Jefferson County (KY) Public Schools IT Deploys a Future-ready Platform with Avaya Networking

How do you create a cost-efficient, highly effective network structure for a large school district with more than 100,000 students and 15,000 staff members in 175 facilities?

That’s the complex question that the IT

experts and administrators at Jefferson

County (Kentucky) Public Schools

grappled with when the district decided

to deploy a network foundation for

modern electronics. The district’s

specific objectives for the new

deployment included:

• establishing a platform that could

meet all of the district’s educational

and administrative needs in the

present and for many years to come

• bringing gigabit to the desktop at all

facilities

• supporting the growing bring-your-

own-device (BYOD) trend

• providing a strong foundation for the

successful deployment of VoIP and

wireless technologies throughout the

school district

After a detailed RFP process, Jefferson

County Public Schools chose Avaya

Virtual Enterprise Network Architecture

(VENA) Fabric Connect technology

deployed on the Avaya Virtual Services

Platform 9000, Avaya Virtual Services

Platform 7000, Avaya Virtual Services

Platform 4000, and Avaya Ethernet

Routing Switches 4800.

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Challenges

Deploy a comprehensive network solution that will:

• Meet all administrative and educational needs in the present and for years to come

• Bring gigabit to the desktop for more than 115,000 users

• Enable the use of multiple personal electronic devices by each student

• Provide a strong foundation for the successful deployment of VoIP and wireless technologies throughout the school district

Business Value

• Speed of deployment, affording immediate access to higher bandwidth by all teachers, students, and administrators

• Ease of use and excellent tech support – saving time and money, eliminating downtime

• Enabling the evolution of a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) environment

• Robust support for VoIP and expanded wireless coverage

• A platform for the future that provides reliability, scalability, and investment protection for unlimited, uninterrupted use of technology in the classroom

A comprehensive, next-generation technology

Avaya Fabric Connect delivers a

comprehensive array of network

services, including Layer 2 and Layer

3 virtualization with optimized routing

and fully integrated support for IP

Multicast. Fabric Connect can

transform an entire network, from

data center to desktop and mobile

devices, into a private cloud

infrastructure. This makes the

network more agile and much easier

to configure, manage, and maintain.

Based on an enhanced

implementation of Shortest Path

Bridging, a standards-based network

virtualization technology, Avaya

Fabric Connect can be deployed

using simple endpoint provisioning

(rather than hop-by-hop) to

accelerate time-to-service and reduce

the potential for error. Moves, adds,

and changes can be done on the fly

and without risk, since the core no

longer needs to be reconfigured. The

technology allows customers to

gradually phase out multiple complex

legacy technologies and to enable all

services through a single, next-

generation technology.

In order to conduct the installation for

Jefferson County Public Schools in

the most efficient and least disruptive

way, Avaya and an Avaya channel

partner in the area proposed a

deployment schedule for the school

district’s 175 locations that would take

place entirely during the summer

when the students were out of school.

This was a bold suggestion, since it

would require an extremely

accelerated process compared to

what many experts would have

expected.

Benefits

Speed of deployment

By sending in teams of engineers to

work with technicians from Jefferson

County Public Schools, Avaya and the

Avaya channel partner were able to

move steadily from one county

facility to another during the summer

recess. After deployment, testing

required less than two weeks before

the system was ready to go live.

(Traditional network implementations

often require months of testing.) As

promised, the installation and testing

of the system for 175 facilities were

done entirely during the students’

summer vacation, in time for the

network to go live before the start of

the next school year. As a result,

teachers, students, and

administrators were able to access

the greatly expanded bandwidth for a

wide range of applications, without

concern about limitations or

downtime.

Enabling the evolution of a bring-

your-own-device (BYOD)

environment

The school district is in the process of

changing its policy to allow students

to use their own electronic devices in

the schools. It’s estimated that 70 to

75 percent of the more than 100,000

students will eventually be using from

one to three (or more) personally-

owned devices, including laptops,

tablets such as iPad and Android

devices, and Windows phones.

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Investment protection is a key benefit of the

deployment for Jefferson County Public Schools,

because the Avaya network is designed to

accommodate future technologies for many years

to come. Most importantly, educators can develop

almost unlimited plans for new ways to engage

students through digital technology.

Avaya TCO Advantage Over Cisco for a Large Suburban School District

For a large suburban school district,

total-cost-of-ownership (TCO) savings

can be as high as $4.12 million in one

year and $6.73 million in five years.

Independent reports commissioned by

Avaya have also confirmed that Avaya

products consume 36% less energy,

provide 40% lower total cost of

ownership and support 233% greater

traffic capacity. (Source: Miercom

Report: Plug and Play Switches, August

2011, Report 110829, commissioned by

Avaya)

SEE: Save_School_Money_With_Lower Networking Costs Brochure (pdf)

LEARN MOREabout Avaya solutions for education in our publication:

Save Your School Money with Lower Networking Costs from Avaya.

For more information contact your Avaya Account Manager or an Avaya Authorized Partner.

You can speak with an Avaya representative by dialing

1-855-227-4919 (toll free), or by visiting www.avaya.com/education

The new Avaya infrastructure will

provide reliable service to support

this large and diverse quantity of

personal mobile devices. The use of

personal devices will, in turn, reduce

the number of county-owned wireless

and wired devices that it would

otherwise be necessary to supply to

students – thus significantly lowering

costs, maintenance, and

administrative processes related to

the use of county devices.

Excellent tech support and ease

of use

Avaya and the Avaya channel partner

maintain a highly collaborative

relationship with the Jefferson

County IT team. It’s important for

such a large school district to have an

excellent support structure because

there are many components in the

district. When things have to be done

right away, the IT team needs to know

they can pick up the phone and get

help quickly, to so that there can be

uninterrupted network service.

The Avaya network Fabric Connect

technology affords an extremely

stable platform and unparalleled

simplicity in setting up new devices,

troubleshooting, and migration to the

cloud. Operation is highly intuitive,

with all equipment offering easy-to-

follow instructions. The result is

significant savings in time and

manpower required to operate and

maintain the network.

A comprehensive platform for the

future to support data, VoIP, and

wireless technology

The Avaya network provides reliability

and scalability for virtually unlimited,

uninterrupted use of technology in

the classroom. It also serves as a

robust foundation for upgrading the

district’s voice systems and for

expanding the wireless coverage.

Investment protection is a key benefit

of the deployment for Jefferson

County Public Schools, because the

Avaya network is designed to

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Note: the above chart and related costs do not refer specifically to the school district discussed in this case study.

© 2014 Avaya Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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About AvayaAvaya is a global provider of business collaboration and communications solutions, providing unified communications, contact centers, networking and related services to companies of all sizes around the world. For more information please visit www.avaya.com.

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Avaya Solution

• Avaya Virtual Services Platform 9000

• Avaya Virtual Services Platform 7000

• Avaya Virtual Services Platform 4000

• Avaya Ethernet Routing Switches 4800

ABOUT JEFFERSON COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Jefferson County Public Schools is a public school district located in Jefferson

County, Kentucky, that operates 172 schools (89 elementary, 23 middle, 19 high, 2

combined, 39 special), with over 100,000 students. It is governed by an elected

seven-member Board of Education. A Superintendent serves as chief executive.

(Note: photos within this case study do not represent actual scenes within Jefferson County Public Schools.)

accommodate future technologies for many years to come. Continued cost savings

can be achieved as new educational and administrative applications/hardware

become available, and total cost of ownership is optimized for a period of several

years. Most importantly, educators can develop almost unlimited plans for new

ways to engage students through digital technology.