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MERU WIRELESS NETWORKS IN SCHOOLS CONNECTING THE NEXT GENERATION OF STUDENTS

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Page 1: MERU WiRElESS NETWORKS iN SChOOlS … · Wireless networks are changing the ways that teachers teach and students learn.:: Collaborative, interactive learning: Schools are incorporating

MERU WiRElESS NETWORKS iN SChOOlS

CONNECTiNg ThE NExT gENERATiON OF STUdENTS

Page 2: MERU WiRElESS NETWORKS iN SChOOlS … · Wireless networks are changing the ways that teachers teach and students learn.:: Collaborative, interactive learning: Schools are incorporating

Wireless networks are changing the ways that teachers teach and students learn.

:: Collaborative, interactive learning: Schools are incorporating technology into the classroom and curriculum, engaging stu-dents and creating collaborative learning environments, while enabling on-line testing and student assessment.

:: Technology into the hands of the students: Schools are replacing books and paper and emphasizing one-to-one learn-ing experiences using digital textbooks, laptops, tablets, and netbooks providing students with an engaging multi-media experience.

:: Essential instructional technology: In the 21st Century school, Wireless LANS are the critical conduit for lessons, col-laborative learning, videos and tests. These networks must be transparent to the learning process, supporting an entire class of students with quick and robust logins, while supporting a wide range of devices.

:: Complex technology made easy: Schools are in the busi-ness of education, not operating networks. The wireless LAN must be easy to deploy, modify and manage with little to no expertise. School IT departments simply cannot be experts in wireless technology, nor can school budgets afford costly infrastructure solutions and high maintenance.

Mobility has Become Essential To Education Over the past few years the wireless LAN has changed from a net-work of convenience to mission-critical in which students, teachers, and administrators rely. This new mobility opens the door for many new initiatives which help the school improve student grades, as well as teacher and operational efficiency.

:: learning: 1:1 computing initiatives gets technology into the hands of the students with engaging and interactive curricu-lum. Educators are also leveraging digital textbooks and online resources to keep content current and lower costs.

:: Testing: A growing number of school systems are required to meet online testing requirements and allows schools to use classroom management systems to assess students progress and identifying where they need additional assistance.

:: Teaching: Teachers can easily share lesson plans and teaching tools, as well as access materials over the Internet that might not be available locally. They can also bring new experiences to the classroom that would otherwise be inaccessible to students, such as virtual field trips or interaction with students at “sister schools” around the world.

:: Administration: The ability to easily use wireless devices at any school in the system and to share costly assets enables schools to stretch their technology investments to more students. With pervasive wireless, schools can leverage Wi-Fi phones for staff communications as well as notify teachers and staff immediately in the event of an emergency. Some schools are also using RFID badges to track their students while on school property and wireless cameras for surveillance of hallways and school property.

:: Asset management: Increasingly, asset management solutions are used to track and locate laptops, instructional equipment, electronic devices, and maintenance supplies.

Choosing the Right Wireless Network Meru provides two families of access points (APs) to reliably connect students, teachers, and administrators in the classroom, across the school campus, and within sports and performing arts ven-ues. Meru’s flagship AP300 series is designed to support the most demanding applications, including 1:1 computing initiatives and voice/video intensive applications, as well as supporting large numbers of simultaneous users. The AP1000i series is ideal for minimizing the cost of deployment for general WLAN usage and delivering flawless mobility for Wi-Fi clients.

Reliable high Performance For Everyone Modern school mobility programs create a challenging environment for wireless LANs due to the large number of students in a class-room that require immediate, continuous connections. This demand on most wireless networks results in inability for some students to log on, dropped connections once connected, and numerous interruptions to class time, frequently 10 to 15 minutes. With a 45 minutes class, this significant loss of class time, creating frustrated teachers and students who view the technology as a impediment rather than an enabler.

In schools with Meru virtualized wireless LANs, entire classrooms experience predictable and reliable access with no class time disrup-tions, delivering quick access to lessons and multimedia.

Simple to deploy and Manage An Meru has eliminated the complexity of wireless which is espe-cially valuable for school administrators. No RF surveys. No channel planning. An entire Meru virtualized wireless LAN can be installed in hours or days. Schools can simply “set it and forget it.” and focus on education, rather than the wireless LAN.

Meru’s virtualization makes wireless coverage as simple as install-ing light bulbs, by creating a seamless channel layer throughout the school. This seamless channel layer provides exceptional mobility for roaming clients while ensuring rock solid connections.

Schools may deploy a network today, only to find they need ad-ditional capacity in particular locations. This scenario is particularly

SChOOlS SNAPShOT

| MERUNETWORKS.COM | SCHOOLS (K-12) SOLUTION BRIEF

SYMPTOMS OF NETWORK PROBlEMS Wireless networks were not designed to meet the needs of today’s classrooms. Teachers and students frequently experience the following problems which leads to frustration and lost class time:

• Difficulty in connecting and unpredictable performance as more students log on

• Dropped connections, causing sessions to be re-started and wasting time• Unreliable connectivity while accessing online tests or information• Poor multimedia quality and experience

Challenges for iT administrators:• Network design and deployment complexity• Increased complaints about poor performance and lost class time• Frequent tuning and re-tuning for optimizing performance• Significant cost and engineering effort required to scale network for

new applications • Complex management tools, daily maintenance and high support costs

Page 3: MERU WiRElESS NETWORKS iN SChOOlS … · Wireless networks are changing the ways that teachers teach and students learn.:: Collaborative, interactive learning: Schools are incorporating

painful and difficult with other WLAN solutions. With Meru virtualized WLAN, adding capacity is simple, allowing your wireless network to be scaled with linear capacity as you expect it should. If addition capacity is required for libraries or auditoriums, simply layer additional channels to meet your needs.

Do you have an old building with thick concrete walls? Meru’s solu-tion deploys easily in older buildings where other WLANs failed to provide coverages. Meru’s virtualized WLAN allows access points to operate at full power resulting in stronger signals and better client connectivity.

Simple, Proactive Management

Meru’s Service Assurance Management suite provides schools a number of management tools to monitor and maintain the network.

E(z)RF Network Manager can automatically monitor the network and provide real-time reporting, providing quick problem resolution to ensure minimal class time disruptions.

E(z)RF Service Assurance Manager can continually monitor your wire-less and wired networks performance, reporting on throughput, delay and loss of both over the air and wired connections, so you know if there are developing problems before users do.

Meru Spectrum Manager analyzes the RF where your wireless LAN is deployed and allows the network administrator to view the entire wireless spectrum so you can take any necessary actions. Common classifications include surveillance cameras, cordless phones, micro-waves, gaming consoles and Bluetooth headsets

Meru Wireless Intrusion Protection enables network administrators to identify rogue devices or network attacks that may be taking place on the network. It allows them to identify the type of attack and where it is located.

highly Cost-effective Meru wireless LANs have lower capital costs than traditional wired or wireless networks, and they also have significantly lower operational costs. Meru’s high-powered access points in combination with their full power deployments, requires up to 30 percent fewer access point, requiring fewer cables and Ethernet ports, stretching tight bud-gets. Meru’s wireless LAN was designed to support wired applica-tions such as video, voice, and data on the same network increasing a schools Return on Investment and avoiding the costs associated with buying and maintaining multiple separate networks.

Safety and Security Classrooms in older buildings often do not have telephones or net-work connections, and frequently their construction prevents reliable cell phone connections. With Meru, schools can support emergency communications with toll-quality voice and seamless roaming ev-erywhere the network reaches. A Meru wireless LAN also supports wireless video cameras, enabling schools to implement effective sur-veillance coverage without the cost of laying cable. Meru also builds

advanced security measures into every layer of the network to help schools maintain compliance with student privacy regulations.

Meru Works With You For every Meru wireless network implementation, our consulta-tive staff works closely with your team to address your organi-zation’s unique needs. We will survey your site and conduct a professional services review to analyze your existing network, video and voice needs and other applications. We also man-age solution implementation and can operate and monitor your network to meet Service Level Agreements.

Meru Customer Successes“We selected Meru’s single-channel approach and ability to support high densities of wireless users - over 1,000 students on our campus in Hawthorn, Victoria. With Meru, there is no channel interference and our students, teachers and staff are now connected in the class-room and across campus - online and wire-free.”

—Bialik College, Victoria, Australia

“The new wireless system has been immensely important to our schools. On top of the convenience and flexibility we now have, we also have an underlying system which will carry us forward into the future. Having this kind of an asset will be invaluable as we endeavor to add more technology to our classrooms and buildings.”

—greene County Public Schools, Virginia

“Because we now have a consistent wireless solution, device com-patibility issues have been eliminated; allowing our IT team to easily share laptops and other devices between schools when demands shift. Since there are no configuration changes to perform, devices move seamlessly from school to school. Having this kind of flexibility means we spend less of our time on management, and a smaller budget is needed because we don’t have to have as many devices at every school.”

—greene County Public Schools, Virginia

Deploying the Meru system has made the network easy to work with, and teachers have access to the tools they need 100 percent of the time. Now, they can focus on education rather than worrying about whether or not the network is up. Meru has not only given us the capacity and performance we needed, it has made managing the network much easier than it ever was before.”

—St. Agnes Academy, Texas

AP1000i AP300

Cost-sensitive 802.11n Mission-critical 802.11n

Guest room access (few clients per AP)

Meeting/Conference Areas (many clients per AP)

Mobile Point of Sale (POS) IPTV/High Definition Video

Back of House Operations High capacity voice applications

Internal antenna only Choice of internal or external antenna

SUPPORTiNg PARTNER SOlUTiONS Meru partners with leading providers of educational devices and applications to deliver comprehensive solutions:

Unified Messaging and Communications

Agito Networks Avaya Fujitsu T*Mobile

Security & Network Admission Control

Bradford Networks Impulse Avenda Juniper

Voice & Video Aastra Ascom Avaya Polycom ShoreTel T*Mobile Vocera

Automated locking Assa Abloy Blue Wave Security

Asset Tracking Aeroscout Ekahau

Mobile devices Apple Dell Motion Computing Motorola/Symbol Psion/Teklogix

Page 4: MERU WiRElESS NETWORKS iN SChOOlS … · Wireless networks are changing the ways that teachers teach and students learn.:: Collaborative, interactive learning: Schools are incorporating

MERUNETWORKS.COM

About Meru Networks | Founded in 2002, Meru Networks provides a virtualized wire-less LAN solution that cost-effectively optimizes the enterprise network to deliver the performance, reliability, predictability and operational simplicity of a wired network, with the advantages of mobility. Meru’s solution represents an innovative approach to wireless networking that utilizes virtualization technology to create an intelligent and self-monitoring wireless network, and enables enterprises to migrate their business-critical applications from wired networks to wireless networks, and become all-wireless enterprises. Meru’s solutions have been adopted in al l major industry vertical markets, including Fortune 500 enterprises, healthcare, education, retail, manufacturing, hospitality and government. Meru is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., and has operations in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. For more information, visit www.merunetworks.com or call 408.215.5300.

Meru Networks | Copyright © 2010 Meru Networks, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Meru Networks is a registered trademark of Meru Networks, Inc. in the US and worldwide. All other trademarks, trade names or service marks men-tioned in this document are the property of their respective owners.

For more information about Meru wireless network solutions for schools, visit | www.merunetworks.com or call | +1.408.215.5300 | You can also send a message to [email protected].