Intel® Networking Backbone

Intel® Networking Backbone Gives School Network Functionality Of A Powered Business Network

AUCKLAND, 24 October 2000 – Woodford House, a Hawkes Bay boarding and day school for girls, has reinforced its position as a leading educational institution through its recent implementation of a state-of-the-art network infrastructure based on Intel® architecture.

As part of a reassessment of the school’s IT situation, Woodford has undergone a major redevelopment of teaching facilities, with the opening of a new classroom block in April to cater for up to 300 students. The building houses a new computer lab consisting of 24 PC’s (increasing the total to 86) for students to access resources seven days a week, for computer education, assignments, and Internet use on a Windows NT network standardised on Intel solutions.

“It is the vision of the school that our IT investment today will lead to the future success of Woodford students in the Knowledge Economy,” says Dean Mason, Business Manager for Woodford House.

As part of this vision, in a recent ICT (Information Communication Technology) report for the Ministry of Education, Woodford identified the need for continued expansion of the physical network into further areas of the school, identifying multimedia capability, research resources and development of video capability as areas for development.

“The report provided Woodford House with a forward plan for future capital expenditure and allowed the Ministry to understand our long term IT objectives,” continues Dean. “As the school roll has expanded over the last two years, we decided to replicate our existing computer room which was fully equipped and had undergone a recent upgrade.”
According to the school’s Network Administrator Robin Hicks, Woodford House, like other schools driven by the availability of finance, had taken an ad hoc approach to the growth of its network and consequently had a fragmented IT system. “As part of the redevelopment, it was critical that there be a reliable and robust network system in place,” he explains.

Guided by its existing communication and data networks provider, Glenn Cook Telecommunications Solutions, an Intel architecture was recommended due to its proven and reputable performance.

The school’s system has been designed around the Intel® Express™ 550T Routing Switch, using 330T 24 port hubs to provide the reliability and capacity required for the classrooms and administration, and Intel® InBusiness™ hubs and switches for access throughout the rest of the school. Intel® DeviceView™ allows for the management of network traffic, future security and scalability for the school’s geographically demanding site, while Intel® InBusiness™ print stations are an integral part of its printer monitoring requirement.

Additionally, the school has purchased 72 PCs running on Intel architecture to provide cost effective processing power and reliability.

“The decision to standardise with Intel was centered on eliminating the increasing burden of network administration,” says Robin. “Intel has also provided the school with an educational pricing scheme, making the decision cost effective for us.

“We now have a computer:student ratio of greater than 1:3 based on our current roll. We have about three hundred users, students and staff, all with roaming profiles. Students have monitored and filtered e-mail and the Internet can be accessed over any machine via a controlled proxy server. All printing is monitored through a central system and all student work is stored on a central fileserver. Our administration is computer-based, along with standard accounting/payroll functions, resulting in a heavy reliance on our network system.”

With the school’s geographic spread of nearly a kilometre, there has also been a significant ease of operation. Maintenance, centre administration and control over traffic is a much simpler task for the school due to the centralisation.

“We are able to have 100 users working on the computers at any given time without difficulty. We have succeeded in our goal of implementing a stable platform. The students are able to integrate multimedia work into presentations that can be delivered in any teaching area within the school.

“The new block has also incorporated a ‘junior’ lab which serves the year 7 and 8 students, allowing them maximum hands-on time in an environment which lets them work at their own pace,” says Dean.

“This is only the first chapter in the story. Because of the rapid advances in technology, as well as the changing education landscape, this project will merge into the next as we continue to try and offer our students the best educational opportunities information communication technologies can provide.”

Intel, the world's largest chip maker, is also a leading manufacturer of computer, networking and communications products. Additional information about Intel is available at www.intel.co.nz

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