North Carolina School District ‘Makes the Grade’ by Deploying an Aerohive Networks Wireless LAN Solution

Aerohive Chosen to Manage the Rapid Influx of Mobile Devices in Rowan-Salisbury School System

Sunnyvale, Calif. —June 13, 2012 — Aerohive Networks, the pioneer in controller-less Wi-Fi and cloud-enabled networking, today announced that the Rowan-Salisbury School System, a North Carolina school district, has implemented Aerohive’s wireless LAN networking solution to manage the influx of new mobile devices, tablets and laptops.

News Facts

  • Located in North Carolina, the sprawling Rowan-Salisbury School System is comprised of 35 schools, with over 20,000 students and about 3,000 employees.
  • Rowan-Salisbury school district is implementing Aerohive’s new, patent-pending Bonjour Gateway to make networks service-aware and make BYOD with Apple devices a native part of every network. Aerohive’s Bonjour Gateway feature manages and controls Apple service availability (such as AirPrint, AirPlay, file sharing, collaboration applications, etc.) across an entire enterprise-class network.
  • In addition to this growing wave of devices, the district’s technology team wanted to provide its staff and students with an enriched learning experience by letting them use the same devices in the classroom as they use at home, and this required upgrading its WLAN.
     
  • The IT team at Rowan-Salisbury school district evaluated three other wireless solutions from Cisco, Meraki and Meru, before selecting Aerohive. They found the other products to be too complicated to manage and not cost effective for a meager school budget.
  • The Rowan-Salisbury School System turned to Aerohive with its cooperative control access points (AP) running 802.11n technology that did not require network controllers or overlay networks. Unlike controller-based solutions where there is a single point of failure, Aerohive APs work together to recover from component failures without the need to deploy redundant systems. In selecting Aerohive, the school district made a bold decision to completely change WLAN architectures.
     
  • The IT team at Rowan-Salisbury worked closely with SLAIT Consultingto deploy Aerohive’s technology throughout the school system. SLAIT is an information technology consulting services firm specializing in delivering customized IT solutions. A close partner with Aerohive, SLAIT was instrumental in the implementation process. 
     
  • Since deployingAerohive’s wireless LAN solution as a pilot program in one school in 2010, Rowan-Salisbury school district has now expanded this implementation to include all 35 campuses.
     
  • To read the full Rowan-Salisbury case study, please visit http://www.aerohive.com/resources/rowan-salisbury-school-system

Comments

“Before implementing Aerohive’s solution, we were forced to provide select rooms with a laptop cart with an access point,” said Phil Hardin, Executive Director for Technology for the Rowan-Salisbury School System. “Classrooms without these carts were unable to have wireless access. We quickly realized we needed to change this dated process in order to enable our students and staff to expand learning opportunities beyond the classroom.”

“We’re very excited about Aerohive’s Bonjour Gateway feature, because we use iPads in our one to- one program,” Hardin said. “We use separate VLANs for students and teachers, and that security separation makes it difficult to fully use AirPlay and AirPrint in the classroom. With this new Bonjour Gateway feature, it integrates the technologies we’ve already chosen into our learning environment.”

“From the very first time we deployed Aerohive’s wireless LAN solution back in 2010, everything worked flawlessly,” said Hardin. “We knew back then that we could depend on this product to scale and provide us with the exemplary service and bandwidth needed as Rowan-Salisbury School System continues to grow.”

About Aerohive Networks

Aerohive Networks reduces the cost and complexity of today’s networks with cloud-enabled, distributed Wi-Fi and routing solutions for enterprises and medium sized companies including branch offices and teleworkers. Aerohive’s award-winning cooperative control Wi-Fi architecture, public or private cloud-enabled network management, routing and VPN solutions eliminate costly controllers and single points of failure. This gives its customers mission critical reliability with granular security and policy enforcement and the ability to start small and expand without limitations. Aerohive was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif. The company's investors include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Northern Light Venture Capital and New Enterprise Associates, Inc. (NEA). For more information, please visit www.aerohive.com, call us at 408-510-6100, follow us on Twitter @Aerohive, subscribe to our blog or become a fan on our Facebook page.

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