Cerium Networks helps Lake Washington School District upgrade to Cisco chassis switches to streamline management, reduce risk and enable greater scalability.
Lake Washington School District is the second largest school district in the state of Washington, with more than 50 elementary, middle and high schools serving some 31,000 students. It takes a large network to support all the systems, applications and devices used in a modern learning environment. Yet Lake Washington School District has just two and a half full-time technicians with exclusive responsibility for maintaining the network.
“We don’t have a huge team of people who manage the network,” said Brad Bickford, Technical Project Manager, Lake Washington School District. “Having something reliable is crucial for us.”
Lake Washington School District has hundreds of standalone network switches that are beginning to show their age. Although the district had not experienced major problems, the IT team was concerned about the increasing risk of failure and downtime. They also wanted networking equipment that was easier to troubleshoot and manage to relieve the burden on their small staff.
The district’s steady growth made modernizing the network switching infrastructure increasingly critical. Lake Washington School partnered with Cerium Networks to implement new chassis-based switches in its new facilities and systematically upgrade the equipment in existing schools. Because the district had built its network on Cisco gear, Cerium proposed Cisco Catalyst 9400 Series switches for this initiative.
“We don’t have a huge team of people who manage the network,” said Brad Bickford, Technical Project Manager, Lake Washington School District. “Having something reliable is crucial for us.”
Lake Washington School District has hundreds of standalone network switches that are beginning to show their age. Although the district had not experienced major problems, the IT team was concerned about the increasing risk of failure and downtime. They also wanted networking equipment that was easier to troubleshoot and manage to relieve the burden on their small staff.
The district’s steady growth made modernizing the network switching infrastructure increasingly critical. Lake Washington School partnered with Cerium Networks to implement new chassis-based switches in its new facilities and systematically upgrade the equipment in existing schools. Because the district had built its network on Cisco gear, Cerium proposed Cisco Catalyst 9400 Series switches for this initiative.
Solution: Systematic, District-Wide Upgrades of Network Switches
Standalone switches are self-contained units with fixed capabilities and no swappable parts. If a component of the switch fails, the whole unit must be replaced. Chassis-based switches are modular, allowing technicians to swap out components such as cards and power supplies. Although they come with a higher initial cost than standalone switches, chassis switches offer greater capacity and flexibility, and can be upgraded to meet growing requirements.
These features made the Cisco Catalyst 9400 Series switches ideal for Lake Washington School District. Cerium recommended the Cisco Catalyst 9407 midsize modular chassis with high-availability power and fan redundancy for greater resilience. In addition, the Cisco switches deliver the scalability and performance the school district needs along with high levels of automation, AI-powered security and single-pane-of-glass management.
Lake Washington School District began with three middle schools — Finn Hill, Kirkland and Redmond — that were slated for expansion. Cerium assisted with the switch implementation, which had to be completed during the summer months. The Cerium team preconfigured the switches to streamline deployment, installed them in the district’s environment, and added them to the Cisco management tools. Cerium also provided complete documentation, including physical and logical diagrams of the equipment.
The district plans to continue the process across new and expanded schools and, ultimately, all of its facilities.
“Next summer, we’re going to be adding to East Lake High School and Redmond High School. And then the following year we’re replacing two other schools,” Bickford said. “Those will all have the new chassis switches.”
These features made the Cisco Catalyst 9400 Series switches ideal for Lake Washington School District. Cerium recommended the Cisco Catalyst 9407 midsize modular chassis with high-availability power and fan redundancy for greater resilience. In addition, the Cisco switches deliver the scalability and performance the school district needs along with high levels of automation, AI-powered security and single-pane-of-glass management.
Lake Washington School District began with three middle schools — Finn Hill, Kirkland and Redmond — that were slated for expansion. Cerium assisted with the switch implementation, which had to be completed during the summer months. The Cerium team preconfigured the switches to streamline deployment, installed them in the district’s environment, and added them to the Cisco management tools. Cerium also provided complete documentation, including physical and logical diagrams of the equipment.
The district plans to continue the process across new and expanded schools and, ultimately, all of its facilities.
“Next summer, we’re going to be adding to East Lake High School and Redmond High School. And then the following year we’re replacing two other schools,” Bickford said. “Those will all have the new chassis switches.”
Results: Chassis Switches Already Proving Their Value
Lake Washington School District has already seen benefits from the Cisco Catalyst 9407 switches. One of the switches had a bad card in it, and the technicians were able to swap it out with a new one easily. What would have been a more serious problem with the old standalone switches was a quick fix with the chassis model.
“With the individual switches, it’s been a lot to oversee everything. Every switch has little things that happen to it, and when you have hundreds and hundreds of them around the district, it’s quite a lot to manage. It can be a challenge some days,” Bickford said. “We believe that the chassis switches will reduce some of the maintenance overhead for our network technicians.
“Fortunately, that’s not on me. My particular focus is on the construction side when we build new schools and remodel existing facilities. I help ensure that the technology implementations go the way they’re supposed to.”
Bickford says that Cerium has been a great partner for this initiative. The Cerium team adds needed manpower and expertise, and has helped streamline the configuration, installation and integration of the new Cisco equipment.
“We really have liked our working relationship with Cerium,” he said. “There are some really good people there, and we’ve come to rely on one of Cerium’s engineers in particular. He knows our environment almost better than I do. That makes a difference.”
“With the individual switches, it’s been a lot to oversee everything. Every switch has little things that happen to it, and when you have hundreds and hundreds of them around the district, it’s quite a lot to manage. It can be a challenge some days,” Bickford said. “We believe that the chassis switches will reduce some of the maintenance overhead for our network technicians.
“Fortunately, that’s not on me. My particular focus is on the construction side when we build new schools and remodel existing facilities. I help ensure that the technology implementations go the way they’re supposed to.”
Bickford says that Cerium has been a great partner for this initiative. The Cerium team adds needed manpower and expertise, and has helped streamline the configuration, installation and integration of the new Cisco equipment.
“We really have liked our working relationship with Cerium,” he said. “There are some really good people there, and we’ve come to rely on one of Cerium’s engineers in particular. He knows our environment almost better than I do. That makes a difference.”
