Feature Story

August 4, 2006

Athens Technical College offers two-year technical degrees to students in and around the Athens, Georgia, area. The college's 5000 students attend classes at the main Athens campus and three satellite campuses. The growing college recently constructed a new technology building and contracted with Cisco Premier Certified Partner Cpak Corporation, headquartered in LaGrange, Georgia, to deploy a network in the new facility that would feature Cisco switches, wireless connectivity, and a firewall for security.

"Cpak has a focus on the education market so it understands our unique needs," says Dennis Ashworth, information technology director at Athens Technical College. "They have experience with governmental bid processes and state contracts, and they provide a wide range of hardware and software products, as well as the installation services necessary for those products."

According to Kim Henderson, business development manager for Cpak, two factors have propelled Cpak forward and added to its business success: its focus on the public sector in the state of Georgia, and its listing on the state contract as a technology solution provider for Cisco Systems.

"We have spent the last five years concentrating on the public sector," says Henderson. "Because of that focus, we have built real relationships with our customers. We are not only a vendor but also a true partner with the customer. We are not there just when a sale is imminent-we provide information on new products and technology, help with internal development on products, and respond quickly to any questions. Most of our customers know our phone number by heart."

Ashworth also appreciated how well Cpak worked under very tight time constraints in previous projects for the college. This new project was expected to present similar challenges: because of state building codes and laws, the Cpak team would not have access to the new building until the building was complete and officially turned over to the college. Construction was slated for completion by early November, but construction delays are inevitable, and the college needed to fully occupy the building by the second half of December.

The Cpak team for the Athens Technical College deployment met with Ashworth to fully understand the needs and goals for the new technology building. The new building would house staff and labs for several of the college's areas of study including secretarial, accounting, and computer and information systems.

"We wanted to have wireless support throughout the entire facility, both for faculty and students," says Ashworth. "These days students expect wireless access for laptops, and we wanted wireless throughout the classrooms and in common areas. We decided to go with wireless rather than equipping classrooms with new PCs, and that saved us a lot on PC costs."

Cpak provided a complete, easily deployed solution to the college- from the client to the network, including expanding the college's existing network, centralizing it in the new building, and adding wireless functionality. Cpak installed a Cisco chassis solution with Cisco switching, cache server, and firewall. The wireless access points were installed in the ceiling tiles to mask their visibility. Because Athens Technical College is expected to change its phones to an IP communications system, the network was made ready for voice over IP.

Lack of access to the building until construction had been completed required the Cpak team to base their design on blueprints during the entire planning phase of the project, and to coordinate carefully with building contractors and the college's IT staff. The team had to be meticulous in working with the blueprints because once access to the building was available, the team would have only a few weeks to get the network fully operational.

"We ended up deploying not only the networking but the clients and cabling within two weeks," says Henderson. "By making sure we had the correct number of staff on the job, we completed the project quickly."

The new technology building at Athens Technical College opened in December 2005, and today students can bring in their personal laptops and PDAs and have wireless access throughout classrooms and common areas. All desktop PCs have high-speed connectivity. The college found that a large number of students participate in online courses while at the campus, so the wireless and high-speed access enables many more students to take advantage of these classes. Cisco VPN security provides the faculty at the college's satellite campuses with a secure connection to the main campus.

Ashworth says much of the credit for the successful network deployment goes to Cpak and its experience in the education market.

"Education is very different from private business," he says. "A return on investment model for business is not always applicable to education, and the lowest cost is not always the best approach." Vendors must work within the college's constraints of state contracts, pre-negotiated state pricing, and bidding systems. Having a solution provider experienced with these systems is very valuable.

"Cpak, as a Cisco partner, was an easy choice because Cisco products are in our state contract," Ashworth says. "But Cpak also delivers installation and integration services, so they offer everything from solution design to purchasing laptops. This, along with their experience in the education market, made them the perfect fit for our needs."