December 14, 2006

Faced with a failing PBX phone system that was more than 20 years old, Dr. Richard Hudson, VP of Finance and Administration for Southwest Virginia Community College, decided to make improving the college's communications environment his top priority. When he joined the college in the late 1980s, he discovered a network that was a patchwork of technologies. Most computers were Macintosh and not networked. Some buildings were connected, but not others. An existing proprietary Nortel switch provided communications, but it was unmanaged, and no one wanted responsibility for it. So, in 2000, when the Virginia Community College System decided that all of its community colleges should be utilizing PCs and that all colleges should be connected, Hudson seized the opportunity to initiate change.

"I was in a unique position of being responsible for all communications and computing-as well as the dollars to spend on it," said Hudson. "I wanted to make sure that the resources went in places that I felt were important."

Hudson focused on a Cisco solution due to its reliability, and he worked with the state's other 22 community colleges as they moved forward with system-wide networking plans.

"We had a plan for where we wanted to go with networking, but timing was difficult," said Hudson. "The millennium change was happening. I wanted the newest phone technology, but Cisco was just starting up in the voice realm. The situation required a lot of patience."

In the meantime, Hudson dealt with numerous auditors and many state requirements.

"We were still using a lot of copiers and regular mail because email attachments were not reliable," he said. "I was pressing hard on the state and local governments and on the other community colleges to get serious about a better way. But budgets were hit hard, and we did not even have the network infrastructure to support a building-to-building network." It took several more years, but he was finally able to convince administrators to put a converged data and voice network into the budget. Throughout the budgeting process, Hudson stayed committed to a Cisco solution.

"We had experimented with Cisco solutions before with great results," he said. "I wanted everything Cisco, right down to the phones. I wanted standards and did not want to deal with a mixture of equipment."

With the funding in place, Hudson engaged Dimension Data, a Cisco Gold Certified Partner with specializations in IP telephony, security, and routing and switching. Dimension Data had worked with Dr. Hudson for several years and supports most of the Virginia's community colleges.

"Dr. Hudson is a technologist," said Joanne Biggs, senior account manager for Dimension Data. "He recognized how VoIP and IP telephony were taking hold a few years ago."

Dr. Hudson had total confidence in Dimension Data from the outset.

"Dimension Data and Cisco play as a team," he said. "They provided a complete summary of what we could do to help our lives with technology."

Although there is still much to solve in the statewide technology solution for Virginia's community colleges, the deployment at the Southwest Virginia Community College campus is a major step. Dimension Data's deployment of a Cisco Unified Communications at the campus has allowed people to be more effectively connected through conference calling and the remote communications.

"Southwest Virginia Community College is one of 23 schools and 35 campuses within the Virginia Community College System," said Dr. Hudson. "But our solution serves 2,300 students, and we have 400 staff and faculty members using the phone system. It is a small piece of the larger system, and I will continue to work with the state and the other campuses so we can all help each other."

Hudson's support of technology has served the college well. In addition to the converged network and Cisco Unified Communications, the college's security cameras, HVAC controls, and its fire and burglar alarms all operate through Cisco switches, resulting in the manageability and centralization of alarms, consolidation of equipment and phone lines for multiple purposes, and better utilization. Trunk line capacity issues have been solved, and every caller gets through--every time. The state anticipates substantial savings in long distance costs, especially as new schools choose to deploy IP telephony.

"We are enjoying savings plus improvements in performance," Hudson said. "We rely completely on Cisco technology and trust it to do its job."

Looking toward the future, Hudson is moving forward on a wireless implementation for the campus classrooms, open areas, and the new Learning Resources Center. Biggs noted that such wireless access, like IP telephony, requires a close look at security needs. With wireless in particular, colleges are challenged to provide students with online access while preventing access to confidential information such as grades and financial information. Organizations always need to factor security into every technology decision.

Southwest Virginia Community College and Dimension Data have formed a true partnership. In fact, Dimension Data has actually worked with the college as a guest lecturer for a local group of call centers that utilize Southwest Virginia Community College for agent training and work force development. This training session allowed the college to offer our real-word expertise to business clients has resulted in several follow-up opportunities for Dimension Data to further expand our reach in Southwestern Virginia -potentially providing call center infrastructure solutions for some of the call centers.

"Five years ago IP was new, but today more and more colleges are recognizing its benefits," Biggs said. "In fact, students expect and demand it. Offerings like wireless access, distance learning, online lecture programs round out the educational experience."

"Cisco and Dimension Data are moving in the same direction," she continued. "Both companies recognize that IPT is now mainstream and that educational institutions--and companies alike-now look to it as a competitive advantage. Southwest Virginia Community College is a rural institution, but through Dr. Hudson's efforts, it is even more technologically advanced than many of its urban counterparts-and its students are realizing the benefits."