How do you create a cost-efficient, highly effective network structure for a large school district with more than 100,000 students and 15,000 staff members in 175 facilities? That’s the complex question that the IT experts and administrators at Jefferson County (Kentucky) Public Schools grappled with when the district decided to deploy a network foundation for modern electronics.

1. Jefferson County (KY) Public
Schools IT Deploys a Future-ready
Platform with Avaya Networking
How do you create a cost-efficient, highly effective
network structure for a large school district with
more than 100,000 students and 15,000 staff
members in 175 facilities?
That’s the complex question that the IT
experts and administrators at Jefferson
County (Kentucky) Public Schools
grappled with when the district decided
to deploy a network foundation for
modern electronics. The district’s
specific objectives for the new
deployment included:
• establishing a platform that could
meet all of the district’s educational
and administrative needs in the
present and for many years to come
• bringing gigabit to the desktop at all
facilities
• supporting the growing bring-your-
own-device (BYOD) trend
• providing a strong foundation for the
successful deployment of VoIP and
wireless technologies throughout the
school district
After a detailed RFP process, Jefferson
County Public Schools chose Avaya
Virtual Enterprise Network Architecture
(VENA) Fabric Connect technology
deployed on the Avaya Virtual Services
Platform 9000, Avaya Virtual Services
Platform 7000, Avaya Virtual Services
Platform 4000, and Avaya Ethernet
Routing Switches 4800.
avaya.com | 1
Challenges
Deploy a comprehensive
network solution that
will:
• Meet all administrative
and educational needs
in the present and for
years to come
• Bring gigabit to the
desktop for more than
115,000 users
• Enable the use of
multiple personal
electronic devices by
each student
• Provide a strong
foundation for the
successful deployment
of VoIP and wireless
technologies
throughout the school
district
Business Value
• Speed of deployment,
affording immediate
access to higher
bandwidth by all
teachers, students,
and administrators
• Ease of use and
excellent tech support
– saving time and
money, eliminating
downtime
• Enabling the evolution
of a bring-your-own-
device (BYOD)
environment
• Robust support for
VoIP and expanded
wireless coverage
• A platform for the
future that provides
reliability, scalability,
and investment
protection for
unlimited,
uninterrupted use of
technology in the
classroom

2. A comprehensive, next-
generation technology
Avaya Fabric Connect delivers a
comprehensive array of network
services, including Layer 2 and Layer
3 virtualization with optimized routing
and fully integrated support for IP
Multicast. Fabric Connect can
transform an entire network, from
data center to desktop and mobile
devices, into a private cloud
infrastructure. This makes the
network more agile and much easier
to configure, manage, and maintain.
Based on an enhanced
implementation of Shortest Path
Bridging, a standards-based network
virtualization technology, Avaya
Fabric Connect can be deployed
using simple endpoint provisioning
(rather than hop-by-hop) to
accelerate time-to-service and reduce
the potential for error. Moves, adds,
and changes can be done on the fly
and without risk, since the core no
longer needs to be reconfigured. The
technology allows customers to
gradually phase out multiple complex
legacy technologies and to enable all
services through a single, next-
generation technology.
In order to conduct the installation for
Jefferson County Public Schools in
the most efficient and least disruptive
way, Avaya and an Avaya channel
partner in the area proposed a
deployment schedule for the school
district’s 175 locations that would take
place entirely during the summer
when the students were out of school.
This was a bold suggestion, since it
would require an extremely
accelerated process compared to
what many experts would have
expected.
Benefits
Speed of deployment
By sending in teams of engineers to
work with technicians from Jefferson
County Public Schools, Avaya and the
Avaya channel partner were able to
move steadily from one county
facility to another during the summer
recess. After deployment, testing
required less than two weeks before
the system was ready to go live.
(Traditional network implementations
often require months of testing.) As
promised, the installation and testing
of the system for 175 facilities were
done entirely during the students’
summer vacation, in time for the
network to go live before the start of
the next school year. As a result,
teachers, students, and
administrators were able to access
the greatly expanded bandwidth for a
wide range of applications, without
concern about limitations or
downtime.
Enabling the evolution of a bring-
your-own-device (BYOD)
environment
The school district is in the process of
changing its policy to allow students
to use their own electronic devices in
the schools. It’s estimated that 70 to
75 percent of the more than 100,000
students will eventually be using from
one to three (or more) personally-
owned devices, including laptops,
tablets such as iPad and Android
devices, and Windows phones.
2 | avaya.com
Investment protection is a key benefit of the
deployment for Jefferson County Public Schools,
because the Avaya network is designed to
accommodate future technologies for many years
to come. Most importantly, educators can develop
almost unlimited plans for new ways to engage
students through digital technology.

3. Avaya TCO Advantage Over Cisco for a Large
Suburban School District
For a large suburban school district,
total-cost-of-ownership (TCO) savings
can be as high as $4.12 million in one
year and $6.73 million in five years.
Independent reports commissioned by
Avaya have also confirmed that Avaya
products consume 36% less energy,
provide 40% lower total cost of
ownership and support 233% greater
traffic capacity. (Source: Miercom
Report: Plug and Play Switches, August
2011, Report 110829, commissioned by
Avaya)
SEE:
Save_School_Money_With_Lower
Networking Costs Brochure (pdf)
LEARN MORE
about Avaya solutions for
education in our publication:
Save Your School Money
with Lower Networking
Costs from Avaya.
For more information contact
your Avaya Account Manager
or an Avaya Authorized
Partner.
You can speak with an Avaya
representative by dialing
1-855-227-4919 (toll free),
or by visiting
www.avaya.com/education
The new Avaya infrastructure will
provide reliable service to support
this large and diverse quantity of
personal mobile devices. The use of
personal devices will, in turn, reduce
the number of county-owned wireless
and wired devices that it would
otherwise be necessary to supply to
students – thus significantly lowering
costs, maintenance, and
administrative processes related to
the use of county devices.
Excellent tech support and ease
of use
Avaya and the Avaya channel partner
maintain a highly collaborative
relationship with the Jefferson
County IT team. It’s important for
such a large school district to have an
excellent support structure because
there are many components in the
district. When things have to be done
right away, the IT team needs to know
they can pick up the phone and get
help quickly, to so that there can be
uninterrupted network service.
The Avaya network Fabric Connect
technology affords an extremely
stable platform and unparalleled
simplicity in setting up new devices,
troubleshooting, and migration to the
cloud. Operation is highly intuitive,
with all equipment offering easy-to-
follow instructions. The result is
significant savings in time and
manpower required to operate and
maintain the network.
A comprehensive platform for the
future to support data, VoIP, and
wireless technology
The Avaya network provides reliability
and scalability for virtually unlimited,
uninterrupted use of technology in
the classroom. It also serves as a
robust foundation for upgrading the
district’s voice systems and for
expanding the wireless coverage.
Investment protection is a key benefit
of the deployment for Jefferson
County Public Schools, because the
Avaya network is designed to
avaya.com | 3
Note: the above chart and related costs do not refer
specifically to the school district discussed in this case
study.

4. © 2014 Avaya Inc. All Rights Reserved.
All trademarks identified by ®, ™, or SM
are registered marks, trademarks, and service marks, respectively, of Avaya Inc.
03/14 • UC7473
About Avaya
Avaya is a global
provider of business
collaboration and
communications
solutions, providing
unified communications,
contact centers,
networking and related
services to companies
of all sizes around
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information please visit
www.avaya.com.
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Avaya Solution
• Avaya Virtual Services Platform 9000
• Avaya Virtual Services Platform 7000
• Avaya Virtual Services Platform 4000
• Avaya Ethernet Routing Switches 4800
ABOUT JEFFERSON COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Jefferson County Public Schools is a public school district located in Jefferson
County, Kentucky, that operates 172 schools (89 elementary, 23 middle, 19 high, 2
combined, 39 special), with over 100,000 students. It is governed by an elected
seven-member Board of Education. A Superintendent serves as chief executive.
(Note: photos within this case study do not represent actual scenes within Jefferson County Public
Schools.)
accommodate future technologies for many years to come. Continued cost savings
can be achieved as new educational and administrative applications/hardware
become available, and total cost of ownership is optimized for a period of several
years. Most importantly, educators can develop almost unlimited plans for new
ways to engage students through digital technology.