Claremore Independent School District Moves at Gigabit Speed with An Extreme Networks® Infrastructure
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Claremore Independent School District, located in a suburb of Tulsa, Oklahoma, had big plans. The district wanted to replace its existing network with a high-speed, high-bandwidth infrastructure capable of supporting converged applications such as video and voice. With its goal clearly in mind ­ offering new technologyenabled learning initiatives to students while upgrading to a new IPbased phone system—Claremore Public Schools forged ahead with a new high-performance Extreme Networks infrastructure capable of supporting voice and video applications.

Exceeding All Expectations
Claremore Public Schools had high expectations for its new districtwide network. It wanted a robust infrastructure that could support converged voice and video applications in addition to the data applications the administrative staff required. The district also needed a scalable solution that could support network growth and new services. Extreme Networks fit the bill.

"We wanted to build a backbone that would support any applications we would need in the future," says Terry Simpson, Director of Technology. "After evaluating several options, it was apparent that Extreme's solution not only met our performance requirements today, but could support our plans for the future as well."

The district consists of eight buildings, including three elementary schools, a middle school, junior and senior high schools, an alternative learning center, and an administrative facility. Extreme Networks switches are located in every building, with the administration building acting as the core of the star topology. With four of the district's buildings tied together via fiber, and plans to connect all seven buildings with fiber by the end of the school year, Claremore Public Schools is on its way to achieving its lofty goals.

"We wanted something that worked, and that was easy to configure and manage. When we learned more about Extreme's solution, we realized that the solution not only delivered the performance we were after, but the low price per port created tremendous value for us," adds Mr. Simpson.

Extreme Networks' non-blocking, wire-speed switching capabilities, provide the district with consistent performance regardless of traffic patterns or network load. Building its network infrastructure around Extreme Networks' equipment will enable the district to maintain the highest levels of service as the schools' bandwidth and performance requirements increase.

New Voice and Video Applications for New Learning Opportunities
Claremore Public Schools recognized that a new high-performance Gigabit Ethernet infrastructure would not only make the network faster, but would give the district new opportunities to leverage new applications, such as voice and video. These real-time, delay sensitive applications would require an unparalleled level of Quality of Service (QoS), however. The new Extreme Networks infrastructure is up to the task.

With Extreme Networks' QoS capabilities, and built-in redundancy, the IT team can easily meet the demands of the missioncritical, delay-sensitive voice and video traffic by defining minimum and maximum bandwidth per traffic type, ensuring that specific application traffic is marked and treated with higher priority than less important traffic. "Extreme is ahead of the class when it comes to quality of service," says Mr. Simpson. "As teachers have become more familiar with the capabilities of the new network, our use of video has increased dramatically. With Extreme's QoS capabilities we can enforce bandwidth and latency guarantees to ensure our video applications have the quality and reliability we expect—every time."

Today, the district is realizing the benefits of running video over the new Extreme network. Students in different schools can interact with one another via video to enhance classroom teaching and the learning experiences. High school students, for example, have the opportunity to share special educational experiences with elementary school students via streaming video—giving elementary students an opportunity to participate in biology experiments they wouldn't otherwise have access to, such as dissections. In addition, teachers are taking advantage of streaming video for classroom presentations. The program has been so successful; in fact, the schools are averaging 500 videos per month in support of the classroom curriculum. In addition, two buildings are outfitted with video security, with others planned to follow, allowing the district to monitor the facilities right over the network.

In addition to video, two buildings in the district are already taking advantage of a Sphere Communications VoIP solution. The phone system makes additions and changes quicker and easier than a traditional phone system. For instance, placing weather alerts on the system for parents and staff to access information about school delays or closings can be handled from a PC in any location with a web-based browser. Not only does the new voice-over-IP (VoIP) system provide increased flexibility and facilitate a single centralized platform in the future, it also relieves the administrative burdens of managing phone systems in the district's seven buildings. The district is taking advantage of Extreme's QoS and DiffServ capabilities to ensure that voice traffic is differentiated and treated with priority status for toll-quality service.

"As we move forward with new applications that leverage our Extreme infrastructure, we realize how rock-solid our network is, and how superior our QoS capabilities are," adds Mr. Simpson.

Managing Network Growth and Security
With an IT staff of two providing all of the management and administration for the seven district locations, it was important that a high-performance network didn't mean high-maintenance. Administrative ease and simplicity were vital to the long-term success of the new network.

"The nice thing about Extreme's solution is that we can continue to grow our network, and the services we run over the network, without increasing administrative and management requirements," explains Mr. Simpson. "That's a huge benefit because we get to do innovative new things with our network that would otherwise take a larger organization with more resources."

With ExtremeWare®, the embedded software on Extreme switches and the Infrastructure & Services Management (ISM™) software suite, the IT team can easily manage and support the new high-bandwidth network without increasing administration and management complexity.

As more buildings are up and running with the new applications, the district is looking at implementing Extreme's EPICenter® management suite for even greater control over the network and its resources. EPICenter will provide the ability to manage and monitor the different elements of the district's network, and administer policy and routing, so the schools can continue to add new applications and grow the network without increasing the resources or time to manage them. Not only does that result in easier, simplified management, it also reduces the total cost of network ownership.

The district is also ensuring network security—an important consideration in an environment where curious students have access to the district's network resources. In addition to a firewall to the outside, the IT team is controlling unauthorized access to the network with Extreme's advanced security features such as access control lists (ACLs) at wire-speed and network login—keeping network traffic flowing while keeping kids out.

Moving Forward and Looking Ahead
The district hopes to continue leveraging its network to explore more distance learning opportunities, other technologyenabled learning initiatives, and rolling-out VoIP in every school building. Building upon Extreme's open infrastructure and commitment to industry standards, the district can ensure interoperability with emerging applications ­ while leveraging its infrastructure investment.

"With Extreme Networks we can meet our needs today and seamlessly scale to meet future needs without scaling cost or complexity," says Mr. Simpson. "Extreme's sales team and local support team worked closely with us to understand our needs and where we were going. While other vendors were figuring out how to do it, Extreme was figuring out the best way to do it."