1:1 learning: Why our school deployed Aerohive Wi-Fi and switches

 

The Madeira School is an all girls’ boarding and day school for grades 9-12, located just outside Washington, D.C. on a 376-acre campus in McLean, Virginia. More than half of our 321 students board at the school, and like most teenage girls, live on the Internet, exchanging emails, downloading movies, music and TV programs, as well as accessing academic applications every day.

 

Several years ago, even though at the time I wasn’t looking for a new wireless networking solution, one of our suppliers mentioned Aerohive to me. I had previously explored some solutions from Cisco and Aruba but it was expensive to purchase and support, and complex to manage. 

 

Primary and secondary schools like the Madeira School now require "business-grade" wireless networks, and central management and sophisticated features for scaling the network throughout our campus are essential. When I learned that Aerohive could control bandwidth right at the dorms, I knew there were no other wireless vendors to consider. 

 

 

At the Madeira School, we recently added Aerohive SR2024 switches to our network and have been so impressed by the robust switching functionality that works cooperatively with our Wi-Fi infrastructure. The Aerohive switches combine cloud-management and on-demand provisioning, and work seamlessly with our Aerohive APs. 

 

We also upgraded the HiveManager and HiveOS to version 6.0, which includes Application Visibility and Control features, giving us functionality right at the edge. The features allow us to control which applications are permitted, prioritized or blocked for specific users.

 

The ability to effortlessly monitor and control the network is a critical requirement for the school, not only as we control what students are downloading, but also as we plan for future expansion on the network. During the summer, our campus floods with students as we host numerous camps, and these enterprise-class features are essential to efficiently managing our network.

 

From the beginning, we designed our wireless network to accommodate a BYOD environment, which has proved to be an excellent strategy. When we first deployed the network several years ago, there were no smartphones or tablets. We have seen an enormous increase in devices in just a few short years and are now using a wider array of technology in our classrooms and science labs throughout the school. 

 

Many 1:1 learning environments are finding difficulty in handling the influx of devices to their networks, and need to adjust wireless infrastructure often at a high cost. The flexibility of the Aerohive solution enables us at the Madeira School to scale easily in a cost-effective way without compromising reliability or performance.

 

By adding Aerohive switches to our portfolio, we have a unified access solution, giving us flexibility and control right at the edge, and positioning us to handle future growth and expansion. 

 

 

For more information about how Aerohive meets requirements for education visit here.

 

To learn more about The Madeira School's Aerohive deployment, please read a case study here.