Technology Reseller - v08

An End-to-End Solution for Education Technology 8 | Just as business has benefited from computer networking and Wi-Fi, so has education. The network is now central to most school activities having transformed teaching and learning, administration and communication. From sharing devices like printers and scanners, collaborating on interactive displays, communicating via email or video conferencing to telephony and CCTV, a robust network is key to maximising technology in education. Indeed the true power of technology is harnessed when it’s linked up together on a network.Of course, networking, cloudtechnologies and the internet all have a place in distributing software applications. Whilst discussion centres around ensuring every child has a digital device, whether shared or BYOD, equal attention needs to focus on how the broadband network is accessed. For many, Wi-Fi offers great advantages for personalised learning because it enables greater mobility in a school. A PC or laptop on a wired internetconnectionwhereanethernetplugandcablearerequired is impractical both from a set-up and maintenance perspective, in addition to the disadvantage of its fixed location. What’s more tablets and Chromebooks can only function over Wi-Fi as they don’t support a wired network port. With Wi-Fi, students have the freedom to learn and study at their own pace in and out of the classroom. Nowadays the use of social networking sites is second nature to children, therefore collaboration on projects using sharing and conferencing platforms is a natural extension to that and their use as education tools has increased. Indeed teachers can bring subject matter experts into the classroom for specific topics using video conferencing. Virtual and augmented reality will also become a feature of the classroom as more apps are developed for education. All of the above technologies require schools to ensure that their Wi-Fi system is reliable and can cope with the data traffic generated by the users. However, with the latest WLAN technologies andWi-Fi protocols available, having the right infrastructure shouldn’t be an issue. Clearly, every child needs to be on the network and connected to the internet in a secure manner. Wi-Fi is the cheapest, most user friendly and practical solution and provided the KCSiE guidelines are adhered to, it’s also a safe option. Exertis’ Data Centre Business Unit provides opportunities to work with the leading networking brands across both commodity and enterprise such as NETGEAR, TP Link, D-Link, Fortinet, Dell, Huawei and Allied Telesis. Our pre-sales team can assist with proof of concept andnetwork design, in addition to the pre-sales, site surveys, installation and maintenance services that we offer. These can even be provided as a white label service. Aligned to our Data Centre business, Exertis offers a comprehensive range of power and cooling brands such as APC, Tripp Lite and Eaton as well as offering a service wrap to complement these vendors. Our pre-sales services for Networking help to identify the solution required to provide an effective and robust network infrastructure. This means we can help partners to propose the correct solution for their customer every time, utilising the right product families to satisfy the network requirements. Our engineers will help to design any size solution, from a simple access switch replacement, through to an entire core network and routing infrastructure with edge security and everything in between. Exertis has fully accredited technical engineers who have plenty of experience in networking and wireless technologies. All of our engineers alsohaveexperiencewithinbothUCandSecurityfields, meaning more consideration is given for the requirements of the network deployment and configuration that is implemented. Our Maintain offering provides access to our Technical Assistance Centre for post-deployment support on the deployed solution. Access to our Technical Assistance Centre is via telephone, e-mail or secure web portal connecting you directly to our fully accredited technical engineers. The entire service is delivered from within the UK and all of our engineers are accredited to HCNA level or higher. As an authorised Huawei Certified Services Partner (CSP) it enables us to deliver certified, vendor backed services through the entire sales cycle providing a full range of pre-sales, network design, installation and maintenance services on behalf of resellers. This positions us as the only distributor to be able to offer both Huawei networking products and authorised services to resellers. The Exertis Managed Service offering provides all of the benefits of our Maintain service, with the addition of extra services. Primarily our manage service provides remote assistance and a proactive health monitoring service. We monitor the hardware health to identify any potential issues before they impact on the customer environment. In addition to this we can monitor port status on devices such as switches and routers and provide notification on any changes identified outside of pre-arranged change windows. Network Infrastructure