Case studies

Northbrook College is the principal provider of Further, Higher and Adult Education in the Worthing, Littlehampton, Shoreham and Southwick areas, and the largest provider of Higher Education for the creative and cultural industries in West Sussex. The College also offers Apprenticeship Training as well as Adult and Community Learning. Distance learning and computer based training are at the centre of the College’s offer, and the IT and communications infrastructure is crucial in delivering a good quality service to the students.

The Requirement

In 1998, when Richard Lee joined Northbrook College as the IT Services Manager, there was no voice and data network as such. Few classrooms were networked and even in those few the connection was not reliable. Consequently, the College had great difficulty in delivering computer-based training; this had an obvious impact on the College’s reputation. Building a reliable, fast and scalable communication infrastructure was Richard’s top priority. Among the challenges to overcome were: a large number of sites within a 30 miles radius, the need for an infinitely expandable network and the scarcity of resources. Having to start building a network almost from scratch, the investment was likely to be quite high, while the budget was limited.

Why Nortel and Applinet

The College started a tendering process to select a solution provider able to raise to this challenge. Nortel’s bid was the best one and Richard Lee knew from past experience that Nortel’s products were reliable. “I had worked with Applinet in previous jobs and I knew how good they were” says Richard. Applinet’s bid was the best for costs and services offered. This combined with their reputation made it easy to decide they were the right supplier for this project.

The Solution

With the amount of work to be done and limited financial resources, a phased approach was the answer. The network gradually built up over the years. After the initial project in 1999, every following winter Applinet were asked in to take a tour of the sites and discuss what was needed. Each summer more work took place, adding up to the gradual process of improving and expanding the network across the 7 sites. The College started with a Switched Ethernet environment and in 2006 a major LAN upgrade took place, resulting in improved network security, resilience and voice over IP readiness. Throughout the project, Applinet worked within the parameters set by the client: reliability, speed, flexibility and making the best possible use of the available resources. Resilience was built into the network to make it fault proof and reliable. The equipment is movable, giving the College the flexibility they require. To get best value out of a limited budget, some of the work had to be done in house. Applinet provided training to the College’s engineers and helped build up their skills by giving advice and support whenever required. “Applinet’s customer service is first rate. They make every effort to meet our needs and objectives. The pre-sale and after-sale service is extremely important to us; Applinet provides consultation, advice and help whenever we need it” says Richard.

Benefits

Northbrook College now has a fast, resilient and flexible network. “Nortel’s equipment has proved very satisfactory and reliable. We had only a tiny failure rate over the years” says Richard Lee. The comprehensive firewall solution has enabled the creation of a virtual learning environment. The college is now able to confidently promote distance learning and computer based courses. The College has been praised by OFSTED on its communications infrastructure. Its reputation has improved, together with its chances of attracting and retaining larger numbers of students. Moving towards voice over IP has resulted in reduced costs of communication between the five sites. The richer skill-set of the College’s engineers means increased self-reliance. As a result, the support and maintenance costs will be lower in the long term.