It probably doesn’t come as much of a surprise these days, but it’s worth repeating: the network has become the backbone for most K-12 school districts. Our South Euclid-Lyndhurst City School District is no exception.
We started using Aruba Wi-Fi in 2015 and instantly saw improvements in performance and capacity. After we saw the impact of the wireless network, we decided to adopt an Aruba wired network as well. These network upgrades were important for our school district, which serves around 3,600 students and 500 staff members. We have six schools and four other buildings, including a school administration building and our bus garage. All of these had to be linked and the network had to support the student and staff’s mobile devices students, the online learning tools within the classroom and our connected systems such as HVAC, security panels and our door lock system. The wireless also had to reach outdoors, to security cameras and the football field at the high school.
We needed to better manage and secure our networks to support the growing number of devices demanding access and the continual increase in digital tools used for operation and education.
Specialized Inc. was established in 1993 by company president Al Kuhl. Under his leadership, the company has grown in size from a single heavy haul rig in Twinsburg, Ohio to having one of the biggest specialized fleets in the Midwest.
Laketec was contracted by Specialized, Inc. to replace their existing Allworx phone system and install a new Avaya IP Office phone system at their Aurora, OH facility. In addition to the new phone system, Laketec also installed a new Aruba 2930 POE switch and provided wireless connectivity via an Aruba Instant Access Point. Laketec was also able to assist with the installation of the customer’s new SIP telephone service and porting of their existing numbers to the new service.
Central State University, located in Wilberforce, Ohio, has grown steadily since its founding in 1887 and has four Colleges: Education; Engineering, Science, Technology, and Agriculture; Business; and Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. Additionally, new academic programs have been added along with a new School of Agricultural Education and Food Science, academic building, the University Student Center (85,000 sq. ft), and five residential halls. In the fall of 2019, campus residency options will be expanded to include a 250-bed apartment style residential hall and 10,000 sq. ft. Wellness Center. Central State University offers an array of top-quality academic programs in an environment that nurtures student success. They have been named an Ohio Center of Excellence in Emerging Technologies, a designation that recognizes their prominence in graduating students in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math. They are also an Ohio Center of Excellence in Cultural and Societal Transformation, because outstanding national reputation in the fine and performing arts.
Central State University selected Laketec not only to assess their current network infrastructure and determine where improvements could be made, but also to implement those recommendations. Upon assessment, Laketec proposed a new campus-wide wired & wireless network infrastructure along with a 5-year strategic plan for the University. As part of this engagement, Laketec designed a new campus wide fiber optic cabling plant, Cat5e/6 cabling plant, core & access layer network switching environment, perimeter security strategy, and a robust indoor and outdoor campus wide wireless network.
After the design was complete, Central State University selected Laketec as their partner of choice for implementation. In under 12 months, Laketec was able to replace their entire Fiber/Cat6 cabling plant, switching infrastructure, firewalls, and indoor/outdoor wireless. Most notable was Laketec’s coordination and project management, which allowed the University to continue business as usual with minimal interruption to day-to-day operations. With 29+ buildings affected, coordination and planning was key for this project.
Laketec not only installed the infrastructure in the new design but also engaged in a 60-month commitment to provide additional Tier 2 and 3 support to the University’s internal IT Staff. With some of the top-rated Aruba-certified engineers in the country, Laketec was uniquely positioned to offer top level support on what we consider to be best-of breed technology. Offering proactive monitoring and maintenance, escalation procedures, and a fixed SLA, Laketec’s engineers focus on maintaining the underlying infrastructure so that the University was able to concentrate their support staff on internal needs and staff/student support.
This project included products from multiple manufacturers including Aruba, HPE, and Palo Alto.
Automated Packaging Systems, Inc. has been a world leader in designing and manufacturing flexible bag packaging systems since 1962. Headquartered in Streetsboro, Ohio, Automated Packaging Systems is a global packaging supplier, with sales, service, and distribution offices located throughout North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia and Australia, and more than 30,000 packaging systems in operation worldwide. With nine manufacturing plants, Automated Packaging Systems produces more bags-on-a-roll and bagging systems than all of its competitors combined. Their Total Systems Approach to packaging combines machines, materials and service to provide customers with superior quality products and exceptional service.
Automated Packaging Systems engaged Laketec to design and implement a new and more reliable Aruba wireless networking infrastructure across several locations and in multiple states. After creating a wireless design, complete with predictive coverage heatmaps, Laketec also provided a CAT6 cabling plan to support the new design. Automated Packaging Systems also had the need to ensure network security while maintaining end user experience.
By implementing Aruba ClearPass on top of the wireless network, administrators are now able to seamlessly automate access control policy application based on a number of different criteria.
Laketec designed, cabled, installed, and configured all 7 sites within 8 weeks and provided training and documentation for their internal IT department to continue managing the system once completed.
EnvisionRxOptions is a health care and pharmacy benefit management (PBM) company headquartered in Twinsburg, Ohio. They have over 1,500 employees supporting a rapidly growing membership base of over 23 million members, creating savings for them as well as thousands of plan sponsors. Rite Aid’s acquisition of Envision in 2015 brings together two national health care companies that give consumers more pharmacy options, and plan sponsors improved manufacturer relationships and analytic capabilities.
Laketec designed and implemented an advanced network access control solution for EnvisionRX to help bolster network security without changing current log on procedures by integrating with the existing SSO provider. Our solution leveraged Aruba Clearpass for network access control in a multi-vendor environment for all users: wired, wireless, and remote. Our solution also utilized Aruba Onguard to provide real-time posture assessments and policy enforcement of endpoint devices.
By identifying and classifying users who connect to the network, EnvisionRX is now able to grant or restrict access based on a number of different policies, thereby increasing network security while maintaining a familiar user experience.
Since 1921 The Chas. E. Phipps Company, a Cleveland construction supplier, has helped contractors put work in place correctly and profitably by supplying high-quality, innovative products and equipment, technical expertise, and trusted service. Phipps distributes concrete accessories, concrete repair materials, sealants, and coatings to contractors so they can build or repair industrial and commercial buildings, infrastructure, concrete wearing surfaces, or the building envelope. Phipps has offices in Cleveland, Perrysburg, and Canton.
Chas. E. Phipps Company was referred to Laketec by an existing vendor to help support their Avaya IP Office. Unhappy with the service from their previous vendor, Chas. E. Phipps engaged Laketec to help build out call flows, meet me conference bridges, and create a universal phone template; all tasks they were originally told could not be accomplished.
Laketec also assist Chas. E. Phipps in migrating over their (3) locations to a new SIP service provided by Spectrum. The migration was accomplished successful with little to no downtime.
Chas. E. Phipps can now trust their phone system is setup in a way for them to focus on their business and continue to provide the excellent customer service that has kept them in business for close to 100 years.
United industrial Sales has been in business for over 50 years, located in Willoughby, Ohio. Their primary mission is to provide excellent service to purchasing agents in the composites Industry.
United approached Laketec for an evaluation of their current topology and needs. They were also upgrading to Spectrum SIP trunks and asked for our expertise. As a result of the Network Analysis and Trunking needs, Laketec worked in several areas of their Network.
We supplied a Next Generation Palo Alto Firewall to provide filtering and threat prevention to their network. In addition we provided an HPE POE switch and upgraded their Avaya IP Office Phone system to the latest release. That allowed for supported software as well as capability to function with the new Spectrum SIP trunking that was installed.
Laketec designed and implemented a new wired & wireless network infrastructure across the campus in the summer of 2016. This included all new campus switches (over 80 switches – core & access), cabling, fiber, wireless, management/monitoring systems, and a whole new routing and addressing scheme across the campus. This deployment & migration from Cisco to Aruba was completed in approximately 2 months. Laketec has also deployed approximately 250 wireless access points across campus over the last few years. Conneaut also utilized Laketec’s leasing options that included $0 down with a $1 lease buyout for a term of 5 years.
Laketec designed and deployed an Aruba wireless network across 3 buildings with an outdoor mesh network. This wireless network contained 200 access points and provided high speed network access to students and staff.
Laketec also implemented an Avaya IP Office phone system with over 200 phones and resilient gateways at each building for failover. During this installation we upgraded their infrastructure with new Dell/VMware virtualized servers and storage with a disaster recovery plan that included an active-active replication.
Vermilion also selected Laketec to replace their SonicWALL firewall with Palo Alto’s Next Generation Firewall.
With an enrollment of approximately 8,300 students, the Canton City School District is the largest in Stark County and one of the eight largest urban school systems in Ohio. It is also one of the largest employers in Stark County. The district comprises one high school (with two campuses and a freshman academy), four middle school academies, seven Prek-2 Reading and Math Preparatory schools and six 3-5 Leadership Schools. In addition, the district operates five alternative high schools, two alternative middle schools and helps operate a Montessori school, a Digital Academy, an Arts Academy and a Balanced Calendar school opening for the 2018-19 year.
As part of their goal to implement the best technology possible to support their students, Canton City schools engaged Laketec to install new Aruba switching and reconfigure part of their existing Cisco wired infrastructure across 28 schools. Once the underlying network was completed, Laketec was then asked to implement new Aruba wireless and Palo Alto firewalls in several of the schools. Completed in phases, this new network contains over 1000 access points and 100 switches and provides high speed and reliable network access to students and staff across the district.
