Enterasys (News - Alert), the network infrastructure and security division of Siemens Enterprise Communications Group, has announced that Lake Land College of Illinois has deployed Enterasys solutions to provide fixed and wireless IT infrastructure for its 7,400 students and 600 staff across its main campus and four satellite locations. With the help of  Enterasys solutions and support, Lake Land's IT staff of five has realized its aim of implementing multimedia technology in all 120 classrooms, and now can easily manage day-to-day network activity while achieving a comprehensive network visibility and protection. 

Siemens Enterprise Communications (News - Alert) Group is a leading provider of end-to-end enterprise communications which include voice, network infrastructure and security solutions that use open, standards-based architectures to integrate communications and business applications for a seamless collaboration experience.

Lee Spaniol, director of Information Systems and Services at Lake Land College explained that as it was time to replace existing end-of-life equipment, they evaluated the leading network infrastructure vendors, including comparable solutions from Cisco (News - Alert), HP, Foundry and Extreme, but has always found them coming back to Enterasys. The automation and security features that come standard with Enterasys equipment were key factors in their decision, as they plan on future growth to support curriculum expansion. According to Spaniol with Enterasys, more layers of management can be added with fewer resources.

Spaniol and his team also considered Enterasys' standards-based design approach and support for a VMware environment, reliability, scalability, security, overall cost and interoperability with its existing VoIP solution.

Bill Warfel, chief network administrator at Lake Land College commented that Lake Land College currently has a widely-used wireless campus network using the HiPath Wireless access points and controllers. Warfel added that they have just completed construction on a 51,000 square-foot addition, where the technology education division is located. They teach everything from CAD to 3D modeling to GPS-based survey and agricultural technology, which require large amounts of network bandwidth. Enterasys N-Series switches provide Warfel’s small staff the ability to dynamically prioritize bandwidth availability using flow-based technology.

Lake Land College's Enterasys network is specially designed to allow more cost-effective data collaboration between departments and support for education-critical applications such as Blackboard (News - Alert), as well as Internet connectivity for full-time and part-time students, and also for distance learners who connect remotely using role-based access.

Spaniol had added that they extensively depended on the automation features of the NMS management software, which has enabled them free up considerable time and resources so that they can now concentrate on the next phase of network expansion.