SUNNYVALE and SAN JOSE, Calif., Sept.
3, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Ruckus Wireless, Inc. (NYSE:
RKUS) and Brocade (NASDAQ: BRCD) announced today that Chico (CA) Unified School District (USD) and
Souderton (PA) Area School
District (ASD) have deployed a joint Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi wireless
and Brocade® wired network infrastructure solution to
support 21st century digital learning techniques. Ruckus Wireless
and Brocade are working together as technology ecosystem partners
to deliver end-to-end, open standards, best-of-breed network
solutions to help joint customers reduce costs, improve performance
and have better flexibility to adapt to future needs.
Chico Unified School District (USD), comprised of 21 schools
that serve over 12,000 students, selected, deployed and
standardized on a Ruckus and Brocade wireless/wired network
solution to meet its current and future networking needs. The
District needed to replace an aging HP legacy network
infrastructure to meet the rapidly growing requirements driven by
the campus-wide deployment of over 3,000 Chromebooks, as well as an
additional 2,000 planned for the new 2015-2016 school year.
Additionally, the District recognized the growing need to support a
plethora of smartphones and other personal devices that students
and staff bring to school themselves.
The Chico USD network includes over 400 Ruckus ZoneFlex™ indoor
and outdoor access points (APs), including the industry's first to
ship 802.11ac Wave 2 access point, the Ruckus ZoneFlex R710,
providing coverage for the District's classrooms and offices, in
addition to its stadiums, parking lots and sports fields. The
wireless network is managed by Ruckus ZoneDirector™ controllers to
enable simple, secure mobility with very high availability. Brocade
ICX® switches connect the APs, and with link
aggregation, can support up to 2 Gbps backhaul from the Ruckus
ZoneFlex R710 APs to meet the most extreme network demands.
"We realized that with the growth in end-user devices and
in-class applications, our network needed to support a very high
user density in addition to providing fence-to-fence coverage,"
said John Vincent, director of
Technology at Chico USD. "With Ruckus, we are able to fully meet
user requirements using one AP for every two classrooms. Brocade
impressed us with their record of strong innovation in developing
their own unique switching products, instead of just buying other
companies' technology or developing 'me-too' offerings."
Souderton Area School District,
located north of Philadelphia, PA,
has deployed a Ruckus and Brocade network solution across its nine
schools, serving 6,500 students to support 1:1 Chromebook
deployments. "We are currently supporting over 15 all-digital
classrooms for Math, English and the Social Sciences so our
teachers can learn what instructional methods work best in
different disciplines," notes Tim
Roberts, supervisor of Technology at Souderton Area School
District.
"Our Ruckus and Brocade best-in-class solution is providing an
ideal foundation for teachers to not only learn how to teach
differently, it is also helping them determine what methods really
make the class 'pop' and drive superior student outcomes," added
Roberts. "We deployed one Ruckus AP in every two classrooms and it
is working great, even with one-to-one client deployments in the
classrooms. We have a very lean IT staff, so our goal is 'set
it and forget it', which is just what we're getting from Ruckus and
Brocade."
"These latest K-thru-12 education wins are tangible
representations of how Ruckus and Brocade provide customers with a
best-in-class, wireless plus wired solution, featuring our
carrier-class Smart Wi-Fi technology coupled with highly scalable,
distributed chassis campus LAN technology from Brocade," said
Dan Rabinovitsj, chief operating
officer, Ruckus Wireless. "Together with Brocade, we can
provide a wired and wireless solution that avoids single vendor
lock-in."
"The New IP, which is based on open standards, enables customers
to leverage best-in-class wired and wireless solutions in
addressing their network challenges," said Jason Nolet, senior vice president, Switching,
Routing and Analytics Products Group, Brocade. "The Brocade
campus network and Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi solution provides customers
like Chico USD and Souderton ASD with the flexibility, scalability
and performance they need to meet school testing requirements,
provide better online access and improve student learning."
Both Chico USD and Souderton ASD deployed their Ruckus-Brocade
network infrastructure solutions in time to utilize for Common Core
testing. "The first big test was supporting Common Core testing
requirements, and the network performance was flawless," said
Patrick Bossetti, network analyst at
Chico USD. "In fact, one of our schools has taken out all
their wired devices and has gone 100% wireless." Souderton also saw very robust network support
during its Common Core testing. "Our Ruckus-Brocade network
provided an ideal platform for Common Core," said Roberts. "The
only time it slowed down at all was over lunch, and we found out
that in addition to the 60 testing stations set up in classrooms,
another 300 personal devices in use in the adjacent cafeteria were
connected to a single Ruckus AP. It was incredible
performance."
Concluded Chico USD's Vincent, "Ruckus and Brocade technology
made the decision an easy one for us. Together, they provide a
great deal of innovation to improve network performance, simplify
operations and reduce our total cost of ownership. The combined
Ruckus-Brocade solution has met or exceeded every expectation we
had when we planned this deployment."
Chico USD and Souderton ASD join other school districts across
the U.S. that are making the move to Ruckus Wave 2 Gigabit Wi-Fi,
including Columbia Public Schools
(MO), Shelby County Schools (TN), Pitt County Schools (NC), and
Vancouver Public Schools (WA).
Follow Ruckus Wireless on
LinkedIn and Twitter for all the latest on
#SimplyBetterWireless.
ABOUT BROCADE
Brocade (NASDAQ: BRCD) networking solutions help the world's
leading organizations transition smoothly to a world where
applications and information reside anywhere. (www.brocade.com)
Brocade and ICX are trademarks of Brocade Communications
Systems, Inc., in the United
States and/or in other countries.
ABOUT RUCKUS WIRELESS
Headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA,
Ruckus Wireless, Inc. (NYSE: RKUS) is a global supplier of advanced
wireless systems for the rapidly expanding mobile Internet
infrastructure market. The company offers a wide range of indoor
and outdoor "Smart WiFi" products to mobile carriers,
broadband service providers, and corporate enterprises, and has
approximately 56,000 end-customers worldwide. Ruckus technology
addresses WiFi capacity and coverage challenges caused by the
ever-increasing amount of traffic on wireless networks due to
accelerated adoption of mobile devices such as smartphones and
tablets. Ruckus invented and has patented state-of-the-art wireless
voice, video, and data technology innovations, such as adaptive
antenna arrays that extend signal range, increase client data
rates, and avoid interference, providing consistent and reliable
distribution of delay-sensitive multimedia content and services
over standard 802.11 WiFi. For more information, visit
http://www.ruckuswireless.com.
Ruckus, Ruckus Wireless, ZoneDirector, and ZoneFlex are
trademarks of Ruckus Wireless, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All
other product or company names may be trademarks of their
respective owners.
Media Contacts
Mark
Priscaro
Ruckus Wireless
mark.priscaro@ruckuswireless.com
925-367-5505
Liza Goldberg
Brocade
lgoldber@brocade.com
408-333-0337
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SOURCE Ruckus Wireless, Inc.; Brocade