Long established independent girls’ school The Maynard improves wireless connectivity and performance for staff and students by implementing Aerohive, a controller-less, cloud-enabled wireless solution from Krome Technologies.
Founded in 1658, The Maynard is an independent school for girls, with 370 students aged from 7 to 18 years old. Located in Exeter, it is the third oldest girls’ school in the country, with a reputation for upholding traditional values and an impeccable academic record, The Maynard was voted best independent day school in Devon in BBC League Tables.
The Requirement
With increasing numbers of mobile devices accessing the network the school’s existing wireless infrastructure proved insufficient. The School’s IT steering team had identified three possibilities to combat this: expansion of the school’s existing Meraki environment, or implementing new Aerohive or Aruba wireless technologies. The chosen solution would need to have to capacity for expansion and be compatible with the school’s existing virtual environment and technologies.
The Solution
Following a series of Wi-Fi stress tests, Aerohive emerged as the clear frontrunner, providing optimal performance as well as coming in on budget. Accredited Aerohive partner Krome Technologies set to work with the Maynard team, designing a comprehensive solution that would provide extensive coverage across the school’s campus. The implementation schedule included the installation of 30 Access Points (APs) over the summer break, to ensure minimal disruption, with the actual installation taking just one day.
With the relocation of Wireless Access Points (WAPs) the Aerohive solution was soon providing reliable wireless access for pupils and staff; as well as delivering improved coverage in locations that had previously caused problems. Combined with additional APs installed in areas where the team had predicted higher usage densities, the new solution established the reliable and extensive wireless coverage required to support the school’s learning and teaching environment. Following the hardware implementation, user account management was administered using the school’s Active Directory (AD), users were added to a WiFi group; requiring virtually no management on the Wi-Fi at all.
On completion of the project, feedback was requested from both staff and teachers to review if they had noticed a difference following the implementation of the new wireless network; the feedback was unanimously positive: “users reported that their laptops were far quicker, and reliability was perfect; they were all very satisfied with the results.” With plans to introduce additional APs to enable the increasing number of students to bring their own devices, heat maps were re-visited and confirmed that all classrooms now have excellent coverage.
“Krome were able to go out and push for the best deal on our behalf; their commercial negotiations were impressive as was the overall level of service they provided us throughout this project; our experience of Krome has been a very positive one, Krome are now considered as a value added partner to The Maynard School.” Network Manager, The Maynard School.
