Concordia International School Shanghai – An Outsourced Network solution
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"At Concordia we embrace technology as a set of tools for education not as an end it itself. We turned to Solution Keys to provide much of the infrastructure that makes this set of tools possible. From design, to installation, to management and maintenance, Solution Keys has played a key role in providing network, application, and hardware support services for the School. This integration of services from a single provider eliminated many of the headaches associated with a multiple-provider-based approach and has provided a stable, quality platform from which we can work toward our main goal, which is working with our parents and students to provide the highest quality education possible." Tom Reed Director of Technology Concordia International School Shanghai |
Concordia International School Shanghai (CISS) sees technology as a way of learning integral to the school’s learning environment. The school’s philosophy espouses a commitment to pursuing excellence for its students, reflected in the high-level of investment it makes in learning facilities.
During the planning and construction of Phase IV, a 12,000-square-meter building project, CISS decided to invest in a complete overhaul of its IT infrastructure. The school wanted to switch its long-running one-to-one laptop program from a PC to an Apple-based initiative. CISS wanted to ensure that its investment would be able to serve students well into the future and therefore insisted that only the very best networking and computing infrastructure be installed.
Solution
CISS selected SolutionKeys’ proposal for a state-of-the-art, total IT solution. This comprehensive package consisted of: design, installation and configuration of a 10 Gigabit Cisco fibre backbone; dual-core server environment; a centrally-controlled, enterprise-standard 802.11n campus-wide wireless network; an upgrade of the school’s existing Windows Server system to a Microsoft Hyper-V virtualization environment; deployment of a one-to-one Apple laptop program; creation of an Apple Authorized Service Center; and the outsourcing of the entire IT staff and operation to SolutionKeys.
Deployment
During the Phase IV construction process, SolutionKeys conducted regular meetings with contractors to coordinate the installation of networking fibre and network devices. The school’s existing Windows Server environment was upgraded to support a Hyper-V enabled virtualization environment extracting improved capability, stability and resources from the existing infrastructure.
The replacement Apple desktop platform was gradually phased-in over a three-year period, replacing Desktop PCs with Apple iMac workstations in all areas with the exception of the business offices. The beginning of a long-term relationship between SolutionKeys and CISS, SolutionKeys’ onsite engineers and service center support Concordia’s whole IT infrastructure, run PC and Mac help desk support, server administration, application software and hardware repair.
