School District Network Upgrade Delivered by ITsavvy
ADDISON, Ill.—ITsavvy, one of the fastest growing complete technology solution providers for schools, recently completed an E-Rate funded Cisco Meraki network upgrade for a large school district in Ohio.
The client’s existing network environment needed an upgrade to deliver reliable, high-performance connectivity to students, staff and faculty. Performance, especially during peak periods, was weak across all campuses. The network was also inconsistent, with unacceptable lag times and too many dropped connections.
ITsavvy Senior Client Executive Scott Gibson said, “ITsavvy and the client embarked on a shared project goal to create a powerful networked learning environment for every student, teacher and administrator in the district.”
The upgrade, including new switches, access points, transceivers and more across all campuses needed to be completed within the proper timelines and in accordance with the rules and regulations of the E-Rate program.
E-Rate provides funding for quality telecommunications, networking, and information services and equipment. As a federal program, schools must follow guidelines to meet eligibility requirements and to determine the funding level. Because of this, the client relied heavily on ITsavvy’s E-Rate program expertise.
ITsavvy designed and installed the E-Rate-approved Meraki network upgrade in every school district building. The project included:
- Installing Onsite Switches: removing outdated equipment to free up rack space, racking and labeling new equipment, and connecting end-point patch cables
- Configuring Onsite Switches: network addressing, connecting uplinks and configuring VLANs
- Installing Onsite Wireless Access Points: cabling and hanging 16 access points, recording all relevant information about each, and then importing the access points into the Meraki dashboard
- Onsite Wireless Configuration: configuring access points with Radio profiles and their unique SSIDs, provisioning the access points, and verifying their online status
The end result was fast, dependable Internet, remote learning improvements, improved learning outcomes, and a single-pane-of-glass view into the entire network. Today, powerful, reliable internet is available for every student and every staff member across the entire school district.
“ITsavvy is proud of the work of the whole team including the client’s IT group, our partners and our project leaders,” Gibson concluded. “We worked in unison to rapidly improve student learning through flawless networking performance and availability,”