Aruba Networks, Inc. today announced that the Howard County Public School System of Maryland is in the process of deploying a system-wide 802.11n wireless network based on the Aruba Mobile Virtual Enterprise (MOVE) architecture. When fully deployed in 2013, the Aruba solution will provide streaming voice and video to classrooms, common areas and media centers in all 74 schools in the system.
Currently deployed in all 12 high schools, one middle school, and two educational centers, the Aruba access network provides secure Internet and application access, including streaming voice over IP and video. Each teacher on the network has been provided an 802.11n-capable laptop, a client-side match to Aruba’s access points, mobility switches and controllers.
“The ability to securely stream wireless voice and video in all of our schools is a quantum leap from where we were a year ago. It’s very satisfying to provide state-of-the-art teaching resources to our students and staff,” said Michael Borkoski, technology officer at Howard County Public School System. “I’m also in a very unique position, being an executive of the school system, a taxpayer in our county and a parent of two children enrolled in our schools. I’m wearing three hats when I’m making decisions about value and functionality; Aruba satisfies my wireless network access requirements from every perspective.”
The Howard County Public School System consistently ranks among Maryland’s top school districts based on student performance on the Maryland School Assessments. Howard County students score above the national averages on standardized tests and more than 90 percent of graduates continue their education beyond high school.
Howard County Public School System has a wide variety of iOS devices on the network in addition to Dell and Apple laptops and a variety of netbooks. In each of the 13 currently-deployed locations, Aruba AP-105, AP-125 and AP-135 802.11n access points are connected to the Aruba S3500 mobility access switch as well as the Aruba 3400 series mobility controller. Using Aruba AirWave, the school system’s IT staff is able to ‘fingerprint’ all applications running over the network, in addition to all of the mobile devices connected to it.
