Siracom is pleased to announce that it has signed a distribution agreement with Lightspeed Systems.

Lightspeed Systems offers a comprehensive range of internet safety products and mobile device management solutions tailored for the education market. It is recognised as by INC 5000 as one of the fastest growing private companies in the USA and its solutions are used in more than 2,000 school districts in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia to protect more than 6 million students.

The Lightspeed product is a coherent addition to Siracoms product range. It provides an excellent standalone solution into our core vertical market and when sold with our best of breed wireless infrastructure and network access control solutions from Meru Networks and Bradford Networks it completes an end to end solution which provide fast, reliable, safe, secure network infrastructure solutions that enable teaching and learning using personal mobile network devices.

Download the Lightspeed Press Release (DOCX)

The integrated solution for the BYOD environment combines Bradford’s heterogeneous network access control (NAC) with HP Enterprise Mobility Solutions to create an easy-to-use workflow wizard that simplifies the deployment of both Bradford and HP products.

The key benefits of this BYOD solution include securely allowing personal mobile devices onto corporate networks quickly and a decreased total cost of ownership. Vincent Ma, vice president, Business Development, Bradford Networks, said:

Designed to offer Sixth Form and Year 9 and 10 pupils access to a more independent and personal learning environment, the implementation paves the way for state schools to go wireless by encouraging pupils to bring their own devices (BYOD) to school and save on increasingly scarce school IT resources.

The network, which sees Bradford’s Network Sentry NAC (Network Access Control) solution implemented across a Meru wireless network, enables pupils to register their own mobile devices and provides secure access to the school’s Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) via Buckinghamshire’s Grid for Learning (GFL).

Acceptable usage policies allow pupils who have registered to connect up to a maximum of three devices and to access authorised websites depending on their curriculum and status. A monthly anti-virus and OS patch check ensures all devices, including tablets, smartphones and laptops, are fully up to date. If failures are detected, Network Sentry points them to a remediation portal to resolve issues before access is allowed.

Managed and implemented by Bradford and Meru partner, EAC Network Solutions, the whole school was mapped out to ensure the Wifi network could operate at optimum levels at all times. The Maths Department was first to go wireless, maximising the use of mobile devices across the department and negating the need for a dedicated fixed IT resource, followed by the new Sixth Form College and communal areas, including the Learning Resource Centre (LRC) and Dining Room.

Recent additions to the network include Physical Education (PE), which enables PE staff to register pupils on their handheld devices while in the sports halls and outside on the field and all weather pitches, and the Learning Support Department, providing greater flexibility in the use and management of their mobile devices.

“Our aim is to create a highly collaborative and interactive environment for senior pupils to work in, while empowering them to take control of their learning using their own devices at school,” says Beaconsfield High School Head Teacher, Owain Johns.

“Education is now a competitive ‘industry’ and it’s our job to attract bright, ambitious individuals, as well as encourage them to stay on to the Sixth Form. We are constantly looking at ways to innovate and educate using the very latest technology, and the concept of pupils bringing their own devices to school to use as educational tools is simply the next step in that evolution.”

For Ray Oakley, IT Manager at Beaconsfield High School, the Bradford / Meru combination provides the best network possible solution: “We needed to ensure our network security was not compromised with the addition of wireless technology, and the combination of Bradford and Meru ensures that unknown devices, both wired and wireless, cannot gain access to our network.”

“Bradford is the network security specialist and Meru the Wifi specialist – one could not happen without the other. EAC has also made the whole process trouble-free and kept the door open for us to expand the network and open it up to more users and more devices in the future.”

Source: Sourcewire.

Find out how Meru customers are delivering teaching and learning to pupils via mobile devices over Meru wireless networks at one of our nationwide events during February and March 2012.

Seminar Dates and Locations

“We’re transforming the nature of the classroom, and the nature of learning”

Those are the words of Neil Willis, the Principal of Longfield Academy in Kent, reported in a recent article in the Sunday Times (PDF).

Longfield is one of  many schools taking advantage of evolving technology to enhance teaching and learning by using ICT delivered to mobile devices in the heart of the curriculum. These initiatives engage the pupils, encourage independent learning, and enable students to learn at their own pace and level.

It is the iPads at Longfield that grab the attention, but behind the devices there is a new generation of wireless network that ensures fast consistent delivery of  content, for the large numbers of students and teachers, sat in classrooms, and as they roam the school.

The wireless technology behind the Longfield Academy transformation is from Meru Networks.

Powered by a New Generation of Wireless from Meru.

In schools where the pupils work in a “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) environment, wireless is a critical  infrastructure component, particularly as devices such as the iPad have no wired network connection. Traditional wireless LAN infrastructure struggles to provide fast consistent delivery of multimedia learning resources to the high densities of devices seen in classrooms and lecture theatres. Reliable service delivery is made harder when the pupils own the devices and use them everywhere whilst they roam the school.

There are three key challenges, reliable coverage every where, high performance with high densities of  devices and maintaining reliability and performance as devices and their users roam the school.

Traditional wireless networks struggle with these challenges. Their wireless access points operate on different channels and with different power settings. They operate independently from each other and rely on a compromise configuration to operate reliably and quickly. Place  them close together and they interfere with each other compromising reliability, move them far apart and performance is compromised.

The access points also rely on the connected devices to negotiate with each other and the network to decide who’s turn it is to talk. This becomes increasingly inefficient as the number  of devices in an area increases, to the point where more bandwidth is used to support this contention mechanism than is left for useful payload. Devices are also in charge of which access point they connect to. As uers roam the network the devices are reluctant to change access point. Being connected to the wrong access point again compromises performance and reliability.

Meru Puts The Network In Charge

Meru has introduced a new generation of technology, with a fundamentally new architecture which overcomes these limitations.

The access points operate as a co-ordinated team, all running on the same channel, all at full power. This creates a continuous area of fast, reliable, interference free coverage, right across the school.

The network controls contention, efficiently dictating when devices and access points talk, and the network controls which access point each device talks to. As the devices move, the network makes sure they are always connected to the most appropriate access point.

These three fundamental architectural advantages, all achieved without any configuration of the devices,  enable Meru to deliver a fast reliable wireless infrastructure capable of supporting whole school teaching by wireless.

For further information  visit http://www.siracom.com/meru/meru-technology-overview

Or if you would like to talk about Meru or wireless networks for eduction, why not contact Siracom today - the leading distributor of wireless technology in the UK.

Siracom, the leading value add distributor of Meru products in the UK are pleased to announce two events during November with a programme of discussions.

The Donnington Valley Golf Club, Newbury
15th November

The Alsager Golf Club, Stoke
29th November

Register Today

To register, please email lsmalley@siracom.com, specifying which date you would like to attend.

Agenda

9.30 Welcome registration and refreshments.

10.00 Meru Education Update

Meru has continued it massive growth in Education with wins in every sector – primary secondary, private schools, colleges and universities. Mark Howell provides an update on the market, and information to help drive growth through 2012.

BREAK

Meru Enterprise Update

If you thought Meru was only good for schools, think again. The Meru enterprise business is rapidly expanding having enjoyed six consecutive quarters of growth.

Steve Woolley provides news of the wins, our reference sites and case studies and offers views on the best vertical markets to aim for. We will examine why each vertical buys wireless, the “pain” they have with their existing wireless and why they buy Meru. We will provide collateral to help you win your deals

LUNCH

1.30 Meru Product Update

News of Version 5 – Information on a mjor new software release and associated and hardware.

Meru and Bring Your Own Device

Tablets and Smartphones are driving a Bring Your Own Device revolution in Enterprise and Education.

We will introduce and demonstrate Meru’s new Identity Manager guest management system and Smart Connect bring your own device solutions.

3.00 CLOSE

Register Today

Please register your interest by emailing lsmalley@siracom.com, specifying which date you would like to attend

Guest Management

The guest management solution enables the IT department to delegate the production of guest credentials to the people who invite the guests, it automates the process of notifying the guest of their credentials and manages the lifetime of the credentials (expiry). It also provides management tools to monitor and report on guest activity.

Create and Email guest credentials

People who need to create guest accounts are called guest sponsors. Sponsors log in to the guest sponsor portal, enter guest details and then the system creates guest credentials and access rights.  Credentials are  then printed  or emailed / sms messaged to the guest. Guests then gain access via a captive portal. A self service kiosk and payment system is also available.

Device Management and Bring Your Own Device

There is also functionality for active directory users visiting with their own device. When an AD user connects to the network the captive portal  redirects the browser to a provisioning server. Once the user is authenticated the provisioning server loads an app. on the user device. This app. autoconfigures corporate 802.1x settings on the device.

Once configured this enables the user to connect to the corporate network, using 802.1x / wpa2 every time they visit – without manual configuration.

Bradford Networks

For those wishing to take security a step further Siracom offers Bradford Networks. Bradford is a multivendor product supporting wired, wireless and vpn (as is Identity Manager)
Bradford takes network access control a step or two further managing the whole connection cycle for people and devices.
Bradford offers a comprehensive security solution including:

Access Control

Identity based access control, role based access control and device based access control

Endpoint Compliance

Enabling policies that allow or prohibit access based on the security posture of the end device (patches/AV etc), and automates remediation

Adaptive Security

Operates with other security devices to continuously reassess access rights based on security stance and network activity.

Further information please see our website:

• http://www.siracom.com/identitynetworks.htm
• http://www.siracom.com/bradford.htm

The Bradford solution enables organisations to implement, monitor and enforce their network security policy, across both wired and wireless infrastructure, giving granular control over who gets access to what resources, whilst taking into account the device being used and the security posture of the device.

Bradford offers an excellent opportunity to our partners. It is the right product, at the right time, addressing increasingly pressing problems in the right vertical markets

• Bradford is a world leading product that has, until now, not  been available via “the channel” in the UK.
• It offers a solution to the conflict between security and accessibility, at a time when the number and diversity of network devices being deployed is growing exponentially.
• It is certified interoperable with Meru – via the Meru WINS program
• It is widely deployed in education and other vertical markets

Further information is available at www.siracom.com/bradford.htm

The AP400 will be a fantastic addition to the Meru product range. It has three radios, which can run concurrently giving out of the box channel layering, to support very large densities of users. The radios are all triple stream giving device connection speeds up 450Mb/s– if you have the right NIC in your device.

Full information is available on the Meru partner portal

For information on lead times contact your Siracom sales representative.