Sentinel Technologies Deploys Cisco IP Communications, Wireless Solution for Illinois School District

May 11, 2006

By Cindy McDowell

Consolidated School District 158, located in a northwest suburb of Chicago, is one of the fastest-growing school districts in Illinois, with a staff 650 serving more than 7000 students. The district's eight schools are grouped together in three different campuses, serving the community of Huntley, and portions of the communities of Algonquin, Lake in the Hills, Union, and Lakewood, Illinois. The main administration building is also located on one of the campuses.

With projected enrollment growing more than 10 percent each year, the district's technology director, Debra Ruben, and network administrator, Dave Jenkins, decided that the existing Cisco network infrastructure of a switch, firewall, and router did not have the speed and flexibility to keep up with the district's increasing demands.

"The first four district buildings had voice, video, and data all on separate networks," says Jenkins. "With plans under way for a new campus of four schools, we wanted to bring wireless and video into those buildings, but the big video retrieval systems were beyond our budget, and we did not want to keep deploying new phone systems. We also wanted to use our technical staff much more efficiently, and not use vendors for things like moves, adds, and changes." The district's IT staff wanted a districtwide converged network that the IT staff could self-administer, and that could deliver video into classrooms cost effectively.

The district issued a Request for Proposal for a multiyear project that would ultimately deliver converged data, voice, and video network with voicemail and unified messaging across all campuses, and a wireless WAN for high-bandwidth connections across all campuses. The final phase of the project would be deploying the converged technology to the new campus, as well as complete replacement of the PBX phone system with voice over IP. The local Cisco education rep directed District 158 to Sentinel Technologies, a Cisco Gold Certified Partner headquartered in nearby Downers Grove. Having earned Cisco technology specializations in VPN security, routing and switching, wireless, and IP communications, Sentinel has a strong base of customers spread equally among the healthcare, legal, manufacturing, financial, and government/education markets.

"The school district's goal to be a technology leader in education was very compelling to us," says Ed Truesdale, senior vice president of business development at Sentinel Technologies. "We were really impressed with the amount of thought that the school district had put into technology, and we knew that we could deliver the right solution."

Jenkins and Ruben agreed. Sentinel had deployed more than 100 solutions for other school districts, and its Cisco Gold Partner status and specializations ensured a strong relationship with Cisco and excellent technical knowledge and experience.

"Sentinel's experience with other schools was really important," says Jenkins. "We were opening four new schools over the summer, and everything had to be done right. We needed to connect our campuses, implement video streaming, and reduce the T1 lines between campuses. Teaching children is always our top priority, so to avoid any disruption, deployment had to be done in a very tight timeframe."

Sentinel set about designing a districtwide solution that could be phased in. The first major initiative was deploying a converged network and introducing voice into the school district environment. Deploying video over wireless links would be next, and the last phase would be deploying the technology at the new campus and complete replacement of existing PBX with Cisco IP communications. The combination of new facilities and innovative technology required careful project management.

"In a situation like this, you have to focus on the larger context, not just technology," says Trousdale. "We had two weeks to deploy more than 500 phones in the new buildings. We also needed to retrofit older buildings with new IP phones that had to work with existing analog phones." To complicate matters, summer school was in session, so connectivity could not be lost.

With detailed project management and the right automated tools, the deployment and conversions went smoothly. The school district IT team observed the procedures used by the Sentinel team and quickly learned how to manage moves, adds, and changes themselves. This was important because the district has more than 500 teachers, who often need to change locations quickly.

"We used to spend a huge amount of money on support for moves, adds, and changes," says Ruben. "Plus, we were dependent on someone else's schedule. Now instead of making a request, waiting, and paying for it, we can take care of any moves ourselves very quickly."

The video and wireless capabilities are other big benefits of the new network. The district can run video across the network as well as record it, and they have plans for on-demand video and for providing video for staff development.

"Wireless IP phones help the administrators to deal with student issues around the building while maintaining contact with the office," says Jenkins. "With the wireless LAN in place, we can utilize Web-based applications. Our principals and deans can walk down a hall with a personal digital assistant and pull up information from our student information system. It gives us considerable productivity and flexibility." The solution also provides new and improved security for the district and its schools. A security camera can be plugged in at any data port in the district, and officials can monitor situations as needed. The new system also allows for better tracking of emergency calls made from the classrooms; and should a call be inadvertently disconnected, the emergency dispatcher can connect directly back into the classroom.

According to Trousdale, Sentinel Technologies' customers and prospects are embracing Cisco converged networking as the technology of the future.

"When convergence is properly designed, it can provide significant business benefits while reducing costs," he says. "This is getting the attention of businesses and organizations across nearly every market. It is not a matter of if they will go to a converged voice, video, and data network, it is a matter of when."

Cindy McDowell is a freelance journalist located in Santa Cruz, CA.