Like most public school districts, Yuma struggles financially to provide the best possible education experience for its K-12 students. Yuma schools face the additional challenges of an extremely fast-growing population that includes plenty of school-age children.

As long-time customers of both Cisco and Enterasys, Yuma schools began searching for new networking solutions that would deliver the capabilities they required but more affordably. They found that the lifetime warranty* offered by ProCurve Networking by HP helped them save enough in maintenance contracts to apply precious resources elsewhere. And after beginning the conversion to ProCurve solutions, Yuma has discovered additional benefits such as ease of network management and compatibility with the schools' mixed-platform classroom computers and the district's voice-over-IP (VoIP) solution from Avaya.

The Yuma Educational Technology Consortium (YETC), responsible for setting technology direction and delivering technology support services to Yuma schools, constantly evaluates how the schools can get the most from their technology investments. in 2003, YETC began looking for alternatives to the Cisco and Enterasys networking products already in place. The search led them to ProCurve Networking by HP.

"We initially chose ProCurve for its product features and for ProCurve's lifetime warranty and support," said Dave Bradley, Director of Technology for YETC. "The money we save in maintenance contracts helps us concentrate our resources in other areas, such as additional computing and communications products."

Yuma schools' network is extensive, with 7,000 network drops at 30 sites, serving 1,000 teachers and 750 staff members as well as 21,000 students. ProCurve's modular design allows for a more compact package, which provides for more drops to be assigned to the existing Intermediate Distribution Frames in the structure.

By eliminating maintenance contracts on Yuma's network switches, the ProCurve solution - which has been rolled out to four high schools, several elementary schools and both district offices so far - has saved the schools enough to purchase more computers for classrooms. In fact, Yuma now has one computer for every four students, twice as good as the Arizona state average of one computer for every eight students.

"When faced with the option of more classroom computers or high-priced network switches, it's obvious which direction we prefer," said Bradley. "Without compromising our network demands and expectations, we found a vendor that delivered great products and great value. By using ProCurve, we are able to put more computers in front of the kids, and that's what our whole mission is about."

In the past, Yuma schools experienced huge reliability problems with their networking equipment. "It had gotten to the point where keeping the network up and running had become a 12-hour-a-day job for a couple of guys," said Bradley. "With the ProCurve products, our reliability problems have gone to zero. We simply don't have failures any more."

Any issues that do arise are handled before they become problems. "ProCurve's phone support is great. With ProCurve, there are no hoops to go through. We get the answers we need, right away," said Bradley.

• ProCurve's lifetime warranty has enabled Yuma schools to eliminate their formerly costly maintenance contracts and reinvest the saved resources into more classroom computers, for direct benefit to students.
• The ProCurve switches have virtually eliminated Yuma's network reliability problems, and ProCurve's accessible phone support services help Yuma keep their network running smoothly all the time.
• The easy network management provided by ProCurve Manager Plus network management software frees up network administrators' time to focus on tasks that add direct value to the district's educational mission.
• The standards-based ProCurve products which easily support Yuma schools' Avaya VoIP system and the district's mix of computing platforms - provide Yuma schools with the flexibility needed to implement new capabilities, such as secure wireless access and greater use of laptops.

As a leader in promoting and implementing industry standards, ProCurve Networking makes sure that its networking products work with the leading suppliers of VoIP equipment including products from Avaya, Yuma schools' VoIP supplier.

Yuma schools have installed more than a thousand Avaya 4610 and 4620 VoIP phones on their way to 3,000+ VoIP phones - that now run through the ProCurve switches. Yuma schools run their own phone exchange for administrators, teachers and staff. The VoIP phones, which lowered the number of POTS (services that were available from analogue telephones prior to the introduction of electronic telephone exchanges into the public switched telephone network) lines at campuses, are another way that YETC has helped cut the schools' costs. "Getting the Avaya VoIP phones running on the ProCurve infrastructure is painless because they just plug together," said Bradley. YETC also has been able to upgrade from a Layer 2 system to Layer 3 with virtual local-area networks (VLANs).

In addition to compatibility with Yuma's VoIP solution, the ProCurve equipment works well with the schools' mix of Macintosh (at all elementary, junior high and middle schools in the district), Windows (at all the high schools) and Linux (on all the district's servers) operating systems. Through "technology locker" software, students retain access to their files throughout their school careers, even as they move from one OS to another. And at each stage, the ProCurve network infrastructure supports the various computing environments, seamlessly.

This easy compatibility helps streamline network administrators' network management tasks, so they can concentrate on tasks that add more direct value to the school district's educational mission, such as implementing new software and network features.

Yuma is finalizing construction of a new high school and two new elementary schools, a testament to the city's fast-growing population. All these new schools will start off with a ProCurve network infrastructure.

ProCurve's standards-based solutions, built on ProCurve's Adaptive EDGE Architecture™, ensure the flexibility needed to plan for future network demands. YETC would like to help the schools make greater use of wireless technologies, but Yuma's proximity to Mexico - where no wireless security regulations exist mean "wireless is tough to implement securely in Yuma," Bradley said.

Still, YETC is evaluating the ProCurve 700 series Access Controller, ProCurve Wireless Access Point 420wl and Access Controller Module (ACM) blade, in conjunction with the AirWave Management Platform (AMP) from ProCurve partner AirWave Wireless Inc. The ProCurve wireless solutions support the latest wireless security protocols, including 802.1X authentication, WPA, AES, RADIUS, VLAN and MAC filtering. Eventually, Yuma hopes to implement secure wireless networks and make greater use of laptop computers in its schools.

In the meantime, the Yuma schools are on schedule to convert their remaining network sites to a ProCurve infrastructure, at a pace of four to five schools a year, depending on availability of funding. Utilizing this plan, a new 365,000 square foot high school and a K-5 elementary school, just completed, open their doors with ProCurve networks installed. "We are pleased with our decision to choose ProCurve," Bradley said. "The ProCurve equipment does what we need it to do, it's reliable, it works with the rest of our computing and communications environment - and the cost savings are helping us fulfill our mission of improving education throughout Yuma's schools."

The ProCurve Networking business unit of HP delivers enterprise networking solutions comprising wired and wireless LAN and WAN networking products, services and solutions. Recognizing the necessary migration of intelligence and functionality to the network edge, the ProCurve Adaptive EDGE Architecture™ strategy is the industry's only comprehensive and inclusive network design strategy that is adaptable, scalable and completely interoperable for achieving command from the center with control to the network edge. ProCurve was positioned in the challenger quadrant in research and advisory firm Gartner, Inc.'s 2004 Magic Quadrant Report for Global Campus LANs.

When you are ready to explore the benefits a ProCurve Networking solution can offer you, call HP at 1-800-975-7682.

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