consolidation was also a must as more and more processing power was required for the school's cutting edge technology curriculum.
A Managed Wireless solution was also determined to be essential as the school relied more on laptop labs all the time.
Solution and Implementation
HTS talked with Tri Center about the vision for the next five years. Tri Center saw technology as an absolutely essential element in current teaching methods and saw profound increases in it in coming year. Available bandwidth, storage, wireless, and uptime were going to be essential.
HTS worked hand in hand to develop a solution around this vision. New switches, Blades Servers, and Managed wireless networking were to be used in the new solution.
HTS staff developed a multi-stage solution utilizing the close partnerships we hold with Microsoft and HP. Teaching has leaned more and more on online resources, and making sure these are available at all times is crucial. A HP core switch was installed and a complete network redo was commenced. Cables were traced and labeled. Switches were replaced and V-Lan'd. The HP Blade C7000 series chassis was installed and filled with servers and SANS to replace the older server farm that had served the school well over many years. The HP Managed wireless system was rolled out throughout the school to allow for easy access for roving carts and laptops.
Customer Impact
Tri Center now operates on a very stable network. The Blade system has proven to be very powerful and, when working with HPs Procurve switches, downtime is non-existent. Teachers have incredible processing and downloading power in their classrooms. The wireless has proved to be seamless and a great asset to the school.