Summer is winding down, and students across the country are getting ready to hit the books once again. However, the excitement of the first week of school could be dampened for many students, staff and administrators due to unexpected network outages. These outages typically occur from outdated or freshly installed and untested equipment, or hardware that has been idling for several months.
Just think about how many processes in a school system rely on a functional core network these days. Last year, for instance, in Beaverton, Oregon, the school year started out on the wrong foot when an alarm malfunctioned and set off a fire suppression system in the district data center. Hard drives and servers were damaged, which crippled access to class lists, schedules and e-textbooks.
“It knocked all the systems in the data center off line,” said Steve Langford of the Beaverton School District, “all of the systems that staff need to their jobs.” In response, the IT staff had to work over Labor Day weekend to replace the systems.
There is also the need to ensure communication between faculty and authorities. If an emergency should occur, a school system needs direct access to call for help. So aside from the risk of losing large amounts of sensitive—and often irreplaceable—student information, there is the need to protect students as well.
Unfortunately, network errors will happen from time to time. This is unpreventable, as networks are large and complex. But when a network goes down, having the right network troubleshooting technology can mean fixing the problem in a matter of minutes versus a matter of days. Learn how PathSolutions, providers of Total Network Visibility, can help you ensure your data center makes it through the year without a hitch.
